One Singular Sensation?

I'm going to hope that you've all heard of Pink Floyd- mammoth stars of 70s prog rock, sonic innovators, musical genii. The creators of legendary, multi-million selling and frickin' awesome albums like "The Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Wall".

Now if you've been reading the papers or music news in the last day or two, you'll have seen that the Floyd are suing their old record label EMI. Why you ask? Well I'll tell you.

The music of several of history's biggest rock acts- The Beatles, ACDC, Oasis and, of course, Pink Floyd- has, for various reasons, not been incredibly available (legally) on the internet, iTunes, Spotify etc. Recently however, the Pink Floyd catalogue hit iTunes.
And beef has arisen.
Pink Floyd don't want their songs available individually- they only want whole albums to be sold. Today, it was announced that they'd won the court case and EMI owe them £40,000 in costs. I was immensely happy about this! Why?

This story highlights one of the things about the 21st century music industry which truly distresses me. That is that music is now viewed primarily by major labels and casual music listeners as a commodity. Not as art.

If you know anything about Pink Floyd, you'll know that they are "album artists". Whilst they've written incredible individual songs like Money, Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2 etc. they've never been keen on singles. Their albums are DESIGNED, RECORDED AND PRODUCED as one cohesive whole. Not as a series of bytes to be packaged for preference. Their albums are journeys which they blazed for you to experience every step of.

You may think that EMI and iTunes have the right to sell individual tracks whenever they wish. It's their policy, why should Pink Floyd be exempt? The answer is: because this is art we're talking about. Not a commercial product.

Just because Pink Floyd are a commercially successful rock band, you should NEVER make the mistake that what they produce isn't art. It would make no sense to sell only sections of a painting. Or individual scenes from a film/TV show. This shouldn't be any different. And if the vision of the musician/artists is for the whole album to be a whole then that should be respected.

Music should never be primarily about turning a profit. It should be about purpose and expression. If you haven't found an album that you love as a whole, then PLEASE- go and find one! Few things in your musical life will compare to getting lost in an album, knowing its grooves, nooks, crannies, ideas, motifs and energies. "Artists" and labels who concern themselves with bashing out individual tracks that are going to bring the money rolling in have no respect for you, me, other listener or for music itself. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with "big tunes" or dancefloor fillers- but they need to have some heart. Some vision. Even if that vision is just to inspire dance or a singalong, it should be a pure vision. An original vision.

We live in a world of one hit wonders. "Artists" are picked, produced and packaged for consumption. They're aimed purely at brief yet profitable stay in the charts, riding on a couple of intentionally commercial singles. How many of you know songs by JLS/Ludacris/Chris Brown et al OTHER than their singles? Hmm?

With the ability to cherry pick tracks on iTunes, Spotify etc. the art form of the album is in very obvious danger. That's why you see bonus tracks only available with the whole album. It's why lots of indie/lesser known bands offering special extras with hard copies of their albums. For artists like that, it isn't about turning a profit. It's about integrity. About getting a whole idea/movement/display across. About giving something to the fans rather than getting something from the customers.

We've got to embrace that. If not, we're just cheating ourselves.

What do you think? Should more albums be available only as a whole? Do you reckon lots of artists/labels would start doing that purely for commerical gain? Please do feedback to me!