Is the album dead? Mark Cuban seems to think so. If you don't know who Cuban is, he's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. He also has a blog and has written some of the best things to ever appear on the Internet. I know, you're probably thinking, "better than that piano-playing cat?!?" It's true.
In Cuban's latest blog entry, he says:
Consumser are buying music 1 track at a time. I think people will pay 99c to get a single rather than steal it. I think people would rather steal a full album rather than pay 10 dollars or more for it.
Labels need to make the effort to get artists to deliver in a manner that realizes these perspectives.
Now, it's important to note that Cuban is a businessman talking about ways to help the music business. So he's not taking into account the fact that listening to an album is a totally different experience from hearing one single, or that most hit songs in this decade have come from shitty rappers that you never hear from again. It's all about making money. It's also important to note that Mark Cuban traded Steve Nash and then Nash went on to become 2-time NBA MVP, so can we really trust him? The point is, people these days buy digital music, but they're not responding to brilliant art; they're responding to overplayed singles and dance crazes.
Which brings us to our next story: Soulja Boy's Crank Dat is the best-selling digital single ever! The song has sold over 3,000,000 copies online. Even I know that whole dance, and I'm a 26-year old dude, so you know that song is out of control.
"Soulja Boy has set the bar for what's possible in terms of breaking an artist online," said record exec Steve Berman, otherwise known as that guy who tells Eminem "I can't sell this shit!" at the beginning of the "Way I Am" video.
For years we've been hearing the argument that record labels should put out better music and people would buy more albums. But maybe they should do the opposite. If people are buying hit singles, maybe record labels should stop trying to put out albums and focus on hit singles. What's the point of letting Soulja Boy even make an album? Why not just have him put out a single every couple months and hope it takes off? If the point is to make money, shouldn't they see what's already making money and do more of it?
If you're a die-hard music fan like myself, this news is upsetting, because this trend means the decline of brilliant albums and the rise of overplayed hit singles. But I was talking to my friend common sense, and he told me, "it's been like this for 30 years, just because we invented blogs doesn't make it some crisis all of a sudden." Then he slapped me in the face and said to shut up and get him a drink. He can be a real dick sometimes. I guess he's got a point, though.
