5 ms·

More Artists Steer Clear of iTunes

15 points by nickb 18y ago

brk 18y ago
Funny that they mention Kid Rock and the single-song sales being what keeps many labels away. About 10 years ago in Kid Rocks basement I was present when he was laying out his instructions to a new band: Give me 2 good songs, and 10 fillers. This wasn't a revelation in the music industry, it takes a LONG time to produce one good song, and you want to have something for a followup album. However, almost every CD I've ever bought has had only about 20-40% "great" content, and the rest was "eh". This seems to be particularly true for newer acts. The music industry is imploding on itself anyway, they seem forever determined to try to give their customers exactly what they don't want.
noonespecial 18y ago
It seems like every great artist has around 5 good songs per career. At the extreme outside edges, you might get a "U2" who could have as many as 15 or 20, or a "Laura Branigan" who will have only 1. The rest of their work is essentially filler. I like where this is headed. Its long past time to hear a lot fewer songs from a lot more artists.
- jleyank 18y ago
  Two comments - one snarky and one not. (1) I have problems with a "great artist" and "Laura Branigan" used in this context. Assume you need 2-3 hits to demonstrate you're not just lucky... (2) I think the Beatles remain more than two standard deviations beyond the mean. More than 15-20 hits, and how many bands have done 2-3 albums/year for more than one year?
  - noonespecial 18y ago
    Ha! Touche! FTR: I typed in "One Hit Wonder" into google to get "Laura Branigan". And the Beatles, yeah, complete outlier. Probably shouldn't be categorized in the same universe as todays commercial music acts. A Beatles album is something you can put in and listen to in its entirety and its a work in and of itself. Theres a few others like that (Pink Floyd maybe?) but they are so extremely rare and, (I assume so very difficult to produce) that they should have their own category. The point of it all was that I'm looking forward to a shift in the market that allows me to here more peoples' best shots and less big-label bands' mediocre filler.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
  - ojbyrne 18y ago
    You (and the parent comment) seem to have conflated "hits" and "good songs." which some of us would violently disagree with. Anyway I can think of dozens of bands with more than 15 good songs (and often they have done 2-3 albums/year for more than one year). I don't want to turn this into a music discussion, so I'll just pick one band I love - The Jam, who actually had hits (in the UK) - 18 of them between 1977 and 1982 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jam). There's plenty more, which I'm sure others can contribute.
- thwarted 18y ago
  One might consider it valuable to produce (as the artist) and have access to (as the audience) all the crap/filler produced also because this gives some valuable insight into the artist and the creative process itself. Build one to throw away, but release it too.
wmeredith 18y ago
"...the [Eagles] had received less than $500,000 from its iTunes sales at that point. The band's iTunes income has increased since then, Mr. Azoff adds. Nonetheless, he says: "I'm underwhelmed by the number of sales I see on iTunes for the classic bands." I still find it humorous that these people expect sympathy from the masses.
- netcan 18y ago
  So do the record companies. There's a debate show here (Australia) that hosted a piracy/music industry. Some record industry rep explained that the industry wasn't thrilled about digital (even if people pay) because it cannot sustain on 'singles alone.' He seemed fairly confident that there cannot be any change of standard until they're confident that the new the change is sustainable. It's one thing complain that their rights are being trampled by piracy. IE they have a right to 'sell' their work. But a right to sell albums is a little far fetched.
netcan 18y ago
I must be one of the few that actually likes albums. I don't like the industry acting like they have a right to sell them to me if I wanted a single. And if people don't generally like em they should die. But I'd prefer the album format stuck around.
- jrockway 18y ago
  Same. Many of my favorite songs are album songs, not the "hit singles". I will usually buy an entire album if I want one song -- but I don't want to be forced to.
metaguri 18y ago
i think that this article was woefully misguided. not that it's easy to write about something as subjective as music (in the WSJ no less) but i think some key ideas were left out. first and foremost, the article only discussed the sales of famous, high-volume-selling artists. neither they nor i have the data to verify this, but i would be willing to bet that the distribution of album sales across all bands has flattened out significantly since itunes came about. i like itunes because i can find new artists on it through recommendations, search, podcasts... and if i sample an album's tracks and find it to be all good, i do buy all of it. but otherwise... why should i pay for tracks that i don't want to listen to? if an artist is arguing that the album is designed to be heard as a whole, then by all means, prove it. secondly, again although it's the WSJ, i don't think it would have been too audacious to admit that perhaps half of those full albums aren't worth buying, and that popular music was going through a bubble thanks to the dominance of cd-based albums as the only medium around. to me, online music piracy emerged as a reaction to this. i imagine that fileswapping services still have a healthy user base, but the emergence of itunes from nothing to the dominant player in 5 years indicates to me that people are willing to pay for music, when they feel like they're actually getting something for their dollar. purely anecdotally, everyone i know who was a one-time "pirate" has switched to itunes/rhapsody. not because we're hugely wealthy, but perhaps because we're discovering more great artists this way, and feel inclined to give them some dollars to help them keep making music.
raganwald 18y ago
Forcing people to buy albums for more money than the single they really want is another way to disguise the concept of charging more for popular singles. That's the iTunes policy they really hate. The reason there are only a few "complete works" for sale on iTunes is that Apple won't let the labels call nine completely unrelated songs a "work" as a sleazy way to charge $6.99 or $9.99 for a Kid Rock single. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html p.s. Complete works" are not rare in the classical music section. Perhaps the artists should try actually composing a complete work--as prog rock did in the 70s--and seeing if Apple will see things their way? I wouldn't argue if an album like "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" or "Dark Side of the Moon" was packaged as one movement per original LP side or even one big purchase.

15 points by nickb 18y ago

brk 18y ago

Funny that they mention Kid Rock and the single-song sales being what keeps many labels away. About 10 years ago in Kid Rocks basement I was present when he was laying out his instructions to a new band: Give me 2 good songs, and 10 fillers. This wasn't a revelation in the music industry, it takes a LONG time to produce one good song, and you want to have something for a followup album. However, almost every CD I've ever bought has had only about 20-40% "great" content, and the rest was "eh". This seems to be particularly true for newer acts. The music industry is imploding on itself anyway, they seem forever determined to try to give their customers exactly what they don't want.

noonespecial 18y ago

It seems like every great artist has around 5 good songs per career. At the extreme outside edges, you might get a "U2" who could have as many as 15 or 20, or a "Laura Branigan" who will have only 1. The rest of their work is essentially filler. I like where this is headed. Its long past time to hear a lot fewer songs from a lot more artists.

jleyank 18y ago
Two comments - one snarky and one not. (1) I have problems with a "great artist" and "Laura Branigan" used in this context. Assume you need 2-3 hits to demonstrate you're not just lucky... (2) I think the Beatles remain more than two standard deviations beyond the mean. More than 15-20 hits, and how many bands have done 2-3 albums/year for more than one year?
- noonespecial 18y ago
  Ha! Touche! FTR: I typed in "One Hit Wonder" into google to get "Laura Branigan". And the Beatles, yeah, complete outlier. Probably shouldn't be categorized in the same universe as todays commercial music acts. A Beatles album is something you can put in and listen to in its entirety and its a work in and of itself. Theres a few others like that (Pink Floyd maybe?) but they are so extremely rare and, (I assume so very difficult to produce) that they should have their own category. The point of it all was that I'm looking forward to a shift in the market that allows me to here more peoples' best shots and less big-label bands' mediocre filler.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
- ojbyrne 18y ago
  You (and the parent comment) seem to have conflated "hits" and "good songs." which some of us would violently disagree with. Anyway I can think of dozens of bands with more than 15 good songs (and often they have done 2-3 albums/year for more than one year). I don't want to turn this into a music discussion, so I'll just pick one band I love - The Jam, who actually had hits (in the UK) - 18 of them between 1977 and 1982 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jam). There's plenty more, which I'm sure others can contribute.
thwarted 18y ago
One might consider it valuable to produce (as the artist) and have access to (as the audience) all the crap/filler produced also because this gives some valuable insight into the artist and the creative process itself. Build one to throw away, but release it too.

wmeredith 18y ago

"...the [Eagles] had received less than $500,000 from its iTunes sales at that point. The band's iTunes income has increased since then, Mr. Azoff adds. Nonetheless, he says: "I'm underwhelmed by the number of sales I see on iTunes for the classic bands." I still find it humorous that these people expect sympathy from the masses.

netcan 18y ago
So do the record companies. There's a debate show here (Australia) that hosted a piracy/music industry. Some record industry rep explained that the industry wasn't thrilled about digital (even if people pay) because it cannot sustain on 'singles alone.' He seemed fairly confident that there cannot be any change of standard until they're confident that the new the change is sustainable. It's one thing complain that their rights are being trampled by piracy. IE they have a right to 'sell' their work. But a right to sell albums is a little far fetched.

netcan 18y ago

I must be one of the few that actually likes albums. I don't like the industry acting like they have a right to sell them to me if I wanted a single. And if people don't generally like em they should die. But I'd prefer the album format stuck around.

jrockway 18y ago
Same. Many of my favorite songs are album songs, not the "hit singles". I will usually buy an entire album if I want one song -- but I don't want to be forced to.

metaguri 18y ago

i think that this article was woefully misguided. not that it's easy to write about something as subjective as music (in the WSJ no less) but i think some key ideas were left out. first and foremost, the article only discussed the sales of famous, high-volume-selling artists. neither they nor i have the data to verify this, but i would be willing to bet that the distribution of album sales across all bands has flattened out significantly since itunes came about. i like itunes because i can find new artists on it through recommendations, search, podcasts... and if i sample an album's tracks and find it to be all good, i do buy all of it. but otherwise... why should i pay for tracks that i don't want to listen to? if an artist is arguing that the album is designed to be heard as a whole, then by all means, prove it. secondly, again although it's the WSJ, i don't think it would have been too audacious to admit that perhaps half of those full albums aren't worth buying, and that popular music was going through a bubble thanks to the dominance of cd-based albums as the only medium around. to me, online music piracy emerged as a reaction to this. i imagine that fileswapping services still have a healthy user base, but the emergence of itunes from nothing to the dominant player in 5 years indicates to me that people are willing to pay for music, when they feel like they're actually getting something for their dollar. purely anecdotally, everyone i know who was a one-time "pirate" has switched to itunes/rhapsody. not because we're hugely wealthy, but perhaps because we're discovering more great artists this way, and feel inclined to give them some dollars to help them keep making music.

raganwald 18y ago

Forcing people to buy albums for more money than the single they really want is another way to disguise the concept of charging more for popular singles. That's the iTunes policy they really hate. The reason there are only a few "complete works" for sale on iTunes is that Apple won't let the labels call nine completely unrelated songs a "work" as a sleazy way to charge $6.99 or $9.99 for a Kid Rock single. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html p.s. Complete works" are not rare in the classical music section. Perhaps the artists should try actually composing a complete work--as prog rock did in the 70s--and seeing if Apple will see things their way? I wouldn't argue if an album like "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" or "Dark Side of the Moon" was packaged as one movement per original LP side or even one big purchase.