Digital music's new frontier

By Aitor Zabalegui

Music has always benefited from a little competition.

The Beach Boys' masterpiece, "Pet Sounds," was a response to The Beatles' equally classic "Rubber Soul," an album that also heavily influenced The Mothers of Invention's "Freak Out!," which in turn inspired the recording of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

It has become apparent, though, that as far as musical formats go, the age of the album is coming to a close.

Platinum records are now few and far between, with one of 2008's best-selling albums, Lil' Wayne aka Weezy F. Baby's "Tha Carter III," barely selling 3 million copies.

The digital age has profoundly affected the way music is recorded, promoted, released and, most importantly, purchased.

Since the introduction of organized online music stores, iTunes has nearly monopolized the digital music market. According to The New York Times, 2.4 billion songs were purchased on the site in 2008 alone, while the sales of CDs dropped by 20 percent.

Until recently, iTunes has been unaffected by rival corporations or free-release schemes by bands such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails.

Finally, competition has arisen. Microsoft now offers unlimited Zune downloads for a small monthly fee, and Amazon introduced a new online music store, selling iTunes-quality songs for about 89 cents each.

Starting in early 2008, Apple started iTunes Plus, a service which provides higher quality songs at a raised price of $1.29 per song. These songs were also offered free of Digital Rights Management, the software that allows for only five authorized users to be able to listen to and share purchased songs.

DRM-free songs have unlimited sharing capacity and can be safely transferred on all formats. It is important to note that Amazon has always offered all of its songs free of DRM software.

Last week, Apple announced that, starting in April, iTunes is changing its pricing method and now intends to sell all songs in the DRM-free format.

iTunes typically never has to follow anyone's lead, as it tends to be the trendsetter in the digital music market.

Of course, iTunes could never simply adapt its business strategy to the norm. Apple instead chooses to revolutionize that norm.

This new pricing scheme introduces three price ranges depending on what song is being purchased. For older songs or less popular albums, songs will be offered for 69 cents apiece. Relatively old songs that have always sold well will remain at 99 cents per song. New, high-selling songs will be sold for a bloated $1.29. For the average 10-song album, this leads to a $3 price difference from the old format. Also, iTunes is offering to upgrade previously purchased songs to a DRM-free format for 30 cents per song.

"It's like reinventing the record store," said junior Gary Iribarren, when told about Apple's new format. "It's not just record sales anymore, it's song sales, and they're deciding how things are going to sell because they're picking the price."

One thing that he seemed unenthusiastic about, however, is the 30-cent upgrade feature. "That should be free," he said. "You could end up paying $1.29 total for a song you bought two years ago that they're going to sell now for 69 cents."

In the digital age of music, it is interesting that the way music is sold seems to be reverting back to the days of record store racks littered with singles by "Somebody and the Somethings."

The album may be dying, but the digital music industry appears ready to welcome the change.

Unfortunately for Apple, Iribarren speaks for many when he laughingly said, "I don't know how much my opinion counts. I just use iTunes to play the music that I have, in theory, stolen from the industry."

Thankfully, online music companies are starting to embrace file-sharing rather than continuing to alienate users with DRM software.

As far as the state of the album, iTunes will not ruin that art medium.Yet there are people who staunchly believe that the digital age will be the downfall of the record.

After a disastrous reunion tour last year, Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan stated in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, "The listening patterns have changed, so why are we killing ourselves to do albums, to create balance and do the arty track to set up the single? It's done."

Senior Will Peregrine, a former intern for Chicago radio station WXRT, disagrees with this mentality. "There's always going to be the niche of people who listen to albums as a connection to their soul. Think (John) Cusack in 'High Fidelity,'" he said.

There have always been people who favor singles and those who prefer albums. iTunes just makes the single more accessible and affordable.

Peregrine cites this as truth, suggesting, "Music goes in cycles. It reflects pop culture. People got more passionate during Vietnam. Punk was a reaction to Thatcher and Reagan conservatism. Grunge was a reaction to nothing going on. The album is not dead, people just want quick and easy right now, and they get that from pop chart singles."

Come April, we'll see how customers react when Apple launches the first genuine digital record store.

Contact Aitor Zabalegui at (408) 551-1918 or azabalegui@scu.edu.