I'm glad that the download market has brought cherrypicking. But what I'm curious about: why do record companies continue to allow this, instead of insisting on bundling the songs together as an album, as they used to do? (In the US, before the download era, they had virtually stopped making singles at all.)

 

Somewhere I read that Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" was *not* available for single download in the US, in order to force people to buy the album. So apparently it's possible to withhold singles from (legal) download. I wonder why this is not done more often (and fear that it will be).

 

The amnswer is simple - people will happily pay 79p for one track they like, but will refuse to be blackmailed into buying a whole album just for one song!

 

Record companies might not be able to admit it publicly, but they know perfectly well that preventing cherry-picking encourages illegal downloading.

I personally don't think that album sales have fallen because of cherrypicking - I think its more to do with people being able to hear albums in full (via Spotify, or some other medium online) before buying and deciding whether on the basis of what they hear whether it would be better to buy the whole album, or just the tracks that they like..

 

This is surely a good thing - people are simply being more selective rather than buying it 'just in case it's good'.

 

It will surely discourage artists from just producing crappy album-filler tracks - if they want big sales, they'll have to really make an effort.

Perhaps the record companies might sell more albums if they stopped trying to rip us off! Why buy a new release at a tenner when its going to be reissued with a couple of new tracks within 6 months to a year (and the original version reduced to £4/5 just as the re-issue is about to hit the shops). Or mulitple versions of the same album with some slight difference that fans of the act will be tempted to buy all versions for - 2 examples..................

 

On HMV at the moment.

 

My Chemical Romance - Danger Days True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys Hmv Exclusive With Navy Blue Bandana

My Chemical Romance - Danger Days True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys Hmv Exclusive With Yellow Bandana

My Chemical Romance - Danger Days True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys Hmv Exclusive With Black Bandana

My Chemical Romance - Danger Days True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys Hmv Exclusive With White Bandana

 

£15 each!

 

There's 5 versions of The Wanted's album each with a different band member featured at £9 each.

Some artists sell tonnes of albums and tonnes of singles - Eminem, Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas...you could say Cheryl Cole does as well......it just depends on the artist.

 

Those 4 will have a hit just because of who they are.....Eminem is almost gauranteed top 10 every time he releases a single...I think the only single that hasn't gone top 10 was Beautiful, and that's because it was released late.

Same with Gaga, only single is LoveGame, because it was released late (I think?)..........BEPs have missed 3 times, but have unearthly sales......Cheryl hasn't missed top 10 yet :P

BEPs have missed 3 times, but have unearthly sales......Cheryl hasn't missed top 10 yet :P

 

Correction: BEPs have missed 3 times *since their first T10 hit*

 

Beautiful is so far the only official Eminem single to miss the top 10, but unfortunately No Love is hardly lighting up the charts at the moment :(

Edited October 28, 201014 yr by ~ braysammich ~

There's 5 versions of The Wanted's album each with a different band member featured at £9 each.

As if there wasn't enough resemblance between them and JLS :dance:

Correction: BEPs have missed 3 times *since their first T10 hit*

 

Beautiful is so far the only official Eminem single to miss the top 10, but unfortunately No Love is hardly lighting up the charts at the moment :(

I know...it says 3 in my post.

 

No Love isn't out for another 2 weeks.

I know...it says 3 in my post.

 

No Love isn't out for another 2 weeks.

 

It says 3, yes, but it doesn't say 'since their first T10 hit'

On the subject of bundling albums to prevent cherrypicking wasn't it Pink Floyd who sued iTunes to force them to do that to their albums as the original contractual agreement for the albums was that no singles would ever be made from them? And at the time didn't the article say that many other acts/artists/labels might ask for the same once the precedent had been set? Apologies if I've got this wrong.

I wonder how much artists actually care about albums anyway.

 

With some albums, each track is relevant to the other/is best heard in a certain sequence/tells a complete story/is simply how the artist wants it.

 

With others - I'd say usually but not always with artists who don't write their own stuff - how much does it really matter what tracks go where, or how they're listened to? It's just a grouping of the 'best' (spurious in many cases) songs an artist has at that particular time. If the artist sells only 200k albums but, say, 500k, 400k, 250k and 200k for four cherry-picked tracks, then that's a great incentive to keep an act on the books, especially popular stuff, because the big singles will get the airplay/video views, the albums won't.

 

I'd argue that sales aren't that much of a problem with pop or rock/indie lite - these albums still sell pretty well (example is Pixie Lott - massive sales in this sales climate, considering it's straight up pop music with lots of singles taken from it), though nothing like the massive sales from 2003-05. Rap and RnB albums have generally always sold poorly in comparison to the singles. It's anything alternative/harder rock/indie that's in more trouble, because the singles don't chart as high any more and the albums don't sell very much usually.

I know...it says 3 in my post.

 

No Love isn't out for another 2 weeks.

 

Not *officially* - but compare how well LTWYL did before official release...

I wonder how much artists actually care about albums anyway.

 

With some albums, each track is relevant to the other/is best heard in a certain sequence/tells a complete story/is simply how the artist wants it.

 

But surely what's important is what the customer wants? If they want unbundling, then ISTM the artist should not veto that if they have any common sense