Kokopelli Times » album vs track

Russia Music Industry Decline

Erik Rostad — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:30:42 +0000

Numbers for the Russian Music Industry were recently released. For the most part, they are going down quite fast. CD sales were down 20% from the year before. Radio was down in dollar terms 20-25%. The one upside was live concert revenue. This seems to be a trend all around. Product sales that can be easily downloaded and traded are no longer making significant money for artists. More money is being generated from performing live and generating income from ticket sales and merchandise sales.

One interesting piece from the Russian market in 2009 was that albums and single tracks released fell from 2008. I would think that with the proliferation of recording equipment on many computers these days that those numbers would increase. Perhaps these are only professionally-produced albums or tracks that only go through a certain route. In either case, as an artist, be ready to be playing out live to make the money you desire.

Listening Habits

Erik Rostad — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:15:00 +0000

So if music is completely free, how will people listen? Will they just download their favorite songs or the ones they hear on terrestrial radio? Will they download individual songs or complete albums?

A recent story out of Denmark provides some interesting answers to some of these questions. For instance, TDC, a provider of landline and mobile services in Denmark, recently provided free and unlimited music downloads to paying subscribers. The numbers are quite astounding. Since inception, more than 60 million songs have been downloaded. This is out of a population of 5.4 million. And albums are downloaded more than single songs.

This is pretty important news for the broader industry. Many decry the loss of the album. Yet, when music is presented for free, at least in Denmark’s case, consumers wanted to hear the whole album. I think consumers have just been so burned in the past with $15 albums that included 1 – 2 good songs, that when money is involved, consumers will choose the safe option of the song that they know. This is similar to Nine Inch’s Nail’s philosophy of giving the album away for free because of the desire to have fans hear the album as a whole, as a story, as opposed to an individual track.

Hopefully more studies like this come out. This one is fascinating.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Kid Rock & Rhapsody

Erik Rostad — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:18:00 +0000

I recently blogged about Kid Rock’s take on digital downloading. He’s taking a different route with his latest album, ‘Rock N Roll Jesus.’ Namely, he is not selling on iTunes, but his album is selling well elsewhere.

So on Friday, Kid Rock made an announcement that he would be selling his album in full on Rhapsody. That means that you can’t download individual tracks, you have to download the album in full. That’s fine if Kid Rock really made it a point to create an album and not just a string of singles strategically put together.

The whole iTunes revolution was that consumers finally had the choice of songs on an album. You would hear a song on the radio, go to Best Buy, and most of the time, have to buy the whole album. That one song was usually the only song worth purchasing, but the record companies had figured out a way for you to spend $14.99 on that one song.

When consumers had the choice, they usually chose one song. That was good for the artists who could only come up with one good song, but quite sad for the artists who spent time carefully crafting an album flow. If Kid Rock is selling his album and not allowing singles to be sold, then hopefully he spent a lot of time considering the album as a whole.

On another note, this is a pretty neat deal with Kid Rock and Rhapsody which also brings in MTV. MTV will be promoting the album through advertisements and Kid Rock music video play. We will see more of these deals encompassing artists, websites, and media outlets.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com

Album vs. Tracks

Erik Rostad — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:34:00 +0000

There is a great article in the NY Times today about Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Most of the article deals with Trent himself, and the fact that he is really on the cutting edge of musical distribution.

One interesting thing about the article was Reznor discussing the iPod. On one hand, he thinks it’s great that “a million people have it (newest album) on their iPods.” That is because Reznor posted his album on the nin.com website for free download. He creates albums and not just tracks. So he is also saddened that once his album is on an iPod, it will most likely get played in a shuffle format where tracks will be heard individually as opposed to as an album.

This flies in the face of what most of the record industry is doing right now. Look at rap/hip hop. They go for the hit. The album mentality is not there. They want a song that will do well in downloads, as a ringtone, as a ringback tone, and for the radio.

Perhaps Reznor is on target in getting people to hear his album as a whole. By giving it away himself as a whole, there is less incentive to download particular tracks as to download the album in its entirety. Reznor can’t stop the shuffle, but the free album option lends itself to more listens of the album as a whole than putting an album up on itunes where people can buy songs individually.

I took up Reznor’s offer to download ‘The Slip,’ on his bill. I am not a Nine Inch Nails fan. But the album was free. To be honest, that is the first album I have listened to in its entirety for a good while. Reznor succeeded in having me take his album as a whole.

Artists will need to continue to come up with innovative methods to encourage their fans to listen to the album instead of just a few songs. The artists also need to write the albums as a story, and not as a compilation of songs they think will be hits.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com