At Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 19:31:13 -0400 Robert Berry wrote:

>I think the CD probably is going to die, but what bothers me the most about
>this is that it means the death of the *album*. If we go to an
>all-downloading model, it means that people will just be picking and
>choosing individual songs they want to hear. It will no longer be possible
>for an artist to release a unified album of material -- I mean, you could
>release a whole batch of songs all at the same time, but there's no way to
>ensure that people will hear them all together, or in the order you want.
>And there is no way to do transitions or links between songs. No more Abbey
>Roads or Dark Side Of The Moons.

It's possible to ensure that all the songs from an album are kept together 
as a unit for downloading...especially if songs are linked by segues and 
cross-fading. Many acts have opted out of the iTunes program because of the 
situation you describe...wanting entire albums to be downloaded or not at 
all. Of course, that flies in the face of the notion that people ONLY want 
individual songs these days.

There's still the ongoing grumbling by consumers that they only want one or 
two songs from any given album because the rest is crap......as if albums 
full of filler is something NEW to have hit the music biz. Part of the 
functionality of the 7" single was to distill the hits from the weak albums. 
Not every song from an album is going to be a Top40 gem. And when the single 
died, so did the filter for consumers. As I stated in a previous email: it's 
the MUSIC that's the root of the sales decline. You can re-format, reduce 
prices, offer DVD bonus insentives or have the artist deliver the album to 
your house personally, but if the songs are half-baked quasi-fluff then no 
amount of consumer insentives is going to save the music biz.

Jaimie Vernon,
President,
Bullseye Records of Canada, Inc.
http://www.bullseyecanada.com
"Not Suing Our Customers Since 1985!"

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