Monday 18 April 2005

Nail in Singles coffin a little deeper

This weekend saw the first official singles chart to include Internet-downloadable music.

As much as it's a big confidence booster for the emerging distibution method, it's a worrying nail in the coffin for the venerable single - 7", 12" and CD - that's been a mainstay in the British record industry for over half a century, in one form or another.

Sure the format has taken it's knocks and the CIN - those people who officially make chart rules - don't seem to be able to figure out how to get more people to buy singles, but I'd like to think we can rescue the physical distribution model before the singles chart ends up being just like the States.

Link: NME story

MY VIEW: Just a side note, why does the CIN insist on music fans buying a single spanning two or three very very short discs at variable cost? I can end up spending more on a single than I do on the whole album, usually with the same version of a song spread over three or four formats.

Case in point being the new Nine Inch Nails single, "The Hand That Feeds You" released today. There's actually three pieces of music available - the single version, and two remixes. For some reason, it's taken Island 3 formats to release all these tracks (including having all three on the CD single), including 2 mixes on a 9" vinyl single, and 2 on a DVD single.

It's ludicrous when you get examples like Japan and the US where the few singles that are released are jam packed with enough goodies to sway fans to make the purchase.

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