If there’s one thing universal that everyone in the world could appreciate, it’s got to be music.
Obtaining music has become an easier task now, and continues to becomes much easier, as online music stores like iTunes, Amazon.com and Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace Center offer music buffs one-click access to the discographies of a plethora of artists. Just click, buy and download and no sooner will that new Muse song be on your “September 2k9” playlist.
With iTunes, I could sample a song for 30 seconds, and even hop online to sites like YouTube and Imeem to hear the song in its entirety before actually purchasing it. And overall that’s the beauty of the music industry now.
No longer will I have to sit through the whole album to hear songs that I like. I could simply pick and choose, and buy songs individually.
Gone are the days when I have to hash out a twenty to buy a whole CD, and end up with buyer’s remorse later when I end up just liking three or four songs from the album.
Websites like Imeem enable music fans to preview the song without buying the album to help them decide if buying it is worthy or not. Even Microsoft’s Zune offers a “Zune Pass” wherein subscribers can pay $14.99 a month and have unlimited song downloading.
Customers can legally download as many songs they want, play them on their computer or take them on the go with their Zune player, but after a month, can only keep 10 songs.
Piracy aside, this ability to pick and choose songs, and buy them individually online are clearly the driving factors to dwindling CD sales. Buying the actual CD has become even more of a rarity nowadays, as online music sales clearly continues to become the popular choice.
Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired.com reported that Forrester Research Inc. has predicted that, “41 percent of music sales will be digital by 2013.”
But then, at the same time according to Van Buskirk, those online downloads won’t make up for the drop in CD sales overall causing, “the music market [to] shrink.”
Picking, choosing and buying songs are a convenience, but can clearly be a setback. It has an impact on CD sales, but it also detracts from the listener appreciating the artist’s CD as a whole.
Again, having to listen and sit through the whole CD can be a chore, especially if most of the tracks you hear aren’t clicking in your ears or leave you wanting to keep that song on repeat.
But on the other hand, sitting through an album can leave one to appreciate some songs on an album that don’t crack the “Top 40,” and are considered the “deep cuts” in an album.
Looking at a favorite artist of mine, Jack Johnson, his songs like “Upside Down,” “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing,” and “Taylor” have been released as singles and are well known to many in the mainstream world.
But other tracks from his songbook like “Mudfootball,” “Traffic in the Sky,” “Banana Pancakes,” “If I Could,” and “Enemy” haven’t been released as singles, yet could also have been warranted as a great “Top 40” release.
Similarly, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is nearly six minutes long, yet the part of the song that many quickly think of is when the song hits the three minute mark (“I see a little silhouetto of a man/Scaramouche, Scaramouche…).
In the same way, think of the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Pyscho.”
The exposition, character development and what exactly leads into that scene would be unknown of, in the same way that the poignant intro and epic guitar solo would be in “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
One has to see the whole movie or listen to the whole song to appreciate the story being told. Likewise, a listener has to listen to the whole CD in its entirety to appreciate the artists’ effort.
Music is universal, but could also be debated when it comes down to personal choice of genre, or what simply sounds good in ones ears versus someone else’s. And overall, picking, choosing and buying songs online play into that greatly.
But as that debate goes on, and whether one chooses to buy songs or the hard CD copy, the beat still goes on.
The Lewis Flyer
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