JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum The Current State of Urban Music (Hip Hop, R&B)

Being primarily a R&B/ Hip Hop writer, I have found myself having tons of conversations about the current state of the genres.

While the singles charts are flooded with Hip Hop and R&B songs, theses successes aren't resulting in album sales. Is there a chance that we may be moving back to the old format of the 50's and 60's where the market was based on singles and not albums as much? Is this the case in all music right now or just in the Hip hop and R&B Genres?


Please share any thoughts you have with me.....

Here's a try at an answer. Let me preface it by saying I am *not* a professional, and all I know is what I've observed. I also play and write country music, and the rules could be different.

When I was a kid, there were 45s, and *everybody* bought 45s. But after a while, they came out with *albums*, and they cost more. The solution my friends and I came up with (and I think I can talk about this now, since the statute of limitations has expired) is we'd collectively invest in an album, and one of us who had a fancy reel-to-reel tape recorder would make tapes for the rest of us. So the songs indeed got heard every bit as much, but notice there were a lot fewer albums sold.

I think the same sort of thing is going on today. CDs are (my opinion) way beyond the affordability range of most kids (most adults, too), and if you're lucky, there might be one song on a CD worth listening to a second time. That, I think, is one of the things driving the free ripoff of music online. We're seeing an instance of the Laffer Curve: if something is priced too high, you're going to sell less of it.

There is not (that I have seen) any marketing of "singles" that parallels the old marketing of 45s--I don't see the Industry having any real interest in developing one. The "hit singles" you hear about today are (my opinion, again) fiction; they're not listener-generated--the listener isn't part of the loop any more. Way back when, you could call your local deejay and request songs be played, and they'd do it, and if it happened a lot, the band had a "hit." But you can't do that for the most part any more--there *is* no local deejay. The local radio station is owned by Clear Channel or a like conglomerate, and is *told* what to play, and in what order, and how often. The Industry, not listeners, are deciding what are "hits." And you just pointed out (I think) that what the Industry calls "hits" have no connection to record sales.

I think at this point, the only good sense of the market one can get is a local one. What's Kid-DJ being requested to spin at high school dances? What's the band being asked to play at the local tavern? (I'd ask "What are kids ripping off?" too, but kids cover their tracks too well.)

In my opinion (I am jes' full of opinions today, I guess), we do not have and still need an effective way of delivering a "single" of good quality to the listener, at a price the listener can afford. And (in my opinion) when it happens, it will come from outside the Industry, because the Industry is not interested.

Joe

Darrell,

I've been saying we're moving back to a singles market since 1998 in the JPF newsletter. There's some obvious reasons for that.

We've trained a generation to consume music 1 song at a time as opposed to the last several generations (1960's, 1970's, 1980') where the album was king. It started shifting about the same time Rap/Hip Hop became mainstream, though I don't know that there's a cause/effect there. File sharing has clearly taught kids not only to listen to a single song, but because so much music is available free, it's pretty common that they aren't even listening to entire songs before downloading the next.

Next, there's the problem that the industry is so focused on quick hits and something new that few artists develop serious fan bases. (The biggest selling concert tours are acts from the 70's most of the time). Since kids have no learned to be impatient with music, and they aren't really fans of anyone, and each successive generation of new R&B or Rap (or Pop or Rock) artists sound so much like the last that who cares which one is which. Music is a commodity and something to collect through mass numbers on an iPod where no kid could possibly afford to legally own that much music. Since the music is free and easy to get, it has no value. Since they aren't really "fans" of any of the artists, it has no value. Since they can download 100 songs in a blink, they don't really have any time or interest beyond hearing the hook or riff of the song in question and moving on to the next. The worst part of illegal file sharing isn't the cost in terms of lost sales. It's the new mindset that music has no value, something new is always more important than something old and most artists are hollow so why bother to follow them? Few albums are recorded anymore (especially in R&B and Pop) with any consideration beyond the singles. The rest is filler usually written by either the artist or the connected producer(s). And they are only there to earn Mechanical royalties for the most part because they won't be released as singles. The album gives record companies a plastic disc to sell but as we all know, those sales are decreasing because no one cares about the artist and the singles are always available free.

That's what's going on. Albums are sadly dead. Not just album sales, but they are dead to kids who are bored before the singles are done playing. Sad that a generation and a half have lost that wonderful experience of getting an album, playing the songs over and over and losing yourself in them. It's so sad.

Brian

Thanks Brian and Joe......

You guys both make great points.

I'm worried though, as a writer in these pop genres. Because personally, I am an "Album" guy. I love putting together a album that flows sonically as well as conceptually. But it doesn't seem to matter anymore. Alot of the artist that I come across in the HipHop and R&B/Pop Genres just want you to send them a CD full of tracks and not really sit down together and craft something together.

Developement has gone by the waste side, and I think that is a big part of the problem.

Thanks again guys for the responses......

Please keep em' comin,I wanna soak it all in.....

-Darrell Flowers

Darrell, I agree with you. I don't see it being done in the Industry today, but when *I* do an album, I want everything to flow logically and, well, melodically. As a child of the '60s, I think songs need to be part of a coherent whole as well as being able to stand on their own. Just takes a little more attention to detail--something the Industry appears to be seriously lacking these days, along with things like creativity. Too bad--but I'll do my stuff my way, anyway.

Joe

Sadly, I have to agree with Joe and Brian. Selling an album to the younger generation these days is going to be pretty hard. Why buy it when you can download it for free.
There is less file sharing available now but not by much. But I think file sharing is confined primarily to the major labels and radio hits.
Indies, unless they are very successful, probably don't show up on the file sharing sites.
But, Indies love to give their music away for free, anyway. To get exposure. I don't get that, exposure for what. If you are giving it away for free why bother. That, in my opinion, is what is ruining the business for Indies. Giving it away.

My Grandson was visiting me a couple weeks ago. He had his Ipod with him. I asked him how many songs he had on it. He had about 500 songs. He did not pay for a single one.
I know another teen that has about 100 CD's full of MP3's. All free downloads.

The only reason for a decrease in file sharing (if that's even true and I am not sure it is) is that the stuff is available for sale on line. But ironically, there's a lot that isn't and if you can't pay for something, stealing it is the only option. Why anyone would not have their material and back catalogs available for legal purchase as a file versus only on CD (or in some cases of back catalog not available in ANY format) is bizarre. But people will search out their favorites and that will result in file sharing illegally.

I've never been an illegal file sharing supporter. I do personally get frustrated when many of my favorites artists or specific albums can't be found. I don't search it out illegally because I do try hard to live what I say. But I sure would like to get music from some of my favorites like Mike and the Mechanics and Paul Carrack or AC/DC or Led Zepplin or Tracy Chapman or the Beatles. But all these and TONS more have elected not to use that format. I know some are holding out for gigantic exclusive deals with people like iTunes or someone hoping to challenge them. In the meantime, I think all those artists are losing a generation of potential fans. The Beatles seemed impossible to marginalize, but the longer they hold out, the more kids will seem them simply as "oldies" that they could care less about.

Brian

Hey guys,
I'm gonna disagree a little bit with everyone. The album is not really dead. What is dead is the idea of an album by one artist. Evidence the "Now" comp CD that a ton of kids and parents buy. They offer value in a market flooded with crap. People tend to remember the 60's as some golden era of artistic explosion. It was to a certain extent. But the commercial machine was in full swing then as now and the real issue is why "we" have allowed all the small media outlets to be gobbled up by big power tie wearing corporations that's main focus is to feed the demographic with the most money. In the late 60's, early 70's I bought singles of my favorite songs. The first full album I bought (with my own money) was Good by Yellow Brick Road. If you want to be relevant to what's going on today you have to be "out there" in the trenches of life and stop bitching about how everything sucks now. When I was a kid my dad would ask me every day when I came home from school "When you gonna get a haircut,Kid? He couldn't understand why I would let my hair grow and listen to the "crap" I listened to and I couldn't understand why he combed his hair like the Fonz. Well when I buried him in '92 I made sure that his hair, as white as it was, was combed the way he liked it and I have taken to wearing mine a little bit longer as it gets a little bit thinner.
What's this got to do with the topic of this post? " The Times They Are A Changing". You gotta change with them or be left behind.
Rick

Hey Rick,

Although I think the intent of the original subject was about albums by a single performer (not a Best Hits or Comp album), I agree with almost everything else you say. Here is my best example:

Many fans of Traditional Country Music complain about the new acts not being country, ie....Keith Urban, Faith Hill, Rascal Flats, etc. They compare these new artists to Merle Haggard, Hank Thompson, Buck Owens, Ray Price, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, etc and point out that Country has gone to the city, or rock and roll, or to the dogs, or whatever. But, do they realize that the folks prior to their generation, who loved artists such as Kitty Wells, Carl Smith, Jimmy Wakely, etc (major artists of the 40's and 50's), thought that Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Willie and Waylon, etc., were ruining Country Music. Heck, they had drums (Oh my God!!!), electric bases, and some even had background strings. And ya know what else? They had PEDAL steel guitars, too...yep, they truly did have PEDALS on them!!!

Every generation of listeners grows up with a style that's popular when they are teens and young adults and most often tend to compare everything thereafter to that style. Like the rest of the world, music is an evolutionary process that is going to change with the times. But, by nature, humans don't like change. They like a familiar comfort zone.

Going back to the original subject of this thread, the single artist CD concept is losing some popularity for several reasons:

(1) Price - Typically $15.00 - $18.00 for a popular artist.

(2) Quality Of Filler Songs - Many of the filler songs on a CD are just plain awful. They are often written by the artist in order to get a mechanical and sales royalty. I do not want to spend $15.00 or more just to get 2 decent cuts.

(3) Legal Availability Of Single Songs - The Internet is full of sites where people can legally download individual songs for about a buck and then burn them onto a personal CD. Now, for $10.00 or so, they have a full CD on which they like every song. Not a bad deal!

I do not think we will see the demise of the single artist CD for some time, yet. But, in the futrure, who knows. It will probably depend upon where technology and the courts take us.

BTW, Rick, the first album I ever bought with my own money was Ray Price's "Night Life", in 1963, I think. It is still my favorite country album of all time.

Just my nickel's worth...

Alan

Compilation CD's are actually part of the shift from albums to singles. There's always been compilation albums in my lifetime. Most of my first album purchases were old K-Tel records with songs like "Love Will Keep Us Together" and "You Sexy Thing" certainly not from acts with deep albums. They went away in popularity when albums from the Eagles and similar era artists really revitalized album sales (but ironically, the biggest selling album of all time is the Eagles Greatest Hit's V1 which has repassed Michael Jackson's Thriller, the second largest selling album of all time). Interestingly, if you listen to Classic Rock, the most popular music format right now, they still play album cuts in large numbers from artists from those eras. It will be tough to have a classic station in 20 years that plays album cuts from the 90's and 00's because there really aren't such things to speak of. I bet they are still playing Led Zepplin and the Eagles and the like.

The NOW albums are just the new K-Tel. The industry is an ever swinging pendulum. The Beatles ushered in an album era, the 70's did as well. One of my favorites is still Aerosmith. The first 4 albums I ever bought that weren't K-Tel albums, were the first 4 Aerosmith albums when I was 13 years old for my birthday. I got them for 20 dollars, which was a LOT of money that I had collected from my entire family that year (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles) so I could spend it all in one fell swoop on those 4 albums back in 1977. Shortly after that I joined the Columbia Record house and got my 12 albums for a penny and I became an actual music fan. Ironically, with that wealth of albums, I spent less time with each of them than I had with my Aerosmith albums or my K-Tel albums. I think we see a similar thing. My neice has an iPod with over 20,000 songs on it. I asked her how many she had listened to and she said about 200. I asked her why she had all those other songs and she said she got them from friends who had pooled all their files so they all had an enormous playlist across all their iPods. On those lists (interestingly enough) were songs from about every genre of music you can imagine. Sadly, with all that variety, the rarely listened to more than a handful of Rap and Country songs. (Oh, that's a little secret most folks still haven't caught on to.. kids today, especially suburban white kids, are equally fans of Rap and Country. They think nothing of having both playing side by side. But I digress). More in this case clearly meant less. Less value of the music. Less patience to hear much more than a hook from the latest famous song before going to something else. I observed her and her friends listening to music and they rarely listened to more than a minute of anything before going to the next song. They've been taught to listen to music that way since they were little kids and it will affect how they consume music the rest of their lives. It's not the "end of music" but it is a shift.

I was talking with an insider recently who said that a major radio network was planning to start a radio station that played songs that only lasted 1 minute. He was appalled. I actually stopped myself from following suit and thought that was actually pretty damn smart. We all accept that most folks don't want to hear a lot of songs that are 9 minutes long.. so why should we, as artists, be offended if they want 1 minute long songs? I think it would be fun to come up with albums full of 1 minute long songs. How about a new creative challenge? Get to the point and move on in 1 minute. Show them the great hook, the great riff, make your point concisely and save the solos for Classic Rock. Food for thought. If you had a really hot album full of 1 minute long songs, perhaps kids will buy and listen to THAT format like I used to spend hours on my Aerosmith albums!

Brian

Brian......

It's funny you mention the one min. songs....

When I first began seriously writing and producing about 10 years ago, I always had a hard time keeping my focus one one idea long enough to complete a song. I had so much I wanted to say and so many musical ideas, that I would usually put together these very intertaining, yet very incomplete songs. They were more like blueprints for songs I wanted to write. I have like maybe like 500 or so of these ideas filed off on a hard drive in my studio (you know, for those days when I can't seem to get it going..lol)

There were a couple of times where I thought about just showing off these "ideas" as a series of one min songs. But the musical school of thought that I came from just wouldn't allow it..

But it goes back to what a couple of the guys here have said already, "Change is a comin', so either get in line, or get out of the way" Basically....

I'm going to try it.....Seriously. Show off a couple of one min songs and see how people respond. Will they listen to the whole min, or will they now just only listen to 30 sec. It's a scary thought......in deed.

Hey Darrell,

I agree with a lot of what's been said here. The internet has changed the way we buy a lot of things, including music. It's no longer necessary to go to the local Tower Records or Sam Goody to buy CDs. Everything is so instantly available, by downloading (legally or illegally), that sales to concrete and steel stores have diminished. I hear that the Tower Record stores in the US have gone out of business but the UK, Ireland, Mexico and Japan stores are still up and running.

The thing is, without going to stores and shopping, people don't see the CDs and don't see the artwork or liner notes. I have an iPod with over 1000 songs on it - all from CDs I own. It bugs me that you can't get liner notes - and that information gives people some reality on who the artist is - in pictures and words.

So people are buying singles from people they may not know anything about. They might see a picture on MySpace or CDBaby and a little bio, but I think that having an actual object in your hands gives a different experience.

Maybe I'm crazy but it used to be thrilling to get a new album or CD, get it home, play it, read the liner notes and look at the pictures. I will occasionally download a song (legally, of course) when I need it in a hurry, but most of the time, I'll buy the whole CD. I want to know what else that artist has.

I'm pining away for liner notes. My two cents.

Cheers!

Andrea

I'm not agreeing with the premise. I bought Ushers' 'Confessions'. Certainly a concept album that told a story over the course of the album. There are some good albums out (errr, CD's). I don't buy a CD unless I love the artist. I'm rarely disappointed. My son, however, buys singles off I-Tunes and rarely purchases a CD. last CD he bought was Seal and he recently bought RHCP be cause he knows I really love the group.

I am waiting on a new janet jackson album. The last one blew chunks.