Digital Media Is Not The Death Of The Album

One of the laments voiced by the labels and RIAA is that music lovers downloading singles will be the death of the album.  That doesn’t make much sense to me based on my experience.

My first three music purchases in the late 70’s were singles on 7″ vinyl.  My fourth and fifth purchases were LP’s on 12″ vinyl.  My parents had boxes of 45’s and a serious amount of LPs as well.  Singles were very popular in the 60’s and 70’s but musicians still produced full-length albums.  In the 80’s, cassettes became the audio medium of choice and I loved their durability.  I carried a few of my favorites with me to the Middle East when I was deployed for Desert Shield and I have to them to this day.  Recording songs to blank cassettes from the radio was very big back in the day.

Then came the CD and a requirement for me to re-purchase every cassette I owned.  Compact discs are not the least bit durable and I’m sure the age of the CD was a financial watershed for the labels.  Imagine: millions of people purchasing dozens of (more expensive) versions of the music they already own and on a MUCH frailer format to boot.  I don’t know why CD singles never caught on.  Perhaps we were being conditioned to buy the more expensive conpact disc LPs by the industry?

For my part, I still purchase CDs but I download MP3s as well.  I rip my CDs to my harddrive because it makes sense.  I can then store the original CD safely away and place the MP3s on my iPod.

The labels – and some of the musicians – are quickly becoming as hated by consumers as the big oil companies.  I doubt they were expecting that.