Will singles ever be popular again?

[AlexH.]

There was never any need for 7" singles to increase in price like that. Do you not think this revival of vinyl would have been bettered if the prices had just stayed the same and all those people buying albums would have noticed lots of cheap singles too. There is no reason for any single, 7" or 12" to be at those prices.

 

Welcome to capitalism? Of course more people would be into vinyl had prices not risen dramatically in the last 5-6 years. Labels aren't the only ones who set prices, pressing plants have also raised their prices. They went from being a curious music industry sideshow to being in constantly slammed with business and often backed up for months. Their services are in high demand, so they have raised their prices accordingly. It costs them the same amount to press a 12" single or an LP, so those cost realities are passed on to the label, who have largely decided that if they can't make 12"s cost effective, they won't release them, especially when CD singles cost them pennies to manufacture and distribute to promotional channels and (again) digital distribution reigns supreme for the consumer market. Pre-iTunes/Spotify/Youtube/piracy, maybe a sustainable amount of people would pay a few bucks for a vinyl single just to try it out. But why do that when there are so many ways to preview music that don't cost money and don't waste space and resources?

[dreamwolf]

Singles are really worth it if they have unreleased tracks on the albums, good b-sides. Not really into remixes of certain songs singles but that doesn't mean I'd never go for it.

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Between 2000 and 2010 he sold over 80 million records. What a lot of people don't know is that his 2010 Recovery album sold over 5 million copies world wide to date. His 1999 Slim Shady at 9 million currently and that doesn't include the sales of singles from both those albums. What people also don't know is that those record sales from 2000-2010 DO NOT include the 2001 D12 album or 2004 D12 album and do not include the sales of the 2002 8 Mile soundtrack. If you were to add up the sales of his Slim Shady LP, Recovery album, singles sales from those albums and the sales from the D12/8 Mile soundtrack it totals to well over 100 million. He was Artist of the Decade but of course he's not female so it wasn't really publicised.

 

It really puts things in perspective. It's like this stuff you hear about Katy Perry and Roar and Lady Gaga going head to head. Eminem announces a new album on the Sunday, drops the single on Tuesday, it goes to number 1 for 2 days straight and no one talks about it lol. It's like if we don't talk about it then it doesn't exist, then his release date is the week after Lady Gaga, both of them are on Interscope. Eminem's 2010 album sold over 700,000 copies in America alone it's first week. The album leaked online 2 weeks prior, he never pushed the release date up. The album still sold a massive number but I'm interested to see how the charts go this time round and see how people spend their money. We're not talking about Madonna or The Rolling Stones or AC/DC or someone who's been around 20,30 years. This is a guy that in 14 years has sold over 100 million singles and albums and released nothing from 2005-2009. Most of those sales were at record shops, in the high street, people paying money to a real person, not sitting on a computer dreamover.

 

Do your research before you say someone sucks in future. I'm all for the Katy Perry's and the Justin Bieber's of the world but they cannot do what this man has done. It cannot be done again. Over 100 million sales cannot be done in such a short space of time. He was artist of the decade. He beat the Madonnas and Britney Spears and Christina Aguileras and U2s. They could not sell the number he sold in 10 years. They weren't good enough to do it. They could not beat the GOAT.