The music industry claims it is being hammered by Evil Pirates, which causes people to swipe their tracks, rather than pay inflated prices for their CDs.
So, in a bold, exciting, and revolutionary move, the music industry is …urging bands to reduce the tracks on their albums.
Yup. The music industry wants artists to provide less product.
Do we assume that prices of CDs with less music will cost consumers less? I don’t.
Do we assume that the labels will pay their artists less, since they are providing less? I do.
Do we assume that this is all some massive rip-off? I certainly do.
Record labels are urging the clampdown on album tracks as a way of reversing a three-year-long slump in album sales.
“The final choice will always be the artist’s, but I feel – and consumer research bears it out – that the public thinks albums have too much filler,” Mr Ienner told the paper.
I see. The assumption is that artists are just cranking out “filler,” rather than hit tracks. People aren’t buying CDs because they’re not able to just get the hit tracks.
As if the labels know which tracks are going to be hits ahead of time. Of course, they know which tracks they’re going to promote heavily. But how often have “B-side” tunes turned out to be surprisingly good, popular, and profitable?
“We all should be concerned about giving music buyers good value, whether they’re getting eight, 10 or 20 songs.”
The industry folks note that CDs allow much more music than LPs. Thus, Bruce Springsteen’s classic Born to Run in 1975 had only 8 tracks, whereas many CDs have a dozen, two dozen, or more.
So, I guess the theory goes, if we have fewer tracks, the albums will be better, right?
Right?
Wow. This should show the artists that the RIAA has completely lost it.
Folks like Britney, who only record one track and then remake it a dozen times won’t be bothered by it, I’m sure.
Never, ever buying a CD ever again.
Of course, not damn with faint praise the normal CD-pressing labels, but by the same token I’m not sure that electronic downloads via Micro$oft or Wal-Mart will be that much better a deal or represent any sort of moral high ground.
I think most of the music I’ve bought in the past few years have been from independents–mostly the artist him or herself.
Luckily they seem to keep packing more and more excellent tracks on the CD, and keeping the price reasonable…
The RIAA can go pound salt.
As someone who never listens to the radio for music (except, occasionally, an Oldies station), I’ve never found found extra CD tracks to be a bother. Indeed, some of my favorites are the ones that aren’t the headlining “Includes!” tracks. The “ability” to skip over those and just pick and choose just based on what’s playing on the Top 40 stations seems counterproductive to me.
Well, better than 90.00% of the music I listen to never has made it on the radio!
Alas, most of the radio I’d like to listen to are shows on small stations (for example, college stations). So it’s either build a Really Big Antenna or (and I keep suggesting this to my wife) Go Broadband.
Some day!
“Born to Run” may have only had 8 tracks, but none was less than 3 minutes–with five songs over 4-minutes, including “Backstreets” at 6:30 and “Jungleland” at 9:35!