{"id":326,"date":"2006-02-19T18:53:53","date_gmt":"2006-02-20T01:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/02\/19\/more-singles\/"},"modified":"2006-02-19T19:05:23","modified_gmt":"2006-02-20T02:05:23","slug":"more-singles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/02\/19\/more-singles\/","title":{"rendered":"More Singles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans buy albums.<\/p>\n

Casual buyers purchase singles.<\/p>\n

The major labels got away with it for a while, before Napster, before the iTunes Music Store, because the ONLY WAY to get the single was TO BUY the album.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no Internet back in the nineties fanning the flames of the story that as soon as a single caught fire, it was deleted, and you HAD to buy the album.<\/p>\n

And then, since people continued to buy the album, just to hear that one track, the labels ONLY FOCUSED on that one track.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a rare Top Forty act that puts out a listenable album these days.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s too much on the line.\u00c2\u00a0 If a label signs you to go on the hit parade, they focus on a couple of tracks at most, since Top Forty DOESN’T PLAY ALBUMS!\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve been doing this for a decade.\u00c2\u00a0 And THAT’S what killed the album, not the Internet, not digital music.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody on the street knew the track was the only good thing the act did, why PAY for the album?<\/p>\n

But there were still artists putting out more than one good track.\u00c2\u00a0 But, as time progressed, major labels released the records of fewer and fewer of these acts.\u00c2\u00a0 Because there was NOWHERE TO HEAR THEM!\u00c2\u00a0 Check terrestrial radio formats.\u00c2\u00a0 Show me the free format rock station.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, show me the station that plays more than a limited number of tracks!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there ARE\u00c2\u00a0a few.\u00c2\u00a0 But SO few, that kids stopped listening to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 The mainstream learned about the hits from MTV and now buy the singles from the iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 And THAT’S fucked.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a way to go out of business.<\/p>\n

Yes, here’s reality.\u00c2\u00a0 Only CASUAL music buyers frequent the iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 No FAN would use it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they consider singles a RIP-OFF!<\/p>\n

Come on.\u00c2\u00a0 Back in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 YOU stopped buying singles.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they were a raw deal.\u00c2\u00a0 If you liked the single, you bought the album, figuring there would be more great tunes ON IT!\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe you even heard a few of those songs on FM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 That whole paradigm is dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Replaced by one wherein the average consumer distrusts the music industry and will only purchase the track he wants.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas fans want EVERYTHING!\u00c2\u00a0 And everything doesn’t make economic sense at the iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why it’s a sideshow and is aiding in the marginalization of major labels.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, the average person buys LESS music!\u00c2\u00a0 Is this a solution to the major labels’ economic woes?<\/p>\n

A fan ain’t getting everything he wants by an act at the iTunes Music Store.\u00c2\u00a0 He uses the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it be P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 Or IM.\u00c2\u00a0 Or newsgroups.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, he gets a friend to burn him a CD of what he wants.\u00c2\u00a0 Or bring over his CDs to rip.\u00c2\u00a0 Or bring over his HARD DRIVE to transfer maybe ALL his tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is technological reality.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is what the major labels want to deny.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is what is going to kill them.<\/p>\n

Take a look at photography.\u00c2\u00a0 Read today’s story in the "New York Times" <\/p>\n

\n

Here I Am Taking My Own Picture<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Kids are snapping self-portraits CONSTANTLY!\u00c2\u00a0 They’re PHOTO JUNKIES!\u00c2\u00a0 And you know why?\u00c2\u00a0 BECAUSE PHOTOGRAPHY IS FREE!<\/p>\n

The entertainment industry just doesn’t realize this.\u00c2\u00a0 The younger generation places a value on TOOLS, not software.\u00c2\u00a0 They think THEY construct the end solution.\u00c2\u00a0 Until the music companies and movie companies and TV companies allow kids to use their wares and build their own stuff they’re going to fall further behind the curve.\u00c2\u00a0 Because people can do it anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 There are snippets OF ALL of these media on the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 But rather than charge for this use, rather than authorize it, the entertainment behemoths believe they can quash this usage.\u00c2\u00a0 How fucking ignorant.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, you’ve got to get into the head of the consumer.<\/p>\n

The consumer may think the iTunes Music Store is a joke, but not his iPOD!\u00c2\u00a0 The iPod is his MOST TREASURED DEVICE!\u00c2\u00a0 Allowing him to take THOUSANDS of songs with him whenever and wherever he goes.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S the paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 You must charge for the enabling.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think everybody’s iPod is empty?\u00c2\u00a0 No, they’re FULL, and the labels AREN’T BEING PAID FOR THIS!<\/p>\n

So they go into business with someone like Amazon.<\/p>\n

Amazon might have the credit cards of parents, but not kids.<\/p>\n

Then, Amazon has to convince parents to lay down fifteen bucks a month for music that’s evanescent when NOW the kid’s music budget is far less than that, and he gets to KEEP the music.\u00c2\u00a0 And kids must convince their parents, because KIDS don’t have CREDIT CARDS!<\/p>\n

Sure, you can see a music subscription like a cell phone subscription, but a kid NEEDS a cell phone.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t NEED a music subscription.\u00c2\u00a0 He can already get just about everything he wants for FREE!\u00c2\u00a0 Or, if he’s a casual music fan, he’s spending SO LITTLE at the iTunes Music Store that it’s not CLOSE to fifteen bucks a month.<\/p>\n

Isn’t this a ridiculous situation.\u00c2\u00a0 We had the original Napster.\u00c2\u00a0 Which made EVERYBODY a music fan.\u00c2\u00a0 It was cool, it was a community, it had EVERYTHING!\u00c2\u00a0 And now that system has been replaced with one that DOESN’T have everything and DOESN’T allow you to try before you buy AND charges the same aliquot price per track as a CD.\u00c2\u00a0 SO, casual fans buy and listen to LESS music.\u00c2\u00a0 While REAL fans get their wares via illicit means.<\/p>\n

We’ve got to make people fans of acts once again.\u00c2\u00a0 This singles business is KILLING the major labels.<\/p>\n

Then again, who gives a shit about the major labels.\u00c2\u00a0 The new paradigm is an all-in-one company.\u00c2\u00a0 Building a culture around a band.\u00c2\u00a0 Hits are irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 Fan devotion is what counts.\u00c2\u00a0 And with this devotion comes a willingness to buy EVERYTHING the act has for sale.\u00c2\u00a0 Tickets to shows, merchandise AND the CDs, even though the music is available for free.\u00c2\u00a0 FURTHERMORE, these people sell the band via word of mouth.<\/p>\n

Nobody is selling the singles act.\u00c2\u00a0 They might e-mail the track, but they won’t go to see the band.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s nothing TO see.\u00c2\u00a0 Check Jessica Simpson’s grosses.\u00c2\u00a0 Why see her?\u00c2\u00a0 She’s a CELEBRITY, not a MUSICIAN!<\/p>\n

The musician is going to rule again.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you don’t realize this, you’re going to be marginalized or made irrelevant all together.<\/p>\n

Satiate the core.\u00c2\u00a0 Make this core believers.\u00c2\u00a0 And don’t do ANYTHING to alienate this core.\u00c2\u00a0 Fuck MTV, fuck radio, fuck the press.\u00c2\u00a0 They cheapen an act.\u00c2\u00a0 Just use the Net to serve the fan with no intermediary.<\/p>\n

License P2P and you’ll build MORE fan bases.\u00c2\u00a0 With easy acquisition of tracks, people will check more stuff out.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, CD sales were at their HEIGHT in 2000 when the original Napster was RAGING!\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think that’s irrelevant?<\/p>\n

AND, the number of tracks sold of classic rock acts is DWARFED by those traded.\u00c2\u00a0 Because people believe in those old acts.\u00c2\u00a0 They functioned OUTSIDE the system, not WITHIN IT!<\/p>\n

The song remains the same.\u00c2\u00a0 Be a renegade, be truthful, be a musician, don’t do what Clive tells you, don’t write with Diane Warren or Max Martin, and people will believe in you.<\/p>\n

Music is the mass medium of the outsider.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s cheap to make and easy to sell.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that the major labels have jacked up recording and marketing costs does not deny the paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 More music for more people.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the way out of this mess.<\/p>\n

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Fans buy albums. Casual buyers purchase singles. The major labels got away with it for a while, before Napster, before the iTunes Music Store, because the ONLY WAY to get the single was TO BUY the album.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no Internet back in the nineties fanning the flames of the story that as soon as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-5g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}