Taylor Swift recently penned
a fairly insightful article for the Wall Street Journal about the state of the music industry. In it she brushes on the oft-recited mantra that the era of the album format is over, and singles will become the primary purveyance of music like it was before the late-1960s.
Taylor didn't fall for the common deceit herself, but most people do. I was a kid when Napster exploded and ever since then every pundit, blogger, and professional music commentator has told you one thing with absolute certainty: the album format is on its way out. In fact they don't even limit it to a future event, commentators almost uniformly have the gall to declare that "many modern artists no longer release albums, and only release singles or EPs." This concept has become so ubiquitously spoken of that it's become an urban fact. Journalists who would otherwise be criticized for reporting blatant falsehoods can get away with erecting a tombstone for the album because everyone believes it's true. You don't have to take my word for it, I encourage you to google "death of album" or what you'd like and see for yourself. You don't have to look very far, you'll find the exact same sentiment everywhere.
Won't Get Fooled Again
Funny thing is, they've been saying that for 15 years and um... the album format is as imperishable as ever. Are CD sales down? Of course, digital is now the primary music medium. Are music sales down? Yes, they are. But is the album gone? Has the album format suffered any blow what-so-ever?
Good God, no. The album hasn't taken the slightest hit. Music may be raking in less dough but that's a separate issue -- has the album format been replaced by singles? Not at all, and it never will. Do people still release singles? Of course they do. Uh, they released singles in the 70s, 80s, and 90s as well. And just like in the early 90s, the **
ONLY** artists who release singles
instead of albums today are DJs and electronic dance artists.
Show me one single popular, legitimate modern pop, rock, or rap artist in the mainstream that releases singles and doesn't release albums, and I'll give you $100. You can't do it because it simply doesn't exist. No legitimate music act today would solely release singles without ever producing albums because it doesn't make financial sense. Pundits thought they were clever when they projected the death of the album format but they forgot to look at the logistics of it.
Business As Usual
Music is a business. And business is why none of us living today will ever see a world without the album. Releasing singles without albums makes less money than releasing albums does. Here are the five primary reasons why:
1) Revenue. Albums make more money than singles. A $15 album with a hit single makes a lot more money than a $2 hit single alone. Is the industry trying to make money? Then the album format stays.
2) Repertoire. When a fan buys an album, they are spending money on tertiary tracks (album "deep cuts") that the vast majority of fans wouldn't deem worthy of purchase in a singles-only market. So basically the album format allows the industry to make money off of otherwise unsellable material. Every fan has their favorite deep cuts but every fan also has their least favorite deep cuts, and few fans would be willing to pay $2 for the deep cuts they aren't fond of, in a singles-only climate. Albums will always be a lucrative investment for acts with large fanbases and so they will always be produced by any major-name act.
3) Advertising. Advertising is quintessential to the industry's strategy for selling artists. Producing one album every two years allows labels to meticulously devise a massive media blitz and pour the vast majority of their advertising budget into just one release. On the other hand, releasing nothing but singles requires the money to be spread out evenly among each individual single. That means labels would have to spend several times as much money, so each single can have the same push an album would have, or else the artist isn't going to stand a chance. And a reminder, singles make less money than albums do because they cost less (and albums themselves include singles). What's better business: spending less money on a bigger return, or spending more money on a smaller return? No savvy record label CEO will ever accept an album-less strategy.
4) Setlists. In the digital age, touring has become the primary source of income for many artists. The album format is crucial to the tour schedule. If an artist only releases singles, what goes on the setlist? A singles-only market means few to no deep cuts to flesh out a setlist. Older established artists might have enough material for a live show, but a new act needs to release albums in order to build a setlist. Even if you release a new song every single month, it'll take a year and a half to have even a rudimentary concert setlist. And then what are you going to do, have the same setlist every tour, except for a new single here or there? Albums are essential to produce a workable tour, and since touring has become the focus for most acts, albums will never cease to exist.
5) Unpredictability. Try as many have, from CEOs and pundits to scientists in labs, it's still impossible to predict what will become a hit, and what will flop. History is riddled with examples of filler tracks that almost didn't even make it onto the album -- Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer, The Who's Pinball Wizard -- which end up becoming the band's all time biggest hit. And that trend continues to this day, often times tracks slated as singles are sidetracked for album cuts that ended up becoming unexpectedly popular -- like Kesha's C'mon from a couple years ago. This is doubly true for new and breaking artists, nobody expected Smells Like Teen Spirit to conquer America, and nobody thought Taylor Swift would break into the pop market with Love Story.
In fact, one advantage of the digital age is that big artists now have their entire albums chart on the singles chart. And that's why deep cuts need to be produced. You can write two dozen songs and you can guess which ones might be popular, but you can never be sure. That's why the album format is in fact essential to the existence of singles, the album format is what allows artists and producers to hedge their bets. A singles-only climate would be filled with far, far greater rates of failure -- and these would be enormous financial disasters because (as above) the singles-only market requires more money to be spent per single.
Fan Connection
So, as you clearly see, albums will continue to be produced by every major record label and every major recording act until the end of time, or until they can beam music directly into our brains with lasers. But, you might ask, what if fans simply stop buying albums? Won't the industry be forced to change?
Fans aren't going to stop buying albums because it's a better deal to buy 15 tracks for $10 than it is to buy 5 tracks for $2 each. The digital format empowers people who in the 90s might have had to buy 15 bad songs to get the 1 song they like, today they can just buy that one individual song. So the industry loses money in the short term, off of that particular demographic. Yet they're gaining money from the large group of people who would never have spent $15 for one good song, but will gladly spend $2 for that song. And the secret trick is, once you buy one song, that builds brand loyalty and you become much more likley to buy a second, and a third, and before you know it you're spending the $10 to get the 15 tracks, even though you only know for sure that you like 5 of the tracks.
Albums make the proliferation of material much more feasible for fans -- even if packaged together, an iTunes "album" of all hit singles would cost significantly more than a traditional album of 3 or 4 singles and a ten deep cuts. That proliferation of material is important to develop a personal bond with the fanbase. Fans feel like they "get to know" an artist by listening to both their singles and the myriad other tracks on a record. Singles alone present a much colder, less personal experience for the fan, and so fans will always continue to buy albums.
In short, don't let the apocalyptic pundits fool you. They're been wrong for fifteen fucking years and they still say the end is nigh. Not even the best cult-leaders get away with being wrong this many times with their doom & gloom prophecies. So rejoice, fellow lovers of the album, because the continued existence of the album is as assured as the greed of humanity itself. When a day comes when people no longer want to make as much money as possible, only then can the album format die out. Only then.
