no.

Clearly not. You can't think about stopping selling CDs, etc until and unless everyone (or at least the vast majority of people) have access to downloaded music.
Otherwise you are cutting people off from access music. More than likely they will be the worse off who cannot afford the technology.

no of course not. but is that downloads of proper singles releases, or single downloaded songs? ie album tracks, and stuff thats not going anywhere near the charts.

This surely signals armageddon

Just watch. DiS will herald the age of the music junkie-orientated download and mobile service.

It must be true. Sean told me.

lets all go back to vinyl

as long as they dont make a machine that makes genius pop songs at the push of a button, then i'm happy.
it's how the music is made that interests me, not how it's sold.
couldn't give a shit.

that's just me though.

I think this is terrible. Downloads should supplement CD's.

What will happen to b-sides? What will happen to great cd single artwork? What will become of merrily skipping down to your great, pokey old record shop and buying a single? What will happen to trying to hide godawful past single purchases from friends and relatives?

I still watch Videos and DVD's. I still buy Vinyl, download and every now and then buy a tape. I take photos with black and white film and colour.

I only sell vinyl 7" singles on my record label website (www.theespc.com - blatant plug).

They do actually sell, 'cos yeah some indie-kids are wierdo obsessives who NEED the physical product (I know I am).

Actually the free downloadable versions of the songs on the 7" singles seem to help sell them, which is the reverse of this argument. Granted, this is an anomaly.

One day we'll all have music beamed directly into our heads via brain-interface-chips. iBICs I shall call 'em and make billions.

As long as the CD album doesn't die, I don't mind. Though I must be one of the few people who still values album art, looking at lots of the half-arsed covers of last year.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The chart organisers are to blame. Once upon a time I could buy a single with four tracks (sometimes even more). Then they placed the three track, 20 minute limit to 'take the pressure off artists'... whilst allowing the 2CD format which means that artists have to have more B sides, not less. Now one of the CDs has to have one extra track, not two. Every 'improvement' only serves to rip us off more, and I stopped buying them

I've only got so much room and so much money. CD singles used to be worth it if you liked the artist, even if you had the album. Now I've got to buy a track I already have TWICE just to get everything and pay TWICE as much... for the same amount of stuff I used to get on a single CD.

I apologise for the fact that this all looks very boring when written down, but it certainly explains why I buy less singles now and I know I'm not the only one.

Downloads have the potential to make more money surely? I mean for one, there is the factor of instant access, one click & you're away. Plus its a LOT cheaper to out out there, why spend x amount of thousands on Single artwork, producing the cds, delivering, plus all the associated promotional costs when you can just hand a CD-R to your web department & say 'here, stick this on the bands website & mail it to every Pay-per-download site between here & Timbuktu' Its simple business, minimising costs, maximising profits...

Downloading becoming the premier market for promoting albums is probably the ideal situation for record companies, it makes them more money. Hell, they've probably envisioned something like this since they realised that the single was a loss leader, they've just had to wait until now for the technology to catch up.

Hurrah! Less profits for HMV and Woolworths! Less money to distributors! Less cash for artwork! No more inflated prices for three tracks!

If they can come up with a way of combating piracy of downloaded tracks (ie. if you downlaod it, you can't copy it to someone else) and the prices are reasonable then good. Music should be a live event and it's clear that the birth of downloadable music has heralded a real revival in live music as something that is important, perhaps more important than the poxy video for the single.

What really would shake up the music industry would be a change of mind that stopped all the fragrant wasting of cash on singles, money being pumped into live music and self-sufficiency for bands to record and release.

Take pressure of the poor artists? In the Beatles' days they had to have at least two albums out a year, plus various singles with B-sides and other stand alone material.

Artists today are just spoilt. John Frusciante has only gone and put out like 10 albums this year so it can still be done.

Yeh but what's the quality like?

Someone earlier (I think it was Chris) was talking about the cost of the videos. Surely the labels shouls stop making expensive videos then, you can make a good video for less surely. I mean an entertaining video is all well and good but surely people watch videos for the music mostly.

Wasn't the 'two albums a year' the early Beatles albums? The ones with a lot of cover versions?

I think the UK singles chart is certainly somewhat lacking in credibility and has been for some time now. Companies have in the past reputedly bought their own singles in huge quantities in order to move them up the charts enough to get a particular artist known. Once you have one hit single, you're in the top ten and are therefore the toast of the week, it isn't difficult to use that position in a commercially viable way. Rumours of such occurances are hardly scarce, but I can't honestly believe the CD singles market is THAT corrupt; after all, many supposedly 'non-commercial' - i.e. indie - artists had hit singles in 2004 (The Kaiser Chiefs, The Dead 60's, Razorlight et cetera). Can the singles chart not still be relevant, then?

For me, CD singles are particularly special - I even have a sizable 7" collection, which may work against me in this instance since it kind of tends to prove I'm still in the stone age. There has been a huge number of bands I've got to know about through singles: finding them in indie record stores and having them recommended to me by anyone who happens to be in the vicinity; being given them by dedicated music fans who just want to ensure that the legacy of what is one of THOSE bands lives on; chancing across some interesting artwork in a market and playing the single to discover a musical equivalent to that art... I owe a lot of pleasure to CD singles, especially since, as a fifteen year old, I'm barred from the majority of decent clubs, bars and even concert venues, causing chance finds of singles to be my main medium for discovering great new and old music.

Yeah, ipods are more convenient, in the long term they're more economical, they're incredibly fashionable, they're a sign of affluence and I guess it's easier to download a track off the internet than it is to traul through boxes of peoples' old crap in the hope of finding one or two gems, but I enjoy the hunt, but you can't always count on download sites to provide you with a band that's exciting and new to you, one that just might be one of THOSE bands. You won't be finding many hidden treasures from the punk-era or britpop you've never heard before that sounds like a pogo stick charged with amphetamines, or a beautiful soul ballad that wasn't even released in the UK from the 60's.

I don't have an ipod, although I have used one and it was very nice and shiny indeed. I have an MP3 player, but all I've done with it so far is transfer singles and b-sides from bands no one I know - certainly not in fucking Bromley - has heard of onto a different format, so I'm sure I'm totally missing the point of this music revolution everyone else seems to be enjoying so much. I think that downloaded music is a good thing, undeniably, and it works for a lot of people. With downloaded music, songs are appreciated individually, and that can only be a positive sign. It means that perhaps the senario where we hear one song that we like from an artist or group and buy their whole back catalogue (which includes nothing even half as good) might be a less frequent occurance, and maybe no one will be able to put out any old crap - it'll all have to be decent as far as their standards go, because if there's no artwork to tempt a buyer and no B-side, the song's got to be good to be successful - in theory, anyway.

The last time I said all of this I was told that my opinions displayed 'a lack of marketing knowledge and any valid point'. Maybe the person that said that was right, but I though I'd put them out there anyhow.

Meh.

Albums are still going strong and as long as there are people who care about things like social and cultural heritage and - at least - decent packaging we will never really lose them.

Fact is downloads are cheaper and easier, and - contrary to what the majors were trying to have us believe - people will pay for them. If they "replace" CD singles it would be no great loss.

Yeh but people go on about having I Pods but I myself and surely many others like the feeling of having CD's (particularly albums) because they like to have something tangible that they can touch and put on a CD rack and look at the artwork on the sleeve and stuff. Downloads and electronic media files will never truly entirely replace CD's or 'hard copy' as some people call it.

i acnt image not goin out and looking for the most obscure bands singles it would be teh end of an era completly the internet is a bad thing

There is something dark and wrong with legal downloads. Stop it now.

They shouldn't make them so expensive. Whats the point in paying a fiver for a single, you're only another fiver (Or rather it should be a fiver) away from getting the album. Bring the prices down cheap for singles like they used to be and the sales will go back up....not that I would buy them.

They've tried to bring single prices down and it hasn't worked. Relatively speaking, they're the cheapest they've ever been. People just don't want to buy them anymore, there's a perception that they're just 'shitty' singles and people would rather spend their money some other way. Shame, as I love em (or did, even my interest is flagging)...

Singles are on albums. Therefore, people don't buy singles anymore. If they weren't on albums (as it was in the past), more people would buy singles.

Wooh.