Radiohead Says Singles Only, But Albums Live On
Radiohead's frontman Thom Yorke announced that the band will no longer release full-length studio albums and instead focus on downloadable singles. In response, Fast Company's Kit Eaton, declared that the concept of albums is still alive and simply evolving. Part of that evolution is Apple's Cocktail interactive album effort. He argues that albums maintain their purpose to communicate musical themes, "the same way that a curated collection of a painter's works does". Nevertheless, it may be that in some cases, the album will thrive for the exact opposite reasons.
While Radiohead's "In Rainbows" was an amazing success both as an album and as a new sliding scale revenue model, Yorke and band mates are poised to focus on singles, and for them this is great. Radiohead has a loyal fan base, enough money to survive, and the freedom to negotiate independent licensing and distribution deals. Basically, Radiohead can do whatever Radiohead wants to do. But perhaps more importantly, the band has the creative freedom to experiment - in fact, their fans expect it.
With the cost of professional music production and audio engineers, few bands have the luxury to put out experimental singles on major labels. Labels simply won't put marketing dollars into something they aren't sure is commercially viable. Albums are the perfect place to sandwich those sweetheart orphan tracks that artists love and labels simply can't classify. In the past, an album's B-side was a place where musicians could debut new styles and place less-commercial tracks. However, as music downloads outnumber physical disc sales, and singles outsell albums, the margin for risk taking gets smaller everyday.
For this reason, whether wrapped in interactive material or not, it's likely that a number of musicians will insist on producing albums simply to leverage marketing efforts and challenge their fans.
Photo Credit: Taken from Radiohead's Dead Air Space
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It means a new album will come.. oooooooooo i will wait.
The consumer wants convenience:
Convenience food (pizza, hamburger, ...)
Convenience music (just one single)
Convenience life (don't worry be happy)
This is great news for a great band. It shows they're actually confident that their singles will be dl-ed. I sure will. Radiohead is great. http://AppUseful.com
Somehow I don't think this is going to last! Singles are all good and fine, but it's a very limiting format, and at some point Radiohead is likely to have some artistic concepts that will require a full album to express. Kinda reminds me of, for example, David Bowie's every-leap-year retirement announcements: "This is my last tour! I'll never play 'Rebel Rebel' again!" Two years later he concedes: "I really need to stop saying things like that."
Sounds familiar:
Blogging is dead...
Blogging - Albums
Microblogging - Singles
Radiohead are just generating headlines with this announcement, I'm sure if they were to create enough material then an album release would be considered!
Joe, I like the comparison..
In general, albums will still have a place for the culmination of a body of work. Artists need to focus on singles or "bundle packages" in order to give the consumer enough time to digest the tracks. 10-12 songs is overwhelming and who really has that much time these days?
Great read!
I love everything they do, but I hope radiohead releases more full on albums, cuz that's were the magic is.