This is insane: the album is dead, long live the app. Who exactly wants to interface with their music collection via app? The app browsing/selection process is easily the clunkiest, most frustrating element of the iPhone/iTouch/iTunes interface, and I’d be surprised to see a majority of people interacting with their music selection via sandboxed apps as opposed to the traditional mp3 player interface.
This could work in a few cases—tween-pop stars such as Miley Cyrus that command singular devotion from their fans—but not for mature music listeners with a large collection of artists in their library. What the new band app craze reminds me of more than anything is the failed enhanced CD initiatives of yore, in which labels were going to add value to physical CD’s by forcing anyone who played music on their computers to interface with it inside of a clunky, frustrating Flash or Quicktime file that offered the exact same content you’d find on the artist’s website.
The headline zooming around the blogs right now is correct on one thing: the album is dying*. But the statement should be more along these lines: the album is dead, long live the playlist. Or long live Random Shuffle. Or iTunes Genius. Trying to create a new product that locks users into one app, particularly given the iPhone’s unscalable app interface and Apple’s insistence on not allowing third-party apps to run in the background, is just another in a long line of failed attempts by the music industry to create a new bundled product that only a handful of obsessives would want.
- And yes, I realize that such a statement sounds contradictory coming a few days after I announced that I’m working on a new album, and to that I say: the album isn’t quite dead yet. The writing’s on the wall, but as long as there are olds who still have some emotional connection to the concept of the album, there will remain a continually shrinking market for it. In addition, the infrastructure just isn’t there to sell and promote single songs or short EP’s for an independent, unsigned artist–to get your music on iTunes, Amazon mp3, CDBaby, etc, it still has to be delivered in album form. This will no doubt change in the next few years, as the emotional attachment to the album continues to fade (I can’t remember the last time I had the desire to listen to a full album, and I’m 33, not 19,), but it’s certainly not going to change in six months or a year.
“I can’t remember the last time I had the desire to listen to a full album . . .”
Well that just makes me sad.
Really? I guess I’ve never felt all that connected to the concept of an album. Pre-mp3′s, I preferred mixtapes to CD’s or records. The onset of adult mp3-listening syndrome has only exacerbated these tendencies. There are certainly albums that I love as full albums in themselves, but I find that already-tenuous connection to the album decreasing with every year. Albums are what I listen to when I’m too lazy to make a playlist, I find. Judging from what I’ve seen of hard digital sales figures and what I’ve heard from others, this seems to be pretty common–people are buying songs digitally, not entire albums.
I think as musicians, we tend to have an emotional and professional connection to the form that many listeners don’t have. There are purist listeners who share that connection, but the majority of casual listeners don’t seem to care–the old saw “I hate having to buy an album just to get the one or two songs I want” comes to mind. iTunes/eMusic/Amazon mp3 figures I’ve seen seem to bear this out.
Well right, I get that lots of people don’t listen to albums – it’s more that I was surprised you as a fellow musician would say that (and in a year that has brought us a new DM3 album, among other gems).
I’ve made my peace with being a dinosaur, I just hoped you were one too.
Well, my dirty little secret is that I listen to a hell of a lot more NPR, podcasts and Coast-to-Coast AM than I do music at this point in my life. But still, I don’t mean to negate the value or charm of the album; I certainly understand and respect it, even if I don’t share it.
Honestly, as a musician, I’d be much happier if there was an infrastructure to release songs in packs of 2-3; something like digital 7-inches. I also get frustrated by the arbitrary sense of legitimacy that the album confers upon an artist within the music industry; it’s ridiculous that in 2009, you still have to shell out $2000 to DiscMakers to book a show anywhere that isn’t a total dump. But that is probably a whole other discussion!