This article about the decline of the single contains some interesting quotes.
Paul Weller (singer-songwriter):
"Unfortunately these days if you don't get a hit single, or your first album doesn't sell one point whatever million, you don't get a chance to make your second one... I wonder whether The Jam would have got on to All Mod Cons - we would have probably been dropped by then, as the first two records didn't sell that well."
Beverley Knight (singer):
"Back in the day the chances were that, unless it was a novelty record, it was a really good song... It's hard to sit at home and watch bands you know have been put together by a TV show. It's mediocrity dressed up as greatness."
Steve Levine (music producer):
"[Marketing is] more important [to record companies] than the music"
Chris Cowey (executive producer, Top of the Pops):
"[The charts are] dysfunctional [and] full of crap"
Apple's Music Store is encouraging individual song purchaes again, but IMHO record companies only have themselves to blame for the lacklustre, unimaginative, uninspiring and decreasingly lucrative singles market. And just in case you thought it's all down to piracy, read this.
Posted by timo at July 3, 2003 08:35 PM | TrackBack