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Album art may not be replaced by a better version of album art, but by the artist page. Amazon is the latest to reflect the trend, with new artist stores it says it has posted for 100,000 of the artists in its DRM-free MP3 store.
Not only does "artist" make more sense these days as a means of categorizing music than "album," it also gives artists and labels a chance to tailor the page so that it brings fans closer to the people making the music.
The album is receding as a means of organizing music, which has been splintering into re-shuffleable digital singles for years. Organizing by artist makes more sense because it lets sites unite not only every song recorded by a given band, but also blogs, photos, videos, pre-release offers, fan club invitations and so on.
The artist page – whether on Amazon, MySpace, Live Nation page or an iPhone
– ties it all together in a way that was never possible in traditionalalbum art formats. As music playback devices like the iPhoneincreasingly allow web browsing, this trend will only grow stronger.
And unlike the cardboard covers of old, these ones include "buy" linksfor the rest of an artist's catalog.
"These stores allow our customers to easily find and discover the musicthey love in any format along with a variety of artist content," saidAmazon vice president of music and movies Peter Faricy, "like exclusivemusic videos and behind-the-scenes footage, all in a single place."
In honor of its ten-year anniversary and the launch of these artistpages, Amazon is hawking a compilation featuring CD-era superstars suchas Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Bruce Springsteen and Jewel. Thecompilation is not available as a digital download.
See Also:
- Digitization Of Album Art Is About New Possibilities, Not Smaller Graphics
- Apple Readies Interactive Album Applications
- Designers Work to Rescue a Dying Art Form – the Album Cover
- iPhone Apps Are a Trojan Horse for Music Pricing
(Amazon)
