I think CDs should NOT EXSIST.

[damnnnitzzjohn]

I think artists should just release a digital download every few months instead of a CD.

It is rare a CD is all single worthy, and most artists have HUGE singles but horrible CD sales.

=======
update

I think some people misunderstood me. I still buy CDs. What I'm saying is...take a look at Cassie...HUGE fans on Myspace [got her signed], HUGE first single people were going crazy over, and the single performed very well for a debut, but then her CD is released and she hasn't even sold 300,000 copies in over five months.

The topic title should read:

I think CDs should NOT EXSIST IF THE ARTIST ISN'T GOING TO WORK.

I hate when I buy a new album that has 40 minutes on it...seriously!? What the f**k is that?! We fans wait year(s) for an artist(s) new album and they give us that?

Gwen Stefani's new CD will have 12 standard tracks. She has recorded several [and maybe even in the 100s] songs, so why not include them?

I would rather have the 12 good songs along with 6 "s**tty" tracks than nothing at all.

The fans like the extra songs...

And another thing that bother me is bands/artists who re-release CDs with 1-2 new songs and a popular single. It is one thing to re-release it will several new things, but mainly they have the re-release in mind before the actual retail CD comes out.

So for example, an artist writes a song and the company says lets release that around the holiday season as a new single to pull it new people.

So the CD has 14 songs and is released in June, and in November the re-release is with 15 songs and the only difference is the one single...they should just release it regularly.

I love buying CDs and actually having the real CD and looking at the credits and stuff, but the artists effort lately has been horrible. There are no excuses.

I will continue to illegally download over half of my music collection until this industry improves.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Because everything is about singles.

Just so you know, in the REAL music world where songs aren't crap, tons of artists have complete CDs-worth of good quality music. Those artists, more often than not, care less about radio airplay and getting a hit and actually care about doing good music. And if not that, they care more about having a good show every night when they go on tour.

[babyboylrtm]

Well, people like Christina Millian, Amerie, Fat Joe, LL Cool J, Diddy etc. should just release random singles instead of bombing with every album.

[Rob64]

This is seriously the DUMBEST topic i've seen in my life. LOL! I don't even know how to reply to this. ugh. this is beyond stupid.
Music isn't all about releasing singles and getting hits from digital downloads. ugh. why bother!

[oscillations.]

Oh please.
I'll never buy into the whole digital single/album ploy.
Yes, let's just turn music into something completely intangible, something only deliverable via bits and chips. No wonder the completely banal iPod has been fetishized so much - it's the only "physical" thing left in some people's collection. Sad!

I'm all about the physical copies, baby.
I buy CDs constantly...more than ever.
Plus, I don't buy albums from artists with one bubblegummy single, so the problem facing those who buy JoJo's CDs don't really affect me, thank you.

If you have a problem with full-length albums, which is actually what I think you're trying to say here, I have some advice: start listening to better music. Listen to artists who can sustain quality over the course of an LP. It's not that hard.

[Pulse]

I dont think everything is about the single, but I agree physical albums are obsolete.

Its rare that I find an entire album I like, so I would rather much download the songs I like and forget about the tracks I dont.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Good post! (@ oscillations)

I had to come back to reiterate my post a bit more because honestly, it's ideas and opinions like the one in the first post (no offense :) ) that are the problem with the music industry.
True artists create albums with the entire group of songs from a legitimate point of view. Not necessarily to sell albums or create fans but to express their point of views, opinions, experiences, etc. They do all that through their music.
Thinking CDs should not exist because a few crappy one-hit-wonders can't sustain their success because 90% of their music sucks is a very selfish, one-way point of view and would further demonize the music industry into being about just the money and not about the artform of making music.

[oscillations.]

Maybe DJ General would like us to return to the pre-PET SOUNDS era of early rock 'n roll, haha! (As we know, that release helped "birth" the concept of a true pop album. Before that, everything was singles-driven, with compilatory "albums" released every 8 months or so containing singles & filler). Perhaps we are headed in that direction, anyway. At least Top 40 acts are.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

I think the market should just be a singles market. I just think there should be no brick and mortar stores any more. I think places like Walmart or Best Buy could continue to sell CDs for the fans...but I would focus my operations on digital sales.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I'm sure a lot of the major stores that sell hard-copy CDs might eventually close down but I hope that indie record shops and stores that sell non-major label albums continue to thrive... as I'm sure they will and they should. If the record industry ever collapses, it will be the indie artists that will benefit.

[damnnnitzzjohn]

I think some people misunderstood me. I still buy CDs. What I'm saying is...take a look at Cassie...HUGE fans on Myspace [got her signed], HUGE first single people were going crazy over, and the single performed very well for a debut, but then her CD is released and she hasn't even sold 300,000 copies in over five months.

The topic title should read:

I think CDs should NOT EXSIST IF THE ARTIST ISN'T GOING TO WORK.

I hate when I buy a new album that has 40 minutes on it...seriously!? What the fuck is that?! We fans wait year(s) for an artist(s) new album and they give us that?

Gwen Stefani's new CD will have 12 standard tracks. She has recorded several [and maybe even in the 100s] songs, so why not include them?

I would rather have the 12 good songs along with 6 "shitty" tracks than nothing at all.

The fans like the extra songs...

And another thing that bother me is bands/artists who re-release CDs with 1-2 new songs and a popular single. It is one thing to re-release it will several new things, but mainly they have the re-release in mind before the actual retail CD comes out.

So for example, an artist writes a song and the company says lets release that around the holiday season as a new single to pull it new people.

So the CD has 14 songs and is released in June, and in November the re-release is with 15 songs and the only difference is the one single...they should just release it regularly.

I love buying CDs and actually having the real CD and looking at the credits and stuff, but the artists effort lately has been horrible. There are no excuses.

I will continue to illegally download over half of my music collection until this industry improves.

[Diablo Cody™]

cherrycrush said:

so the problem facing those who buy JoJo's CDs don't really affect me, thank you.

JoJo's CD is actually pretty good.

[Diablo Cody™]

themaxonline said:

I'm sure a lot of the major stores that sell hard-copy CDs might eventually close down but I hope that indie record shops and stores that sell non-major label albums continue to thrive... as I'm sure they will and they should. If the record industry ever collapses, it will be the indie artists that will benefit.

WAL-MART will never die, okayz!!!

[oscillations.]

I can't believe anyone would ever hope that record stores close down.
It's such a depressing prospect.
The loss of Tower Records as it is is almost devastating.

[iMoan]

computerfreak said:

cherrycrush said:

so the problem facing those who buy JoJo's CDs don't really affect me, thank you.

JoJo's CD is actually pretty good.

I think a better example would be Cassie.

[oscillations.]

To me, the two aren't worth differentiating between.
I wouldn't listen to either.

The point is that a lot of the lesser US Top 40 artists can't seem to release an album that justifies it's existence. Maybe then, if this is the problem, it's time to move outside that realm.
The problem isn't limited to Top 40 acts, obviously, but they've always been the most notorious example, going back to the first teenpop invasion of the early 60's. For radio-inclined acts, an album is secondary in importance to a few standout singles. This doesn't mean albums shouldn't exist any longer. It perhaps means that it's time to find artists who DO still care about the art of albummaking.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Personally, I would rather an 11 or 12 track CD to a 16-17 track one. I think the songs that aren't as good bring it down as a whole and leave a sour taste in my mouth toward the rest of the album.

cherrycrush said:

I can't believe anyone would ever hope that record stores close down.
It's such a depressing prospect.
The loss of Tower Records as it is is almost devastating.

I don't. It's a shame that record stores are one of the ones losing out due to the record industry.

And once again, the oscillation's post before this one, another good post! It's true!

[oscillations.]

themaxonline said:

Personally, I would rather an 11 or 12 track CD to a 16-17 track one. I think the songs that aren't as good bring it down as a whole and leave a sour taste in my mouth toward the rest of the album.

cherrycrush said:

I can't believe anyone would ever hope that record stores close down.
It's such a depressing prospect.
The loss of Tower Records as it is is almost devastating.

I don't. It's a shame that record stores are one of the ones losing out due to the record industry.

And once again, the oscillation's post before this one, another good post! It's true!

thanks!

And I tend to agree about the 16-17 track CDs. In general, they get a little tiresome. I'm trying to think of an exception...Blur's PARKLIFE maybe? Excellent from start to finish. I think *12* tends to be the perfect number of tracks for an album, whether we are talking about indie rock or dance pop or hip hop, whatever! It just is a nice number...Garbage's VERSION 2.0 exemplifies this. 45 minutes, 12 tracks. A perfect length pop record.

[Crushcrushchris]

themaxonline said:

Personally, I would rather an 11 or 12 track CD to a 16-17 track one. I think the songs that aren't as good bring it down as a whole and leave a sour taste in my mouth toward the rest of the album.

I'd have to agree with that as well.

Fanatics of artists will want to be completists...nothing wrong with that. However, for me if it interferes with an album as a whole then I'm not going to want to listen to all of the tracks from it regardless of how much I like an artist.

This is why you have exclusive downloads and such. I think that's a plausible remedy for that.

All the tracks that aren't used would either be retooled in time or scrapped altogether. I think those that won't be used should be released onto the web and at artist's request, for free.

[themakshack]

You shouldn't judge a CD strictly by quantitative measures such as time or number of tracks.

I think some people are just giving themselves excuses to download illegally.

Frankly, if you don't like the final product, then don't get it, period. In other words, don't buy it, and don't download it. I think that if you are still willing to download illegally, that shows that there's in fact some sort of demand.

It is pretty ridiculous to place the emphasis on the quality of music put out by artists as the cause of downfall for the music industry when consumers play a role in doing that as well. If there is no demand for crappy music, do you really think that artists will dare putting out crappy music?

What goes around comes around man...

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

themakshack said:

It is pretty ridiculous to place the emphasis on the quality of music put out by artists as the cause of downfall for the music industry when consumers play a role in doing that as well. If there is no demand for crappy music, do you really think that artists will dare putting out crappy music?

What goes around comes around man...

There's enough of a demand for them to justify it for the short term but then in 6 months to a year, those albums that sold will be gone and forgotten and the labels will have moved on to the next 6-month-long-promo record.
It's not as much about demand now as it is about the decrease. Of course there's a bit of demand. I personally think they're aiming a majority of mainstream music at the wrong audience.

[damnnnitzzjohn]

I'm sick of these rap albums that are only 40-60mins with these 2-3 min songs..songs should all be atleast 330. there is NO excuse for that

rap:

3 20sec chorus
3 40 sec verse

that is 3 mins right there plus some instrumental/intro/outro...

[Rob64]

damnnnitzzjohn said:

I'm sick of these rap albums that are only 40-60mins with these 2-3 min songs..songs should all be atleast 330. there is NO excuse for that

rap:

3 20sec chorus
3 40 sec verse

that is 3 mins right there plus some instrumental/intro/outro...

Wow, this is getting more and more ridiculous. LOL.

There is no rule that a song should last at least 3:30. That's just ridiculous.

A song could last 1 minute, for all I care. As long as it's good.

The length of a CD does not dictate how good it is. Some of my favorite albums of all time don't even last 40 minutes.

I don't understand how somebody can measure a Cd's quality level by the length.

Gwen Stefani's new CD will have 12 standard tracks. She has recorded several [and maybe even in the 100s] songs, so why not include them?

Maybe because they don't fit in with the rest of the songs?? There could be a million reasons. But I'm glad that Gwen isn't including songs just for the sake of including them and extending the length of her album. That would just be ridiculous.

I would rather have the 12 good songs along with 6 "s**tty" tracks than nothing at all.

So you'd rather bring down the quality of the album with 6 crappy songs, then have a great CD that's a little shorter? LMAO. This topic is just getting funnier and funnier!

[spooky21]

From a creative perspective, many artists create "albums" to be seen or listened to as complete artistic works, with the "single" only being a means of driving traffic to the album itself. A physical copy vs digital copy doesn't really matter much but you would have to believe that most of the world isn't yet in the digital phase that we have the luxury of being part off. Additionally, some would argue that there is unappreciated value in the design of artwork for physical CD and the materials that accompany it.

Even from a "singles" perspective, the majority of musicians don't see the type of "single" success that we typically talk about here at Pulse, so it makes it even more important for them that they have a full album to represent their creative output.

[Pink Champagne Ricochet]

So you'd rather bring down the quality of the album with 6 crappy songs, then have a great CD that's a little shorter? LMAO. This topic is just getting funnier and funnier!

I feel that with iTunes, iPods, burned CDs, etc. you can mix and match the tracks you like. I'm an obsessive completist 99% of the time, so I prefer to have as many tracks as possible. If there's 18 tracks and I only like 12, I can just only add those 12 to my iPod and only rip 12 and only listen to those 12. IMO, the songs an artist/their label thinks are the best and the ones most worth listening to might not necessarily be the ones I like.

It'd be okay if they still put out singles so maybe those songs could come out as b-sides or something, but at least in the U.S., the physical singles market is dead, so most of the time, if the songs aren't on the album they tend to fall into the ether and are never heard, which really bugs me with artists I like. And the UK is moving more and more towards downloads too, so that's one less market where b-sides could be released.

And you can't deny that if a random person is in a store and looking at two CDs that they have the same base interest in buying (because they heard the song on the radio), I think a longer tracklisting for the same price will sway sales in their favor (as long as it's actual SONGS and not interludes/intros).

As for the album, I think it's definitely important that they keep going. However, I think the revolution of iTunes might make it a bit different. I don't know how many times somebody blows up with one song, and then they quickly have to make an album to capitalize on that success. A bit more of a focus on singles would allow them to take more time working on an album and come out with a decent product. There would be more one-off singles as opposed to lead singles. And if they CAN'T come out with a good entire album, boo hoo, they just keep releasing singles. For some artists, that would be good. but I don't think it would kill the album because it's still the eventual goal, and it's still where people make money. It could actually make the album more cohesive, I think, because you could release the commercial smashes seperately to keep the artist in the public eye and simultaneously release albums with all different songs to be listened to as a whole when none of the songs are necessarily commercial.

[joker]

The topic title should read:

I think CDs should NOT EXSIST IF THE ARTIST ISN'T GOING TO WORK.

Every era has had its share of "singles artists". It's not at all uncommon that there are artists who crank out a CD full of crap except for the well-known single or two. In those cases, just buy the single(s) or nothing at all. Or, if you must have 15 good songs from them in one place, your best bet is to wait for a Greatest Hits.

spooky21 said:

From a creative perspective, many artists create "albums" to be seen or listened to as complete artistic works, with the "single" only being a means of driving traffic to the album itself.

Even from a "singles" perspective, the majority of musicians don't see the type of "single" success that we typically talk about here at Pulse, so it makes it even more important for them that they have a full album to represent their creative output.

Very well said.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

spooky21 said:

From a creative perspective, many artists create "albums" to be seen or listened to as complete artistic works, with the "single" only being a means of driving traffic to the album itself.  A physical copy vs digital copy doesn't really matter much but you would have to believe that most of the world isn't yet in the digital phase that we have the luxury of being part off.  Additionally, some would argue that there is unappreciated value in the design of artwork for physical CD and the materials that accompany it.

Even from a "singles" perspective, the majority of musicians don't see the type of "single" success that we typically talk about here at Pulse, so it makes it even more important for them that they have a full album to represent their creative output.

That is an interesting point. Which is why the singles and albums market should be separate. Record companies think they should release an album from every artists. Why not have some artists be singles artists and some artists be albums artists? I think that type of business model could work. Usually they classify artists by genre but now they can also classify them and market artists based on their abilities. For an artist like say Kelis or Fergie I would release singles. For an artist like say Norah Jones I would release an album.

[spooky21]

adonis said:

spooky21 said:

From a creative perspective, many artists create "albums" to be seen or listened to as complete artistic works, with the "single" only being a means of driving traffic to the album itself.  A physical copy vs digital copy doesn't really matter much but you would have to believe that most of the world isn't yet in the digital phase that we have the luxury of being part off.  Additionally, some would argue that there is unappreciated value in the design of artwork for physical CD and the materials that accompany it.

Even from a "singles" perspective, the majority of musicians don't see the type of "single" success that we typically talk about here at Pulse, so it makes it even more important for them that they have a full album to represent their creative output.

That is an interesting point. Which is why the singles and albums market should be separate. Record companies think they should release an album from every artists. Why not have some artists be singles artists and some artists be albums artists? I think that type of business model could work. Usually they classify artists by genre but now they can also classify them and market artists based on their abilities. For an artist like say Kelis or Fergie I would release singles. For an artist like say Norah Jones I would release an album.

Simple explanation.  In general, Record companies make more money for album sales than single sales, regardless of the artist.

Keeping all things simple, in this day and age, a million copies of a single sold would give you approximately 1MM dollars (of all the artists in the world, only a VERY SMALL percentage is selling 1MM copies of a single.)

500K albums sold at an average price of $9.99 will give you 5MM.  Even if an artist like Fergie only sells a total of 1MM albums worldwide (conservative estimate), the company will make 6MM more dollars than it would if it managed to sell 4MM individual singles (almost impossible for 99.9999999999% of artist).

Yes it's nice to sell singles, but at the end of the day, it is really only extra icing on the cake for the record companies, a relatively small portion of their overall income.  As a business, especially a struggling one, you figure out how you can make the most money and strategize from there.

Two, singles are a hit or miss.  There are obviously huge cost that go into producing a single and promoting it.  You'd have a much better chance of a successful single if you use top Producers who charge hundreds of thousands from their services.  Add in radio promo costs, video production cost  that are close to millions these days and you find out that the income from those individual singles are enough to fund themselves, let alone pay the artist or give the company any substantial profit.  It just isn't economically viable and the more you cut costs, one could argue that generally quality could be impacted. You would need to sell far more than 1MM copies to recoup all the costs related to each single. Most artist can't even sell 1MM copies of ALL the singles they released during an album era.

So no, record businesses cannot sustain themselves through single sales.....or at least the way they are priced now. Plus the market isn't willing to pay substantially more for the single so the model doesn't really work.

[damnnnitzzjohn]

rob64 said:

damnnnitzzjohn said:

I'm sick of these rap albums that are only 40-60mins with these 2-3 min songs..songs should all be atleast 330. there is NO excuse for that

rap:

3 20sec chorus
3 40 sec verse

that is 3 mins right there plus some instrumental/intro/outro...

Wow, this is getting more and more ridiculous. LOL.

There is no rule that a song should last at least 3:30. That's just ridiculous.

A song could last 1 minute, for all I care. As long as it's good.

The length of a CD does not dictate how good it is. Some of my favorite albums of all time don't even last 40 minutes.

I don't understand how somebody can measure a Cd's quality level by the length.



Maybe because they don't fit in with the rest of the songs?? There could be a million reasons. But I'm glad that Gwen isn't including songs just for the sake of including them and extending the length of her album. That would just be ridiculous.

I would rather have the 12 good songs along with 6 "s**tty" tracks than nothing at all.

So you'd rather bring down the quality of the album with 6 crappy songs, then have a great CD that's a little shorter? LMAO. This topic is just getting funnier and funnier!

I don't care if the album has 1 track that is 40 mins and its amazing.

I want quanity...of course quality, but still...why pay $10+ for low songs? Just buy on iTunes for cheaper. that is point...idk maybe not..its hard for what im trying to say, but what you THINK iswant what im saying.

[Bri.I.Am]

babyboylrtm said:

Well, people like Christina Millian, Amerie, Fat Joe, LL Cool J, Diddy etc. should just release random singles instead of bombing with every album.

lmao
true that!