urging bands to reduce the tracks on their albums<\/a>.<\/p>\nYup. The music industry wants artists to provide less <\/i>product.<\/p>\n
Do we assume that prices of CDs with less music will cost consumers less? I don’t.<\/p>\n
Do we assume that the labels will pay their artists less, since they are providing less? I do.<\/p>\n
Do we assume that this is all some massive rip-off? I certainly do.<\/p>\n
Record labels are urging the clampdown on album tracks as a way of reversing a three-year-long slump in album sales.
\n“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.<\/p>\n
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 <\/i>get the hit tracks.<\/p>\n
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 <\/i>heavily. But how often have “B-side” tunes turned out to be surprisingly good, popular, and profitable?<\/p>\n
“We all should be concerned about giving music buyers good value, whether they’re getting eight, 10 or 20 songs.” <\/p>\n
The industry folks note that CDs allow much more music than LPs. Thus, Bruce Springsteen’s classic Born to Run <\/i>in 1975 had only 8 tracks, whereas many CDs have a dozen, two dozen, or more.<\/p>\n
So, I guess the theory goes, if we have fewer <\/i>tracks, the albums will be better<\/i>, right?<\/p>\n
Right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8209,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/26\/stupid_warning.html","url_meta":{"origin":4991,"position":0},"title":"Stupid warning labels: Number 439 in a series","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 26-Apr-05 9:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"Um ... if I've bought a CD (versus, say, finding illegally pirated versions of the music online and downloading them), I've done just what the RIAA wants, right? And if...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5955,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/23\/brer_recording.html","url_meta":{"origin":4991,"position":1},"title":"Br’er Recording Industry Strikes Again","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 23-Jun-04 3:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As part of a ruling slamming the recording industry for price gouging, said industry was supposed to donate many, many CDs for free to libraries and schools. \"Well, heck, guys,\"...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11876,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/11\/music_hark_8.html","url_meta":{"origin":4991,"position":2},"title":"Music, hark!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Jan-08 12:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Coolness.\u00a0 Sony is the last of the major labels to finally offer non-DRMed MP3 tracks for sale at Amazon.\u00a0 That's spiffy both because it means, well, music available without PC-...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4609,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/30\/play_it_again_s.html","url_meta":{"origin":4991,"position":3},"title":"Play it again, Sam","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 30-Jul-03 11:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"The FTC has targeted the music industry again for price fixing. In a unanimous decision, members of the U.S. FTC (Federal Trade Comission) chastised Vivendi Universal and Warner Communications for...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2934,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/03\/listening_to_co.html","url_meta":{"origin":4991,"position":4},"title":"Listening to consumers? Frickin’ radicals …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 3-Sep-02 7:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"Major music labels are backing off of copy-protection schemes being embedded onto CDs, fearing a consumer backlash. How ... refreshing. Still, the rhetoric war continues. Though the labels are slowing...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10714,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/13\/thief.html","url_meta":{"origin":4991,"position":5},"title":"Thief!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Nov-06 6:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Glad to know the CEO of Universal Music holds me, one of his customers, in such high esteem. Yesterday, Microsoft agreed to share revenue from Zune sales with record labels...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}