2) Songs travel in packs
When people say that the album is dead, you can smile to yourself and have that nice feeling you get when you know you’re smarter than somebody else.
While it’s undeniable that iTunes sells a lot of single tracks, I think it’s fair to say that the stronger cultural force is the fact that artists want to present their songs in a themed and curated collection.
Whether that’s an EP of 5 songs, an album, a symphony or a song cycle — or even the A-side / B-side partnership of the 7″ record — music is best consumed and understood in the context of other music.
Thankfully, that’s also the way that people prefer to buy music — but not how they like to buy digital files. Multiple downloads equals complexity.
Why not make your album (song cycle, etc) available for download as a single ZIP file? People understand those, and it’s a lot less complex and bothersome than multiple individual tracks.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that people are 10 times more likely to give you £5 for an album that they can download in one click than they are to give you £5 for 5 tracks that they have to download individually.
You do the maths on that.
They’re not cherry picking the hits because they don’t want albums. They just don’t want to have to pay for and then manually download individual songs that they don’t know they want yet.
I wouldn’t buy Fitter Happier as an individual track, but Radiohead’s OK Computer doesn’t work without it.
At this point, I had basically settled on the idea of releasing my songs one at a time as they’re finished, on a blog-based site. The advantages, to me, are many:
1) Having some regular content that will keep people coming back, and get them subscribing to my feeds.
2) Secondary content would be easy. Things such as commentaries, videos showing me working, and even videos for final finished songs could all be part of the site.
3) When I have enough songs out there, I can do a CD version of all of them, get the songs properly mastered, and even include a bonus song or two not released on the web site. This is the musical equivalent of webcomics artists releasing book collections of their past strips, which makes many online cartoonists a good living.
For a long time now, I’ve noticed the parallel between online comics and online music, and have been paying attention to the ways that webcomics artists monetize their free content. Here’s something I wrote on it some time ago (my nickname is Consul on this board):
http://www.prodigy-pro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21199
I still admit that I feel a certain romanticism for releasing a finished album, but I’ve long abandoned it convinced that a basic album release really wasn’t the way to go. I thought I’d get your thoughts on this. Thanks!
I don’t know if I agree with the statement “They’re not cherry picking the hits because they don’t want albums….”
I think that’s precisely the problem, and in many cases the album is not compelling enough to entice customers to buy the whole thing. It often lacks that romantic “album experience” we all talk about.
But lets assume the album content is good, you’re onto something regarding the operational “issues” around downloading 5 individual tracks. If the customer is going to buy all 5 anyways, they want a “buy album” option.
I would encourage artists to coax fans into a full album purchase: Offer a bundled option, give a slight discount in the bundle price, and maybe even offer something a little extra to round out the package – a PDF booklet of liner notes or audio commentary on the songs/production.
[Insert Shameless Plug] My service, music:nuvo, can help you do all this very easily. Would love for you to drop in and see what you think….
-Matt
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http://www.musicnuvo.com
musicnuvo.wordpress.com
That it is. Where I bought Donny Hathaway’s Everything is Everything for £8 just a week or so back.
One of my favourite shops in the UK! Hows the recovery going!
This post hit a topic that I have been pushing and talking about for the last two and a half years. I am the founder of the Fake Science Music Store, which is an online digital store based in the US, that we launched almost two years ago. We have also been running a podcast for more then three years called the Fake Science Lab Report that focused on the digital music industry.
One of the things we focused on when starting the store was how music was purchased. Being an artist myself, the process of creating an album (and the time spent) was about creating a unified piece. Something that is meant to be listened to from start to finish. We were telling a story and it wasn’t meant to be heard as snippets on the radio.
From a creative perspective, the album is very important to a lot of artists, something that I think is lost to most of the general public. There is a large subset of listeners who get the album, but overall the pop structure has really defined music for the masses. With the emergence of Napster and then iTunes, the single format has continued to be pushed and is now being more accepted by both the artist and the listener. For some styles, such as pop or dance music, single sales are great, but for a lot of music this doesn’t hold true.
From a Buyer’s perspective, the album means a lot more then people realize. The album is a way to build a following, to define a relationship with the listener and the musician. I use the example of the New Pornographer’s album “Twin Cinema”. During the launch of their album I heard a single that I fell in love with. If I had just pursued the single at iTunes, it would have been in rotation on my iPod but I don’t think I would have spent $10 USD to download the whole album, especially due to the fact of DRM. But… I bought the CD instead and fell in love with the entire album. The song that made me by the album in the first place quickly became my least favorite of the album. I then started reading up on the band, telling my friends, seeing them at SXSW, etc. You often lose this experience when you focus on the single. The album helps share your vision and if you have a solid vision people will invest in it.
Looking at the current progress of single sales we are seeing a rise in prices due to “losses” in sales that artists make from the single model. For example, a buyer spends $0.99 USD for the song, Apple takes their share and passes on $0.70, then a digital broker such as IODA has to take their cut, since Apple will no longer work directly with indie labels. Next the label has to take their cut before the artist even sees it. Its the same process that we saw ten years ago!! As the prices rise are people willing to invest into something with no physical/tangible product? Will people take risk on something new? If a single costs be $0.99 USD and an album costs be $10 USD will I buy the whole album without knowing if its made of a few good singles and a lot of crap filler? Why should I take a risk on something new?
These conversations lead us to the development of the store, we felt that as artist (and web developers by day) that we could create something better that worked for everyone. We only sell albums, in ZIP format, for a set price. We wanted to define a price that people are willing to take a risk on and try new music, but at the same time make the artist some profit. I don’t know if we have the model nailed, but our customers and artist love it and honestly this is what we were after. Anyway, I rambled on enough for now, I just wanted to share my thoughts and say thank you for having them validated by someone I respect.
Cool store James, I like the concept, and the pricing model is certainly aggressive. What has the artist feedback been on that pricing structure? Also, I would argue that the opportunity to download singles is a way to “test drive” the music before you make that album commitment… are you counteracting that angle in spite of your service only offering full album downloads?
-Matt
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http://www.musicnuvo.com
musicnuvo.wordpress.com
Thanks Matt… so far the response to the store has been very positive from artists, but we have seen some resistance with labels. I think there are three main areas that artist and labels need to consider when looking at using any service: pricing, catalog, and diversifying their market.
For pricing, we are may appear to be very aggressive when compared to iTunes, but if you compare us to eMusic we are very competitive. If you have a 10 song album and a customer downloads the whole album on eMusic, you get $2.50 USD. ($0.25 per song is the average payout). So right there, if they bought the same album at FS you would have $0.50 more. But, that is only if you can get paid directly from eMusic. In most cases you have to use a digital broker like IODA or the Orchard, and they usually take a 10%-15% cut of the transaction.
This is also assuming that the customer gets the whole album. With eMuisc you can cherry pick the tracks you want but with FS they always get the whole album. For a label and artist this is a huge benefit because it helps push the artistic voice, as I mentioned in my last post.
This leads into your second question about “test driving” tracks. I feel there is an argument for both sides. My founding partners and friends are all album lovers and this really drove our focus.
Most of the music I buy for ‘listening’ is in album format. Let me explain that statement, I have been a DJ playing underground warehouse parties and clubs for 10 years. When I buy music to play out I buy in single format because that is what I need (and in most cases how it comes). When I buy for home consumption I prefer the entire album. Because I am an album man, I never cherry pick, I just get the album when I am buying that kind of music (same with my eMusic account, I just download all). Its either going to blow me away (like New Pornographers, The Frames, Caribou, etc.) or I will just put it down.
Yet when I buy albums, I am very picky about what I am getting. I personally am into more underground indie rock and generally stay away from mainstream. Luckily, this means I get less of those one hit wonder albums because the artists and labels putting this music out really focus on quality not quantity. So when we founded FS this is the model that we all knew and loved and felt the single model was quickly killing off.
We also set the price to a point that if you do buy the whole album, and you like only three tracks, well you spent almost the same as just buying the three tracks. But odds are, you will more then likely enjoy the whole album because we are not looking for mainstream pop.
This is where the second consideration comes in, catalog. When I say catalog, I am not talking strictly about size, its more of how the catalog is defined. iTunes is the Best Buy / Tower Records of the industry. Massive chain store, huge selection, etc. eMusic is more like an Amoeba Records or Rasputin (in San Francisco). Large catalogs that focuses mainly on harder to find music. Fake Science is more like the boutique “high fidelity” record store, we hand pick everything in the catalog and we stand behind the artists intent.
Catalog is important because it defines how people will find your music. Sure with iTunes you have a huge customer base but if you are not an established label/artist will customers really take the time to dig and find your music? eMusic has s smaller customer base and a lot of tools to help you dig in, but once again the massive catalog makes finding new gems a lot of work. With the smaller boutiques, we act more like a label then a store. We tend to pick certain styles and sounds and if the customers like the same sounds we do then they will more then likely enjoy the entire catalog. This also builds a really loyal following, which is great when artists add their albums to the store.
Finally, I want to touch on the diversifying aspect. One of the concerns we have heard from labels is that we are undercutting their other services. In one way we appear to do that, our prices do seem lower, but John from Magnatune enlightened me about the current trend in digital music buying. Very, very few people bargain shop for digital music. Most people find a service and stick with it. You are not going to see too many people use Rhapsody and iTunes at the same time.
What this means is that when an artist or label adds content to a new service they are now tapping into the service’s market… which is a different segment then they have had before. This also means that most people will not search out a lower price and its hard to claim undercutting at that point.
As Dubber has pointed out, get your music out there… really out there. That statement is exactly what our artists and labels have said to us as they are joining up. We are just one more location for people to find great new music.
You are getting at an important point here, but in a roundabout way…
The first is that it is consumers who have the choice about whether they want the album or a la cart.
Denying the option in any venue leaves money on the table (regardless of any “X times more likely” multipliers, which have no practical use)
The second issue is that the price of music is simply too high.
10 year olds are running around with iPods that have 2k, 3k, 5k tracks on them. That’s not $5,000 worth of music. It’s just not.
Without dramatically lowering the cost, you’re not gonna get people to download tracks that “they don’t know they want yet,” period.
Bob Lefsetz hits on this in a recent speech, which i have partially transcribed here:
http://www.colortonemedia.com/blog/?p=23
His position is that it’s akin to how cable TV is packaged in the U.S.; you pay for a million channels/shows that you don’t watch.
But it’s cheap, and it’s there if you want it [or stumble into it].
You should check out the huge NYT article with Rick Rubin…the “monthly subscription for all the music you want” is the only way to go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/magazine/02rubin.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Keep up the great writing!