xtcian

yeah, but for every Sgt. Peppers there's Neil Young's "Broken Arrow", which for my money (pardon the pun) has one, maybe two songs worth listening to again. I don't think artists necessarily *know* that they're putting some subpar stuff on an album. They probably give it their all, and like most people, end up missing the mark a bunch of times. An entire album would just make us spend time paring down our library to rid ourselves of the lion's share of the Rolling Stones' "Black and Blue", for instance.

Nice title reference and topic. Being a completest in many areas, I *have* to have the whole album, as well *really* want to have lossless format, not mp3. I like to then pick and choose songs from the album to put in mix on my crackberry (just like I have done with records and tapes since age 8).

I regularly pay to download a lossless version of an artist's whole album. It's always on a small label or band website. Never even navigated my browser to itunes. I don't like the piecemeal download paradigm AT ALL.

Here's a variation on that idea: for 99 cents you get the whole album -- with the full quality version (I usually go for 320 kbps but lossless would be better) of the song you 'singled' out and with lower quality versions of the rest of the songs.

If you like some or all of what you hear, you could then buy additional songs for 99 cents each, or the whole album for 4.99 or whatever.

As for albums vs singles, Jason nailed it. Most artists don't nail it on every song on most albums.

Who else downloaded In Rainbows? What do you think of the album? Of the concept of pay-what-you-like?

Saw Iconoclast with Fiona Apple and Quentin Tarantino last night. Interesting show talking about output. Fiona had taken 6 years off between records.. she said she just didn't have anything coming out of her at the time. She says when she writes that it comes easy. When it doesn't, she does not write as it is forced.
I imagine the pressure of big record contracts has something to do with record 'filler' as it were. That being said, I like me a little filler from time to time. Rarely do I like the song today the best that i liked 5 years ago from the same record.
I'm old school like that I suppose.

Aargh...from my perspective, as somebody who gets checks from iTunes and Rhapsody and all the rest, I seriously doubt that reducing the cost of my entire catalog by 90% would create a more than 90% increase in sales. I pay my mortgage and buy diapers with the money that I get from cd sales, legal downloads and the like, and people like jonathan coulton are making a comfortable living doing so.

In addition, my recent work is so album-oriented that most of our online sales are full albums, not single songs. (We write musicals, and perform some of them as concerts-with-a-story in music venues.)

So: um, I'd hate it if that happened. Just my 2 cents, as it were.

I love being able to download just one song from a band that I know little about and want to know more about. I completely understand that some albums need to be listened to as a whole and some albums contain all songs that are gems. Those albums I will go out and buy.

To answer question number one: most singles that I download are songs that I have heard while listening to Lucy in my car. If I love the song, I add it to my list in my car. When my list gets to ten or so, I bring it inside, hop onto iTunes and begin to download.

I think 99 cents is reasonable for a song and I'm happy to pay 9.99 for an album, especially if it is Sgt. Peppers or Synchronicity quality.

I just checked my last two purchases. They happen to be Mayor of Simpleton and Ballad of Peter Pumkinhead. Without iTunes, I would have no xtc songs in my collection.

I entirely agree with your #2, though sadly most albums aren't made that way any more. And for the token few that are, the fans are generally hardcore enough that they're gonna buy the whole thing.

As for your #1, the flaw in your logic is that people aren't guessing which songs they're GOING TO like, they're buying songs they've already heard and KNOW they like. Granted there might be other songs on the album that they'd also like but haven't heard. Why pay $10 for a possible stinker of a cow when you can get the milk for $.99? Lame analogy? Probably.

Skipping down to #3, Jason said it best -- when people record an album, they generally love every song, but that doesn't mean they'll all resonate with the audience.

While I'd love for every album to be the 2nd coming of Sgt Pepper, there are far more 2nd comings of, I dunno, Sgt Rihanna. -Ella, -ella, -ella...

What if you built an album comprised of individual songs from an assortment of albums? We could call it a.... "mix" ?

I have discovered a lot of new music through XM Radio. Like Emma, I write them down and download later. The only thing I don't like about iTunes is you can't really preview songs. Musicmatch and other defunct programs let you do this and it it was great.

Emma- I love Oranges & Lemons and strongly recommend you get the whole album! But you must get Skylarking if you get any XTC at all.

If an entire album is good and works best as an entire piece of work then it will get downloaded or purchased as a whole. If there are a lot of filler songs surrounding a couple of gems then the gems will be downloaded and the spares not.

I know a lot of people hate the saying that "content is king" but I don't mind. The internet is, and hopefully will remain, a meritocracy. If you put out 1 good song and 10 crap songs, no one will download the crap. If you put out 12 songs that are all good, then all 12 songs will be purchased.

I know that record companies hate this for the most part because it takes a lot of power out of their hands and lets the consumers and artists just bypass them often. Of course there are still going to be record company designed bands and hyped acts, but there has always been corporate media creations because there's money in them. But now if you are an artist and like making music a certain way you don't have to "change" your sound to get on a label. If you have access to a computer and the web you can self record and post the music and allow people who like (i.e. the long tail) enjoy it for what it is and not have it monkeyed with by some A&R guy who wants to make it more appealing to the masses.

There will always be albums of songs that go together and work, but remember that albums like The Wall, Synchronicity, Sgt. Pepper and others are the exception. And if an artist wants to put together 10-12 songs that tell a story and work together they can do that now, without having to have made 5-6 hit albums in order to have the cache with the record company to get it recorded and distributed.

Do you think that Sgt. Pepper or The Wall would have been made if it were the first records by those bands? Highly unlikely imho. They had to build up a lot of success where they could afford to take a risk and in these cases we were all rewarded with excellent pieces of art.

Don't fret about the loss of Albums, the good ones will still be made and the cream will rise to the top, rather than what the record companies think will make them the most money.

The best thing to do is go to www.pandora.com. (At least I think that's the site). Enter one of your favorite songs or artists and then that site will start playing "similar" music.

I did it by entering "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins and then it started a "jukebox" of similar music. Some were duds. Some were hits. I kept a list of what I liked and then went and downloaded them on iTunes.

I also listen to channel 21 on XM radio through my television. It's 6021 on DISH NETWORK. I heard some SHINS and BAND OF HORSES and added them to my list.

I've always been a big fan of the one song from here, one song from there camp. I think "right said fred" above may have an idea about this whole notion of "mixing" songs. I think I'll continue to utilize that novel approach.

Brendan, I clicked on your name and I like that song which drifts in briefly as your homepage opens up. Is that song Weight of the World and is it available on iTunes?

Prince's album Lovesexy is only available on iTunes as an entire album download - that's the way he wanted it because he feels that the album is more of a statement than it's individual parts. it sort of aggravated me, though, since all i wanted to listen to was Dance On...

iTunes should reward you with a small discount on an album purchase if you previously bought only one or two songs. I often buy a song or two when my gut says not to commit to the whole album. I listen to the songs, fall head over heels, and must have all the whole album or even all the artist's recordings (I recently did this with The Cardigan's and Ivy). I don't like paying full price for the album after buying the individual songs.

I can't see iTunes (or musicians) going for the 99-cent album download plan, but I agree that it's important to get a really good listen to an whole CD.

Case in point: Three or four years ago I belatedly discovered the White Stripes. I saw them in concert (medium-small venue, awesome), then went to iTunes and sampled *everything* by them. I purchased a selection of their stuff and burned a few CDs for myself (car, work).

Since then, I have become more of an aficionado of the Stripes, and I came to realize that what I initially downloaded were their louder, blues-rock tracks. So I had to backfill gradually as I had time, downloading other good tracks that hadn't grabbed me in the space of one cool riff.

When the Raconteurs (Jack's other band) released a sophomore CD last week, I simply bought the whole thing. A few tracks that I zoomed through at first have become among my favorites.

Nice topic, Ian.

Technology giveth and it taketh away.

Things were singles-oriented back when we had 78's. It was only with the advent of the long play record that we even had the concept of albums--in the 50's it was all about the hyped single, made through another technology that has killed itself--radio.

With the CD, it was easier to skip tracks (remember that Tom Petty album with the "Hello CD listeners. This is where people listening on vinyl are flipping the record" part in it?). Then we got to digital, and CD burners, and it was easier to make mixes--and, I'd argue, most people listen on some form of shuffle. Now we're back in the singles zone.

So, yes, Ian, I mourn the album, too--even the concepts of "sides" that died with the CD (think Paradise Theater by Styx, for a really conceptual but musically lousy example), but the album was really kind of an anomaly in the recorded music era. Now we're on mixes and DJ sets.

I'll leave it to the rest of you to characterize pre-recorded music. Was it mostly "albums" of opera, sagas, qawwali, etc., or "singles" of single folk tunes, hymns, etc.? IMF

P.S. It's the song "Mother" that really sucked on Synchronicity, and I'm happy to skip that shit every time on my ipod.

I see your point, but I like to buy just one song to simply try out a new artist that I may have heard about. I bought Amy Winehouse's Rehab song, and someday I will probably buy her album, although right now I have little listening time to myself.

it's like not hearing the end of a conversation....I love appreciating that....it's like not finishing off ! .....I love finishing off ! .....I totally agree with you...you ...you....lovely guy ,you !

You know, there are plenty of albums that only sell on itunes in their entirety, not piecemeal. And, some artists, like Radiohead (with the recent exception of In Rainbows) refuse to sell any of their albums on itunes to prevent their albums from being broken up.

But I think the 'concept' album is a rarity nowadays, although I would argue that it's always been less popular than albums sold with a few singles, since the conception of pop music. Those operatic, themed albums a la the Moody Blues are often, as others have pointed out, still crap, just lengthy crap. It's only the amazing few that actually can withstand long, continued listens at full length.

Ian, the album as art form really didn't catch on until the 70's and really hit it's stride after the advent of the cd. It was a favorite with record labels because they could package a lot of crap in with the one or two good singles on the record and make people buy the whole lot for an inflated price. I think that Alanis shilling for iTunes is her saying that even if you have the option of buying her songs individually, she's confident that you'll still want to buy them all.

Freedom of choice!

Sadly, I don't want to buy any Alanis Morisette songs. Nor do I want to steal them for free.

"Ian, the album as art form really didn't catch on until the 70's and really hit it's stride after the advent of the cd."

Highway 61 Revisited: 1965
Rubber Soul: 1965
Pet Sounds: 1966
Revolver: 1966
Blonde on Blonde: 1966
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: 1967
The Beatles (The White Album): 1968

Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs: 1959

How many albums historically reflect a record company's priorities rather than the artists'? At least those ones are bound to be full of filler (whence the phrase "one-hit wonder") and/or hodgepodges that lose nothing that was artistically very intentional in being chopped up. Isn't Sgt Pepper famous as a case where the musicians had free-reign and company backing for everything they wished (strings etc)? If artists retained "moral rights" to constrain sales of their music to whole albums, I wonder what fraction would choose to do so. It might be apple could afford to give them the option.