An article I recently read online noted that digital music sales surpassed physical CD sales for the first time in 2011. Probably the only thing that surprises me about that is that it didn't happen sooner. According to the article, digital purchases accounted for 50.3% of music purchases - just slightly edging out physical CD sales.
Is this a good development? I have mixed feelings about the trend towards an all-digital music world, and I have no doubt that this is where we're headed - there are fewer and fewer places where you can go and shop for CDs these days. Some people will say that digital tracks don't sound as good as their CD counterparts (and some real die-hards still claim that CDs never sounded as good as vinyl)...but I'm not in that camp. Maybe it's because I've been to too many rock concerts in my day and my hearing isn't what it used to be any more, but I can't really tell the difference sound-wise.
For me, I still like the experience of buying a CD and having something to unwrap, open up and explore. I like reading the liner notes and seeing where it was recorded, who produced and mixed the tracks, who played on which tracks, who they were written by, and if there are lyrics and photos included, all the better. In the digital world, I have seen and purchased a few online albums that did include a digital booklet download - but I'd like to see more of that...in fact, I think a digitial booklet should be an option to download with every digital album. I hope that trend continues. This would be especially welcome for digital classical/opera albums where the translation (libretto) is important to have available.
That's another thing: "albums"...do we still call them albums in the digital world? The iTunes store calls them albums, as does the Amazon MP3 store...but that doesn't ring right to me somehow. When I think of an "album", I always think of a large vinyl disc with a little hole in the middle, stuffed into a slightly larger cardboard sleeve. Even CDs, which are at least another tangible medium, to me were never really "albums" - they were always called "CDs" to me. But in an all-digital world, the idea of calling a collection of binary files on a hard drive an "album" seems a little silly. But I don't want to run the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man so I'll get with the program and will agree to call them "albums" still - even though they're not.
My biggest gripe about an all-digital music world is that the concept of an album loses its meaning when tracks can be purchased individually and listened to in any order you choose. Musicians devote a lot of time and energy deciding on the ordering of tracks on an album. When tracks are downloaded individually or listened to out of their intended order, you lose a lot of the intended effect of the album.
As an example, the other day I was working in the kitchen and I had my iPod (on random mode) playing through some speakers. The first track of "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" came on, and just after "So let me introduce to you/the one and only Billy Shears/Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the iPod switched right away to another random song, because that's how the Sgt Pepper CD had the tracks divided. It just didn't sound right to not hear "With a Little Help From my Friends" right after...just like it wouldn't sound right to not hear "Living Loving Maid" right after "Heartbreaker" from the Led Zeppelin II album. The tracks were ordered that way for a reason but we lose that with the randomness of the digital music experience.
Nowhere is the ordering of tracks more important than on a "concept album". These are albums that might tell a story across all of their songs, or develop an idea throughout the duration of the album. To me, the best examples of concept albums could be found in Pink Floyd's discography: "The Wall". "Animals", "Dark Side of the Moon" - all of these albums explored themes and concepts that could only be fully realized by listening through the entire albums in the order they were intended. Other examples of good concept albums were "2112" (side A) by Rush, "Scenes From a Memory" by Dream Theater, and even the Beatles' "Sgt Pepper". There was no randomness in the way the songs for these albums were meant to be laid out - but if you were to only download one track off the digital versions of these albums, you would lose the whole concept of the album - or if you chose to listen to all the tracks in some random order, it would be like skipping through a book and reading random chapters out of order. Not the same experience. Not 100% bad, but not the same.
The only exception to this that I've seen in the digital world is the "Lovesexy" album by Prince. If you try to buy that album in iTunes or Amazon MP3, you can't buy individual tracks - you can only purchase the full album. There are no separate tracks - it's just one large file containing all of the songs in their original album order. That's a gutsy move in the digital world; not making each track available separately might cost Prince some album sales (not that he'd be too hurt financially), but at least it's an attempt to keep the songs in the order he intended. Odd choice, in my opinion...I don't remember the songs on "Lovesexy" having a lot to do with each other like a real "concept" album (I owned the cassette back when it came out) but I admire the effort.
On the other hand, there's a lot about the digital world that I like. I love the convenience of owning digital albums and not having to find extra shelf space in my house to store them. I live in a small house, so space is a premium. Even if I buy some new books to read I feel guilty if I don't give some older ones away to make room. I have piles of CDs all over my computer room as well as on shelves and there's just not a lot of room for new ones...having them all on my hard drive (and synced to my iPod as well as backed up to the cloud) is a nice convenience. I like to be able to sample tracks before I buy them, and having an entire store at my fingertips is great.
So I guess that I can live with the minor complaints I have about digital music (hopefully we'll see digital liner notes or lyric booklets become more available in the future), in exchange for the conveniences that the new world offers. As digital music sales continue to beat physical CD sales, it's not like I have much of a choice.
