Digital pimps and the new order of things

elektro80

Hot from musicdish:

"While the overwhelming majority of recorded music is sold today in album form, new information from The NPD Group suggests that as digital music evolves the industry will return to the days when singles were highly popular. According to The NPD Group, most digital music consumers prefer to download just one or two songs, rather than downloading all tracks from a particular CD. In addition the vast majority of digital song tracks downloaded by consumers between August and October 2003 were "catalog" tracks that were released more than 18 months ago. These findings also have implications for how the industry attacks piracy and CD copying issues.

When downloading single tracks from the Web in the months of August to October 2003, consumers chose to download only one track from an album 85 percent of the time. Ninety-four percent of the time consumers downloaded two or fewer tracks from an album; they downloaded five or more songs just two percent of the time and downloaded the entire album less than one percent of the time. Among active digital downloaders, 18 percent of songs downloaded were new releases (i.e., released after February 2002), while 82 percent were songs from deeper in the catalog. Note: Sales of physical product (i.e., CDs) in the same period were about even between catalog and front line releases. "From a copy-management perspective, it makes as much sense to protect popular catalog songs as it does to protect an entire front-line CD," said Russ Crupnick, vice president of The NPD Group. "It's important to protect an artist's most popular songs, no matter when they might have been released- because fans will likely cherry pick their favorites rather than downloading individual albums."

Said Crupnick, "the way people are choosing to download music provides lessons for sales of both physical and digital music. It's also a strong endorsement for physical singles. In the world of paid services consumers may prefer buying singles, so record companies must locate a balance between effectively promoting new releases while not losing sight of the revenue-generating power of popular songs from the catalog -- and import or concert tracks, as well. It makes sense to offer a discount when consumers buy four or five songs from the same artist, regardless of what album they originate from. It may not be all about the best selling songs, either. Less-popular tracks offered as free downloads might even be effectively leveraged to market paid downloads of more popular songs and drive sales of full CDs."

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=60085

Michael Chocholak · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 12:18 am Post subject:

That's been my experience. My stats show that people hunt through my catalog and ferret out only a few tracks to actually download. I do the same thing. There are very few artists, independent or otherwise, whose entire catalog interests me.

themoors · Joined: Dec 15, 2003 Posts: 148 Location: northern england

Personally i like to have an album in its entirity (i also like to be able to hold it in my hand,touch it, sniff the vinyl....ok stop stop) becuase although I might not like all the tracks straight away I tend to find some songs grow on me. And in many cases the album is a complete work of art, to only have 4-5 tracks off it is like having half a painting, or a quarter of a book, it spoils the experience.

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 12:44 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 12:58 am Post subject:

Of course there are many pop CDs/LPs out there which is just a collection of songs.. but yes.. I agree with you. I guess I have to confess I usually buy the lot of artists I like. Reminds me I have to get that latest VDGG DVD.. and soon. ... and the brand new CAN 5.1 surround release.

seraph · Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:16 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:36 am Post subject:

70 would be more like it I guess. 80 was just me having a go at being modern.. . hahaha... arrrgh

play · Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 1:27 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:23 am Post subject:

I am probably in the wrong mode right now. Moving! What was that one about? Cool

play · Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 1:54 pm Post subject:

just a nerdy joke.

jkn · Joined: Mar 14, 2004 Posts: 469 Location: La Porte, IN, USA

I'm more of a love to hold the album, look at the artwork, the action of putting the disc into the player (or vinyl onto the turntable, though admittedly that's been getting rarer and rarer for me...).

On the other hand - I've gotten so many cd's that I finally broke down and started only carrying the discs and storing the jewels and artwork in boxes in the basement. If I had a room in my house big enough to display them - I would - but I don't. This is a sign to me that I'm on my way to separating the music from the artwork and liner notes - as much as I hate to do that. Thankfully most albums I have are from artists with websites that post most of their album information - or there's always discogs.com if I forget the song titles, etc...

With mp3's - I do have a tendency to try a few tracks out on a netlabel release and see if I want to bother with the rest. If I find an artists I like - I'll grab the entire album and probably several others if I can locate them. Bad thing with mp3's is they're just files - they get lost on my drive and totally forgotten and eventually deleted.

As a whole - I'd much rather listen to an entire album. It's amazing how a song taken out of context is just like a soundbite on the evening news - totally out of context and fairly useless without the other bits that were going on around it.

John K-N