Deal With It

[theknife]

Seems some artists think their albums are just too magnificent to be broken up...

Top Artists Balking At A La Carte Downloads

Despite the major labels' success in clearing hundreds of thousands of tracks for purchase online through services like Apple's iTunes Music Store, some top artists continue to resist authorizing the dismantling of their albums for Internet consumption as a la carte singles.

Some acts are requiring that their music be sold exclusively in album bundles. For example, Linkin Park recently pulled its music as a singles offering from digital services. Sources say the band has expressed concerns about undercutting album sales. Other acts with similar stipulations about their work include Radiohead, Madonna, Jewel and Green Day, sources say.

Top acts and their representatives are expressing reservations about the creative and financial implications of shifting to a singles-based model. "The fear among artists is that the work of art they put together, the album, will become a thing of the past," says attorney Fred Goldring, whose firm represents Will Smith and Alanis Morissette.

http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/ar...ent_id=1919550

it's amazing - these guys still don't get it..if they don't break 'em up, we will

[Ðiego]

Some artists need to catch themselves the fuck on..


Ð

[Mazer]

They wouldn't have this problem if they recorded one contious track on their albums. I'm surprised they didn't see this comming. The execs. and A&R guys are always telling them to record songs that can be played on the air, never letting them record songs longer than four minutes. Their albums end up being a collection of singles anyway, distributing those songs individually is the next logical step. The point is that many artists have already compromised their art, they've already shifted to a single-based model.

[pod]

Right, most albums are a bunch of singles grouped together anyways. This is especially true of anyone getting radio play, almost by definition.

There are many albums which stand together, and are best listened to as a unit; they follow a theme, tell a story, flow into each other, whatever. Tracks are merely used to delimit and index major breaks. Those will still sell fine in both a la cart track and in album modes. If all the tracks on your CD are good, then why would it matter to you how they're sold? If you just want to push out some filler, then I can see how the all important album sales would suffer.

And yeah, nothing shows off your artistic talents and creativity like a 3-4 minute time limit and a radio friendly sound.

[theknife]

Originally posted by pod
Right, most albums are a bunch of singles grouped together anyways. This is especially true of anyone getting radio play, almost by definition.

There are many albums which stand together, and are best listened to as a unit; they follow a theme, tell a story, flow into each other, whatever. Tracks are merely used to delimit and index major breaks. Those will still sell fine in both a la cart track and in album modes. If all the tracks on your CD are good, then why would it matter to you how they're sold? If you just want to push out some filler, then I can see how the all important album sales would suffer.

And yeah, nothing shows off your artistic talents and creativity like a 3-4 minute time limit and a radio friendly sound.

yup, there's the rub....very few artists are capable of putting together more than a couple of good tracks in any single recording effort.

i love to see the mainstream of the old guard kick and scream in the face of inevitable change...something's happening, but you don't what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?

[pod]

And hey, all these artists and bands mentioned in the article... if they're so opposed to single track sales, how do they explain music videos, singles, radio play and concerts?

[Dawn]

Where else would 'one hit wonders' come from?