With the rise of online music stores, the future of music might become lost amid the Internet haze. It seems as we download single songs apart from the total package, we potentially lose something extremely important to the complete work of a record.
A big fear for the music industry is what will become of music when people can download a song for 99 cents and forgo purchasing an entire record. This is akin to cutting off a portion of Van Gogh's Starry Night and thinking it is representative of his whole masterpiece; which is just preposterous.
Bands create albums as a fluid, constant and full creation. Granted, songs do stand alone, but they lose texture and content when played out of context. We can only hope that the new way music is purchased will not dumb down the music industry, nor create albums of songs without a constant idea running throughout.
For instance, the idea of the concept album is based upon having the entire album in front of you as you listen revolving around a common theme. The concept album might be lost with the changing ways in which we obtain music. Albums such as OK Computer, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Wall just cannot be broke down song by song and still carry the same meaning. Doing so would be an utter injustice to the album and to the band.
Online music stores offer consumers ethics and peace of mind by allowing users to obtain music, which was absent from the unrestricted Napster era. Consumers do have a choice of what they want to buy, and they actually have to pay for music as opposed to downloading it for free. Online music stores are also a good way for people to be exposed to bands and sample different songs, in the hope that they will end up buying the entire album.
Another issue that arises is online music stores may create yet another gatekeeper in the music industry. Already we have the radio, which plays mostly top 40, and MTV-which hardly plays music at all. Now, bands might be forced and even pressured into creating that \single"" where it is not only the one requested on the radio, but also the most downloaded song off online stores. The idea of a single, which dominated music in the early '60s, may now take a much more prominent role.
Online music stores' libraries are vast and people can find out about many non-mainstream bands with links to other similar sounding bands they may also enjoy. Music stores allow these independent bands a place on the ""shelf,"" and this factor is definitely a great aspect for bands looking to gain more access into the marketplace.
We all should still embrace the nostalgia of what an album is: Insert, artwork, lyrics, disc and music. While it is tempting to buy that one song off of an online music store, we still need to embrace and appreciate what went in to making an album. One song cannot carry the tune of the whole album.
Beth Wick can be reached at eawick@wisc.edu
