The Album is Dead…
Different approaches to music. Kind of a classic.
One approach to experiencing music is there.
Triggering this reply by Daniel Stout:
That idea works well for your approach to music where adding hit songs to one’s collection is like adding pearls to a necklace. Some people, I would include myself in this, feel that the album is greater than the sum of its parts. A song is a song, but an album is a work. That mix of stuff that constitutes an entire album feels like something. It’s a creative statement. A song by itself can evoke a mood or a place or a time, but it’s just a slice.
Your idea, Mr. Cuban, is intriguing, but it depends on the artist and the person buying the music. Some artists are more about the hit single, and the album is a bit of an afterthought. But for people less motivated by a hit single, they may be more motivated to own an artifact — a creative work in its entirety. A previous commenter mentioned vinyl records and according to an article in this week’s Time Magazine, vinyl sales rose 15% to just shy of a million records last year. The numbers aren’t huge, but that definitely shows there are people who want to own an artifact complete with cover art, liner notes, etc.
What do you think?
