Apple, Record Labels Want You to Buy Albums

[Marcus Yam]

Record companies hoping users will go back to buying the full album experience.

Apple, Record Labels Want You to Buy Albums : Read more

 

[g-thor]

First question - will the songs and the extra content have DRM on them? If so, then it won't make it worth buying, no matter what "added value" you think you've put into it.

Second question - who would sit around with their friends looking at album art on a monitor? It was one thing when you could pass the album cover from person to person, read the notes and lyrics, pull the sleeves and look at the art on them. Now we would have to huddle arounf the computer, no hands on. It still lacks the tactile aspect. Interactive it may be, but only for the one holding the mouse.

Third question - does this mean you're going to improve the music quality on the albums? Can we expect more than one good track now? (Okay, I know that's two, but they really adress the same concept.)

Fourth question - why am I wasting my time on these questions? ;^)

 

[Guest]

Of course back in the day when people bought the whole album there was a whole album of good music. Now you get one maybe two good songs and the rest is filler you will listen to but once. Bring back albums that took time and therefore had quality and people with buy them.

 

[duckmanx88]

they already did this by making tracks 1.29. but maybe it would help if artists made all their songs great. i really regret buying that Baha Men cd for just "who let the dogs out".

 

[AMDnoob]

I like digital downloads for the ability to get only what I want. Instead of having to buy a half dozen songs that I don't like, just for the one I do.

 

[cilantro13]

What makes digital downloads great is that you don't have to buy ten crappy songs to get the two you like. Newsflash to the labels: people aren't buying the albums because nobody wants to pay for the filler crap that you used to force feed us.

Once again, record labels out of touch. So surprised.

As for me, whenever I buy a CD (yes, I still like to have the flexibility of ripping my own mp3's), I store the CD and throw away all the stuff that they say makes their retarded cocktails great. Idiots.

 

[LORD_ORION]

Wow, talk about something I will not buy. At best I am willing to shell out for a "greatest hits" album that has a few songs I want.

This is as awesome as iTunes recommending a whack load of songs in a genre that mostly suck and asking you to buy them all in one shot at no discount...

Want me to buy more songs? Offer me a bulk discount if I blow $20+ in one shot that scales proportionally.

 

[doomtomb]

Greatest Hits albums are the only full albums worth buying really. Guess what record companies: the game has changed. Stop trying to push your old business models at us, they really aren't working anymore.

 

[Montezuma]

This is the last nail in the coffin. I will never pay for another song from this point forward. There is nothing that the record companies, nor Apple, could give with full albums that would ever provoke me to purchase them. Unless there is a worthwhile artist, along with a record company, that is will to sell full albums will nothing but great songs, I will never change my mind.

My guess is, these record companies will work towards forcing us to always purchase the whole digital album, as it was in the past.

 

[matt87_50]

I don't think the album is a label thing, i think its more a musician thing. I prefer albums to singles, I usually find that my favorite song on an album isn't a single or played on the radio at all. if you only like one or two of the songs on an album, then you probably don't really like the artist, or they are just not really that good, probably very manufactured / one hit wonder style.

I think its a good idea to really bundle the songs up and offer special extras with the album, make it look like a single purchase rather than just a list of single song purchases

 

[matt87_50]

[citation][nom]duckmanx88[/nom]they already did this by making tracks 1.29. but maybe it would help if artists made all their songs great. i really regret buying that Baha Men cd for just "who let the dogs out".[/citation]

As you f$%@ing should!

 

[dimar]

Album or song, if it's not in FLAC format, I'm not paying for it no matter what, or who sells it.

 

[hercules]

The only albums i buy these days are ministry of sound albums the rest I just DL

 

[deltatux]

I usually tend to only buy songs in album forms, so this isn't something interesting.

$10 for an album, much cheaper than where I can get it from a local store and is DRM free and it's already in AAC, not in the outdated MP3 format which is good.

 

[duckmanx88]

[citation][nom]deltatux[/nom]$10 for an album, much cheaper than where I can get it from a local store and is DRM free and it's already in AAC, not in the outdated MP3 format which is good.[/citation]

itunes is in AAC and DRM free and you're taxed for it through a retail store.

 

[Draven35]

With Itunes etc, artists don't need the record companies anymore... how about them earning $.71 per track sold, instead of them getting about $.20 per CD sold? and that's *after* Apple's share and the aggregator's share...

 

[Caffeinecarl]

Gimme CD's anyday. Apple, your goose is already cooked as far as I go. I'm not buying your proprietary, over-compressed crap anymore.

 

[TheZander]

If the whole album has good music, I buy the whole album, whether CD or MP3. Although the nice thing about digital files is that DRM is finally waning, and you can just get the songs you want.

But with Amazon's sales, even if only 3 or 4 songs are good, I often buy the whole album. They are pushing album sales harder than ANY of the yayhoos listed in this article....

 

[nurgletheunclean]

[citation][nom]deltatux[/nom]not in the outdated MP3 format which is good.[/citation]

And why exactly is MP3 outdated? AAC is great for 5.1 but for stereo MP3 is great. It's supported by every digital music player, no matter how obscure everything will play an mp3 and not complain about it. You would be hard pressed to distinguish the difference between a 192k MP3 and any other format in therms of quality.
Also the number of gain, normalization, waveform, ID3, general manipulation tools for MP3s make MP3 currently most desirable format for stereo audio.

 

[Aionism]

Anyone talking about there only being a couple good songs per album should consider listening to better bands.