As a teenager, did you always buy albums? Or were you a singles person? Did your buying habits change as you got older? Have they changed again with the recent download phenomenon?
I have pretty eclectic tastes in rock/pop music and rarely like more than one or two tracks from an album (which are generally the tracks released as singles), so as a cash-strapped teen I almost always bought singles. Since the (alleged) onset of adulthood and the triumph of CDs over vinyl, I tended to buy the albums -the price difference between albums and singles made it such that liking two tracks was enough to make the album worthwhile, and the onset of adulthood meant that I listen more while I'm on the move/busy rather than listening for listening's sake, so the changing CD thing is more of a faff than a pleasure.
The music charts would suggest that I am not alone in this progression. The singles charts reflect the teen choice, the album charts seem to have a more mature flavour to them, and recently -as albums have got cheaper in comparison to singles through the advent of CDs, the sales reported in singles charts have reduced, leading to the now common phenomenon of new entries at #1 -almost unheard of when I used to listen religiously every Sunday evening.
But now comes the age of the download, and -as Beest suggests- it looks like we have come full circle. Now we can download all the individual tracks we like at a reasonable price and burn them onto one CD to make our own "Now That's What I Call Music" album. Radio 1 now has a download chart alongside their singles chart. Are albums dead?
And more importantly, what am I to do about loving Nine Inch Nails' "The Hand That Feeds" and hating every other track on "With Teeth"? lol
Wow that brings back memories, listening to the top 40 countdown on sunday evenings i cant say that i could do that these days considering the amount of garbage that they try to pass off as music. somebody did a survey a few years ago basically saying in the early eighties you had to have sales of around 1 million plus, whereas in the 90's you only had to have sales of around 25 thousand for the single to go straight to no1 which abouts sums up the decline of music over the past 20 years.
So how do you buy your music and has it changed?
I buy mostly albums now. Used to buy all the singles for my favorite artists too, but I don't
need to so much these days. That has also resulted in me not needing to have an album the moment it comes out. I did own over 1000 CD's and while I still get more and more I am slowly giving away/swapping what I don't want. I've already given away hundreds and alot of those have been the singles I seemed to think that I must have in my collection. I remember the days when I forked over 75 quid for a Tool single in 1993. Wouldn't dream of doing that again. Now I'm down to about 600 CD's and am horrified by the amount of money I spent on albums that are very average.
So to use your example, I downloaded the new NIN song when Reznor was giving it away but I won't be buying the record. I heard it and thought it was fairly naff. But in days past I would have bought both single and album by now. For example I own every damn single and remix for The Downward Spiral and The Fragile but rarely listen to them (especially Closer - 8 remixes of the same damn song doesn't appeal anymore). But it seems (to me at least) that Reznor could have made this record years ago - sounds very samey. His lyrics still sound like a disgruntled 15 year old - I was hoping he'd do something different but nope. I guess I'll stick to weird remixes by VAST instead.
As for album versus single - I think alot of it has to do with the format for listening to stuff. I have an MP3 player that I use when I'm running or deep down in the library at work. As it isn't restricted to 90 minutes (like tapes) or 79.59 (like CD's) the idea of an album doesn't work very well. I'm constantly changing what's on it daily because I'm not satisfied. That whole mood that is created by an album is missing. Add it is so easy to just hit the "next" button. Combine that with downloads and the record industry's focus on singles and I think the whole concept of how we listen to records will change. Artists will still present an "album" of new material, but you won't have to acquire it all to get what you want. You'll just download what you like (for a fee of course). Which is a real shame in a way. How many records or songs do you like/own that were growers? One of my favorite albums was one I just simply didn't get for years. Then one day it just sounded amazing. I would like musicians to keep making tangible purchase-able albums.
Oh, and here's a plu for a great new music magazine called Paste.
http://www.pastemagazine.com
I dont buy that much music nowadays unless its an old ska/2 tone album/single just to add to the old collection, er' indoors bought me a mint copy of the 2 tone album dance craze for christmas. D D D
Most Thursdays (which was the only day we were allowed to go into town at school) my friends and I would splurge our 50p pocket money on a single, or if there wasn't one that we wanted we could buy singles that had gone out of the charts for some while for 10p each. I very seldom bought albums but one of my very favourites was a copy of Led Zep's "Four" in shocking pink vinyl!! I still have it but listen to the CD version nowadays.
I havent bought a single in forever, preferring to buy CD albums as and when they take my fancy, or downloading tracks to burn like you described, monster.
I have to report, though, that we are getting seriously into country music and even Lucy sings along to Gretchen Wilson and Keith Urban!!!
Yee Haw regards.....
Debs x )
I bought singles and albums as a teenager. Then when the CD came out I switched to albums as the CD singles were way more expensive than vinyl and were not worth it in my opinion.
I still enjoy a good album played straight through. Even when I rip them to MP3 for playback on the PC I make sure the tracks are at the beginning of the names 01, 02, 03 etc., so I can play the album as it was intended by the artist. Great albums of recent years have been Creed's Human Clay, Coldplay's Rush of Blood, and Keane's that I have yet to purchase but have previewed via P2P. I still buy albums but I download music to "test drive" a band or album, or to get old songs that are pretty much obsolete. Had a sudden urge to listen to Tenpole Tudor the other day. I doubt that would be available on iTunes or anything.
As as kid i purchased the old heavy plastic type long play records and sometimes the extended play some of which I still possess . singles where usually of the * one hit artist *variety and those ive kept have the removeable plastic plug in the middle to allow them to be played on a turntable with small spindle .
Now adays its a cd usually bought from amazon or which ever retailer offers the best price .
I do pick up some at yard sales and havnt bought a *dud* yet usually only paying $2 dollars a disc .
last sat morn I found a nice pristene "fats domino hits * CD there was a whole bunch of cd for sale and this being the only one of a 50/60s r/b star the rest being stuff ive never heard of .
I dont download music even though my comp has a cd /writer its never been used for such .
I used to go all over the place to buy records. I used to go to Manchester for a record shop called Eastern Bloc, Sheffield for a seminal techno shop/record label called Warp, Birmingham for Tempest, in London amongst others there was Fat Cat at Covent Garden, Blackmarket, Choci's Chewns, in the Soho area Pure Groove in the northen part at Archway The Record Basement at Reading and Magpie Records at Worcester. I got to admit I loved travelling all over the country after records, but then I had two decks and a mixer, here I just have a computer and a CD player!! wink
I get CDs now, and Ive ordered off Amazon and Warp.net, but I just mainly try and track down what I want and go to various music shops around the area.
I used to buy a lot of singles. I did buy a few albums but I had to really like the artist/group to do that.
I love being able to pick and choose downloads. Even the CD albums that I bought some years ago and have downloaded onto the iPod may only have four or five tracks worth downloading. Albums remind me a bit of the concept of cable television, if you want the Discovery Channel you have to have Fox news too.
I was never into singles, I usually just look for compilations that have the singles I like on them. Even now, it seems the only way to get a single that one likes, is to actually download the whole album roll