Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

At the start of the year I noted that the fall in music sales might have a lot to do with the fact that consumers are picking and choosing songs instead of purchasing entire albums. Two articles that I read last week seem to indicate the trend. Silicon Republic reported on the latest iTunes upgrade which hopes to encourage consumers to purchase more albums:

Apple’s new service, Complete My Album, gives the customer credit of 99c towards an album for every previous single they have downloaded from it.

Vice-president of iTunes Eddy Cue said that this new service should help music fans overcome any reluctance they previously had about paying for an entire album when they had already purchased individuals singles from it.

An article in the International Herald Tribune makes for more interesting reading though. The publication reports on a new R&B group, Candy Hill, who have just signed a record deal. Record deals are not normally that newsworthy, but this deal is an exception. Instead of signing a deal to make an album, the group will release a number of singles instead. Here’s some interesting snippets from the article:

“If we get two songs out, we get a shot,” said Vatana Shaw, 20, who formed the trio with two other performers four years ago. “Only true fans are buying full albums. Most people don’t really do that anymore.”

In part, that is because picking individual songs - often select hits from artists’ albums - has become the order of the day in the music industry. Because of consumers’ preference for discrete songs over albums, a trend reflected everywhere from blogs posting select MP3s to Rolling Stone magazine reviews of singles, record labels are coming to grips with the loss of the album as their main product and chief moneymaker.

Unfortunately for record labels, the two companies that stand to benefit from this new chapter in the music business are Bebo and MySpace. Users of either social networking sites are now able to purchase songs available on either site. The Register have done some sums and the amount that MySpace stands to earn is staggering. In my opinion this could be the biggest threat to iTunes dominance.

Bebo and MySpace’s service will transform their users into media concierges and underline the power of social networks. When I visit my friends’ pages I will be exposed to whatever media they have incorporated into the content. If I hear or see something I like, I’ll simply click a couple of buttons and purchase it. While the bands might not much much money from it unless they have legions of fans, the two social networking sites will make a lot off the commission.

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