There’s an article in today’s Telegraph about iTunes that I found interesting. In it, AC/DC are used as an example of a band that is against their material being made available on iTunes because the platform marginalizes the concept of a complete album.
The article begins by addressing the fact that Kid Rock, who had a worldwide hit this past summer, has sold in excess of two million copies of his current album without it, or the single, being available on iTunes. This, in turn, started the wheels turning at Warner, who then tried an experiment with an artists called Estelle. Realizing that her single was doing significant business on the US iTunes store but not selling nearly as many complete albums, they decided to pull the record from iTunes in the US entirely. As one might expect, the experiment backfired.
The reason? Estelle is not AC/DC nor Kid Rock, both of whom have established global fan bases that will purchase their releases at standard retail, even if to simply get their hands on a single song.
One of the most interesting quotes in the article came from Elbow’s lead singer Guy Garvey, who claimed that iTunes is responsible for the death of the album.
While the page dedicated to Elbow on Wikipedia claims that they have been together for 18 years, the reality is that Garvey was 16 in 1990, and that their first release did not come out until 2001. Thus, on a professional level, Garvey has had no real release experience with regards to an era in which album sales were still stable. The truth of the matter is that the industry itself is responsible for the death of the album, and the massive declination in sales in the mid to late 90’s proves that. It was the industry’s arrogance that ultimately drove the art of the complete album underground, with only an established sector of well known artists able to weather the storm.
When examining ‘the death of the album’, one must first look at the mechanism that had previously been seen as responsible for nurturing true career artists. As the industry struggled with declining sales, primarily because of the net, the development and dedication to such artists was almost entirely abandoned unless they were already established. Thus, the industry began to rely more on manufacturing artists, ones that needn’t necessarily possess staying power, but could provide them with immediate revenue bumps. This phenomenon led to a massive transformation at commercial radio, the death of music television as a truly creative promotional outlet, and the further mistrust of a music buying public that had grown tired of records that contained little more than one or two good songs.
The restrictions of genre also became a factor as well. Artists in various genres were urged to remain dedicated to those elements that had gained them notoriety and were commonly not supported by their labels to develop or risk altering their work in any significant way in fear of a loss in sales. Thus, artists ran their course and were simply replaced by something new and therefore ‘fresh’ in the minds of the public. Those artists that did attempt to change and grow routinely found themselves out in the cold - their sales languished, they received little support, and were stuck with a perception of failure even if their newer work proved that they were artists of real worth.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been artists that have lasted within the confines of the formulaic (many have for decades, AC/DC included), just that in those cases their sales are usually so globally significant that drastically altering their formulas would be extremely detrimental to them.
In a time when the album was being suffocated by the industry, iTunes offered the public an alternative. If a record contained only one or two good songs then they had the ability to buy them. But they have also always had the ability to preview the rest of the record. If an album is solid from front to back, if it is truly a complete piece, consumers have the ability to purchase it as a whole. And while I agree that we live in a day and age in which the art of the album has certainly declined, I disagree that iTunes is responsible for it. If the finger is to be pointed at anyone it should be pointed at the industry and those accountants-turned-music experts that were so ironically instrumental in its loss of monopoly. Their inability to change and adapt affected the perspective of an entire generation of music listeners, and they have no one but themselves to blame for it.
Getting back to the article - using AC/DC as an example is, in my opinion, ridiculous. AC/DC is a band that has sold hundreds of millions of records over the decades, can tour and fill arenas throughout the world on a yearly basis without even releasing a record to justify it, and has such dedicated fans that it doesn’t need the help of anyone to amass sales. They are, like the Rolling Stones, an entity unto themselves, an economic super-machine that can sell everything from shot glasses to coasters and make millions in the process without even releasing a record.
As many of you are aware, I am a diehard champion of albums as complete pieces of work. I have recorded numerous concept albums over the years, and have always believed that if an album as a whole cannot stand the test of time then, no matter its initial popularity, it isn’t of artistic significance. And I will openly admit now that I believe that maxim applies to my own work in numerous cases.
As for iTunes, a backlash was inevitable. It is now the biggest retailer in the United States and is about to become the biggest in the UK as well. It was only a matter of time before it was demonized, and behind that movement you will surely find the industry. The reason is simple enough – they don’t control iTunes, nor do they possess the ability to influence it as they do other formats. And for people that are used to getting their own way, that’s simply unacceptable.
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