iTUNES BLESSING OR CURSE?
Rocketown Records has somehow coerced the folks at iTunes to carry an exclusive download of Bless the Lord, the first single from the CD WHITE FLAG in stores July 12th. They also got it featured in the "inspirational" (gag) page of the iTunes music store.
Grateful as I am, my always-overthinking brain is a little wary of spreading this "good" news. My concern is this: Since we know that radio play drove about 60% of my sales in the past, is it a good idea to release the one radio song getting played right now as a download before the full CD comes out? If someone four year ago could have downloaded only Welcome Home (the biggest "hit" from my first record) would they have done so and never checked out the rest of the CD?
This is important to think about, not just because of financial concerns, but because of ministry concerns too. I've written a record around a theme, the beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), and every song is important, to me, in communicating what those eight simple blessings by Christ mean for us today. And besides, if we truly move to a singles driven marketplace, one in which consumers only purchase individual songs they've heard on the radio, stations could end up with too much power - power some might not wield with the aim of discipleship and serving the thinking listener in mind. Instead, radio COULD use it's power to sell only the three minute, fifth grade reading level, upbeat, positive and always safe for the whole family songs (songs that cannot possibly communicate all of scripture because most of scripture is none of those things). I'm glad the happy light songs have a home on some stations but I don't want those songs to be all anyone hears from me and other artists with more to say than a single can contain. Entire albums with powerful "b-sides", songs that would never get radio play, could go unheard and unpurchased someday, sitting alone in some hard drive somewhere sobbing, "I have something important to say! Buy me! Buy me!"
So I'm thankful people are getting to buy and hear Bless the Lord before the entire CD is available. I just hope those downloaders grab the whole record when it comes out too. Maybe this is how magazine publishers feel about bloggers! Maybe bloggers steal the casual reader like singles and radio steal the casual listener.
What do you think? Think we're heading for a singles driven marketplace where local radio rules? If you download a single what are the odds of you checking out the full CD later on? Is offering singles for download instead of the whole record a good idea or not? Still reading USA Today or has a smaller more targeted-to-you blog replaced it? I'm listening, and so is the music industry.
Got thoughts? Discuss this SHLOG on my message-board
posted by Shaun Groves @ 6/09/2005
5 comments
5 Comments:
Hi Shaun,
Always good thoughts. Personally, and I say this as a radio person, I hope it never comes down to a singles only market - I love the album. I want a full album to listen to - how else will you truly know an artist's music?
As for radio that plays only positive, upbeat, and encouraging music (a mantra we even say at WAY), I'm not sure if any of those stations only actually play that music (depending on your point of view). I think the stations will play the music that sounds good - I think "I Can't Do This" by Plumb is a good example (that WAY is playing right now). It's not really the most positive, upbeat, and encouraging song around. On the flip side however, you could argue even the songs that don't paint a rosy picture, if they come from a Christian world-view, could technically be looked at as encouraging - because most of those still reflect some type of hope - even when life isn't good right now, and if not in that song, in other songs.
Just a thought...
hi Shaun. I'm an atypical Christian - i don't listen to Christian radio -- firstly because Canada's not a country that has very many stations - i'd be hard pressed to find one if i went to the radio right now. I don't listen to non-Christian radio either. I just don't dig it. . I hate the commercials, i don't like inane banter. I don't have all the latest gadgets, no ipod, no mp3, I also don't download. I get my music at the store when i buy the CD. Hopefully there are still plenty of ppl out there like me? *it sounds though like we might going the way of the dinosaur?* I don't have any of your CDs, cuz i'm not up on all the Christian artists and am woefully 'ignorant' i suppose is the word, when it comes to who's out there. However. . . you know what? I'm going to buy one of your CDs because I saw you interviewed on "100 Huntley Street" (the only long-running Christian show that i know of in this country) and I really liked how you talked to the interviewer. I didn't even hear you sing - i guess i missed that part?
It seems that some people or groups of people feel that truth, beauty and God's word seem to need 'homogenizing' to make for mass palatability? or that these holy things needs to be sound bited, hyperspeed montaged or encapsulated like a 'one-a-day chewable'??
Interesting viewpoint Shaun. I have heard the opposite said about iTunes- namely that it frees the clutch hold that radio has over singles since the typical CD single has always been the one that's played on the radio. Now people can potentially purchase just any one song on a CD. However, you're quite right that some people will just buy the individual song they like and not the whole CD. I've done that for many artists, though my typical process when I hear a good song is to listen to a few of the 30 second clips on iTunes and decide if I want the whole album or just the song I liked. In one sense, I suppose that helps the artist- in many cases I probably would not have just ran out and bought the whole CD for an artist who has a single on the radio that I like, but it's given me cause to investigate and somtimes buy the whole shebang!
Regardless, I am sure this will change the landscape of the music business, if it hasn't already.
I'm not sure about the whole itunes thing. If I like a CD and I can afford it, I buy it. I don't download music, but mostly cause I can't be bothered and I'd rather have a CD, complete with nice cover and graphics and lyrics inside the cover. Just so I can belt it out along with the CD (singers, we just can't help but sing along). Still, if someone had only downloaded Welcome Home from Invitation to Eavesdrop, they would have missed out.
Where have you been, Shaun? This has been one of the big quandries of the music industry since iTunes came out a few years ago as a legitimate way to buy music online.
Is the album dead? That's the big question. Of course you've got to look on the positive side: How many people will discover you because of that 99-cent introduction, as opposed to a $12.99 introduction? I think the potential for a singles market also encourages artists to make the entire album that much better. I own plenty of albums where I only listen to two or three songs, and I would have been happy to pay $3 for those songs instead of $12 for the whole album.
Does that mean artists like yourself will lose money and starve? Hopefully not. Hopefully more people will buy a handful of singles who otherwise wouldn't buy your album and it'll all work out.
The times they are a changin'. Roll with it.
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