Digital Distribution Vs. Physical Albums

The music industry is going through a major change and will continue to change into more of a digital industry. This article will review the pros and cons of digital distribution and physical albums.

Digital Distribution

Digital distribution is when a musician or band uses the internet to sell their music. Whether it be iTunes, Amazon, Zune, etc., they are all forms of digital distribution.

Pros

The pros of digital distribution are very apparent. First of all, the artist and record label will save money by not printing album covers and all the other work that goes into producing a physical album.

More and more people are getting rid of cd players and turning to smaller devices such as iPods, zunes, and regular mp3 players that usually hold a lot more music than one cd can. The artists will probably get more sales going the digital route just because people use the internet to get songs to put on their music devices.

Independent artists do not have to rely on a record label paying the costs of making an album now. They can just put their music on iTunes for a smaller cost and they have a professional way of selling their music just like the big artists.

Cons

Of course their are some cons to digital distribution as well. The first is apparent as well. Some people still listen to cd's! It is mostly the younger generations that are hooked on iPods. Some people don't even have computers so digital distribution would be losing those fans.

Record labels are now less important in the music industry. An artist doesn't need anything but his music and a little bit of money to get digital distribution. This is leading to a lot of jobs being lost in the music industry.

More and more artists are now flooding the market with less than perfect music. They can make a song and put it up on iTunes the next day. They may not be ready to sell their music but have no way of knowing because they don't have managers, agents, etc.

Physical Albums

Physical albums are becoming less and less important in today's society. I honestly can't even remember the last time I bought an album. But they do have there share of pros as well as cons.

Pros

To put out a physical album, it costs a lot more than digital distribution. While this may seem like a con, artists know how much this process costs and will most likely put out their best music they can possibly make to make sure they are not wasting their money.

Some people like the physical aspects of life and don't like to keep track of music on their computers. Even though this generation is slipping away, I doubt it will ever disappear.

The artwork and traits of a physical album just look better than digital music. Digital distribution doesn't have all the fancy artwork inside the booklet or anything of that sort.

Cons

Digital distribution is cheaper. What else can be said about this?

Cd players are less common as the world of mp3 and iTunes has taken over.

It is harder for independent artists to come up with the money to produce a great physical album and even harder to get physical distribution.

Conclusion

The music industry is in a rapid change and for now, we will not know if it is totally good or bad. One thing is for sure though, their will always be people that download music illegally. This will continue to hurt the music industry now matter what kind of distribution artists chose. Until people start paying for music again, I believe that the music industry will stop producing great music, but that is just my opinion of course.

Source

Greenblatt, A. (2003, November 21). Future of the music industry. CQ Researcher, 13, 989-1012. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/