Dana S White ([email protected])
Sat, 28 Nov 1998 14:43:39 -0800
>From Los Angeles Times website:
http://www.calendarlive.com/HOME/CALENDARLIVE/CALENDAR/t000108602.html
or more than four decades, Billboard magazine's "Hot 100 Singles"
chart has been the barometer of the nation's
pop music, but
beginning next week the trusted tally will be
renamed "The Hot
100."
The chart's title, much like the music industry
itself, seems to have run
out of room for the once-Beloved "single."
Once the engine of pop music, the commercial
single is now often a
mere marketing tool in a business that hangs its hat
on album sales,
industry insiders and observers say. And that is why
the staple chart in
Billboard will soon break from tradition and redefine
itself to include album
tracks getting heavy radio airplay.
The change reflects a widespread disrespect for
the single, which is
still a key player in urban music genres. But many of
the biggest pop songs
produced in recent years never even made it to the
fading format. For
example: Alanis Morissette's latest hit.
Her song "Thank U" may be all over radio
stations and video programs,
but is nowhere to be found on the most recent
Billboard singles chart
because it cannot be purchased as a cassette or
compact disc single. That
same situation has applied to "Iris" by the Goo Goo
Dolls, "Killing Me
Softly" by the Fugees, "Don't Speak" by No Doubt and
"Lovefool" by the
Cardigans.
"The songs that people hear on their radios, the
songs they will
remember these years by, have been missing in action
from our chart,"
said Geoff Mayfield, charts editor for Billboard.
"These songs were never
released as commercial singles, but you have to say
they were hits--and
tracking the hits is what the chart is supposed to do."
The trade is not alone in grappling with the
role of the single.
The music industry has watched the single evolve
from its linchpin
sales format in the 1950s and '60s to a second-class
citizen, as the album
became preeminent by the 1970s. The single hovered
near extinction when
vinyl records gave way to cassettes and compact discs
in the 1980s, but
survived to cross over into the newer modes.
But the profit margin on singles had become so
small they were viewed
as more trouble than they were worth, says Al Cafaro,
chairman and CEO
of A&M Records.
"It became hard to see what was our advantage in
selling singles of the
best song on an album--and undercutting the sales of
the album--when the
deals [signed with artists] were geared toward the
album," Cafaro said. "If
an artist has one hit, it begs the question, 'Why not
put it out as a single so
people can buy it?' Well, we signed that person to an
album deal, and we
want to amass album money off that."
In the 1990s, the single became "a marketing
entity" for labels,
according to Sky Daniels, general manager of Radio
and Records, another
industry trade. Labels flooded stores with "low-ball"
priced singles (marked
down to 49 cents or less, instead of the usual
several dollars) to inflate
sales and push the song up the charts to catch the
eye of radio
programmers. The new chart formula should help thwart
that practice,
Mayfield said.
The single is fading in stores, too. In the
first six months of 1998,
shipments of cassette singles dropped 19% and singles
on vinyl plunged
33% compared to the same period in 1997, according to
the Recording
Industry Assn. of America. Shipments of singles on
compact disc actually
grew during the period, but at a rate lagging behind
albums on disc, the
trade group reports.
Overall, albums accounted for $5.5 billion in
sales for the first six
months this year while singles tallied up a
comparatively small $205 million
at the nation's cash registers.
For Daniels and others who say they "revered"
the 45-rpm singles as
touchstones of the rock 'n' roll era, the loss of
singles as a meaningful
format is cause for sadness. It may also undercut
efforts to open up
music-buying to new, younger fans.
"For the youngest consumers, a song is something
you identify with and
you want to buy it and listen to it over and over and
over," Daniels said.
"It's a rite of passage for young fans."
Some retailers recently encouraged label
executives to release more
singles for the young-buyers market, but others would
rather see the single
join the turntable in music museums.
"Singles becoming extinct? I have no problem
with that," says Gary
Arnold, senior vice president of marketing for Best
Buy. Arnold said he is
enthused by the use of the Internet to post new songs
as part of album
promotions. Already, the Internet seems positioned to
revolutionize the
way consumers get their music.
Many consumers buy albums and tape their
favorite songs into
compilations--either on cassettes or, now, recordable
CDs--making singles
even more obsolete. And the artists making music
often don't want to put
out a single, either, viewing it as a crass
commercial move, says Rich
Fitzgerald, executive vice president of Reprise and
Warner Records.
Artists often view albums as "better, more complete
statements" of their
music, Fitzgerald said.
So when is a single still viable? Acts aimed at
the youngest consumers,
such as Hanson and the Spice Girls, and urban music
genres have fleeting
hits and quick trend turnarounds, creating a place
for the single. Some
veteran pop acts, too, have risked album sales to
push a big single with an
eye toward reestablishing themselves as hit makers.
But even single success can be a failure of
sorts. Fitzgerald recalled his
label's hit "Change the World," a 1996 song by Eric
Clapton and Babyface
that sold more than 1 million copies as a commercial
single--a plateau
never reached by its album, the "Phenomenon"
soundtrack.
"It really cannibalized album sales, I'm sure of
it," Fitzgerald said. "The
album would have been bigger if we hadn't put the
single out. And we're in
an album business."
Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
(Okay, me again - Can I just say grr? I mean, can't record labels see past
the bottom line to he pure enjoyment of real fans of music for once?
Perhaps they wouldn't have this problem if they stopped seeing it so much
as a business. The only singles I've ever bought are U2 singles, but U know
other people who enjoy other artists' b-sides. Their singles, to me, are
sometimes more interesting than their album songs. . .yet, I can just see
some vacous bigwig at Island (or wherever) telling them to nix it with the
singles, and spend that time and money working on the "real album." But
anyway. That's my buck fifty on the subject. )
Dana
. . . .maybe i'm crazy, maybe you're diminished. . .
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