Hypebot.com has put together an interesting article regarding music criticism, and the value of an album vs a single. The article suggests that reviewing entire albums is a dated form of criticism; while a new focus on a singles would be more beneficial to listeners and readers alike.
The article also suggests that Internet based reviews should provide links to let the listener hear the music being reviewed, a practice that we regularly participate in. The success of singles sales through iTunes and other online distributors gives great weight to this argument, but does it translate to metal? A genre that typically shuns the single, and whose most loved acts often aim to construct full complete albums.
So what do you think? We would like to know! Leave us some feedback: should websites like crustcake.com and other metal sites focus more on singles?
For more info you can read the original article in it's entirety here.
August 11, 2008
Album or Single?
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6 hollers:
Digital single sales are outpacing album unit sales by 3X. So I suppose we could justify focusing on singles vs album reviews in the interest of giving people what they want. But then, I think we'd be contributing to the commoditization of music. Sure, the money is in singles these days. But if we continue to follow the money, flash forward five years and we'll be reviewing ringtones.
Long live the album format. Just my $0.02.
The largely absent statistics in the linked article make me lean toward throwing it out entirely. Their only anecdotal evidence comes from Rolling Stone's all time lists, which lean more heavily towards people who don't have much of a musical opinion of their own.
The fact that the single is selling well is temporal. Singles have sold well in the past, in vinyl days, and under the iTunes regime it's come to popularity again. But the iTunes model is threatened by the Amazon model, which allows for full albums. NIN's Ghosts I-IV may also be instructive as well, with the concept of a Side A as a loss-leader for the full length.
I'd agree with the relevance of the single in the pop realm, but I've always seen that as more relevant to DJ's than to actual listeners. I don't see single sales as a sustainable model for artists, so I expect them to fall out of favor (outside of pop) again in the near future.
Well that's a way to tie in a lot of records these days to warn people not to buy garbage. Instead of reviewing the entire record and wasting your time just tell them. "The single you heard on the radio is great...but the rest of the record sucks". With a lot of pop music records I suppose this could be, but in order to give the good bands their fair credit, you need to let the person that might buy the entire album what they are in store for and whether it's wroth their money to buy the entire album or just the single.
As you mentioned, it's unlikely this argument applies to metal criticism. The writer is wrong to include this line:
"...fans have always placed more emphasis on the single, no matter what the genre or relatively popularity of a band."
Metal fans prefer albums. Just a fact. But he probably has a point regarding metal promotion. Single analysis and links to other similar and new bands would be cool. But you're already doing that! Which is why I read this blog...
Don't focus on singles, but include them. If crustcake and others ignored the album, you would definitely anger the metal gods.
its all about the album! How many of use fell in love with a band because of one song. I remember getting an album from a band that i liked and sitting in my room reading everything in the record sleeve and admiring the inlay. I would spend hours doing this and I still do this. I feel we cut a band short by just summing it up in one song. I guess if anything review the album and highlight the songs worth getting in case someone is more interested in buying an album
I do think it makes sense to review or comment on singles, but not in place of albums. As long as albums are being made and sold... i think it makes sense to review them. If albums stop being made, then it's time to stop reviewing them!
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