Google online music store makes me recall the changes this technology has had on the music industry

Yesterday, Google unveiled a new online music store that will compete with itunes. This seems to be another move by Google to enter the world of entertainment. This made me think about the changes that itunes and other online music stores have had on the music industry as a whole.

Last year, for English 101, I wrote a paper about the effects that illegal downloading has had on the music industry. I concluded that although people who were illegally downloading music were stealing music, they were also opening up the world of music. Before Napster, which was the first widely used website to illegally download music, people would only get music that they knew they like. If an album was 15 dollars, people were only going to pay that if they were sure they would like the music. Napster allowed people to try music that they would otherwise not have tried because it was free. This was bad for big recording companies, but not so bad for the guy in his basement trying to hit it big.

After a while, Apple came up with a way to download music legally with itunes. This was a good compromise for the record companies and the consumers. It is still convenient for consumers and the record companies still get paid. However, this changed the way music was bought and sold. Whereas before artists would sell entire albums, now artists are trying to sell single tracks on itunes. If you look at a list of the top selling albums of all time, hardly any of the top 100 come after the year 2000 (the first year Napster was introduced). This is not to say that music is worse now than it was 50 years ago, or that it is less popular. This just says that now people buy single tracks instead of full albums. (And many people do still steal their music illegally on the Internet)

With Google entering the online music business, expect this trend to continue. People no longer want to buy an entire album and artists no longer seek to make killer albums. They want 2 or 3 hit songs that will get played on the radio and downloaded on itunes. It is unlikely that anyone will come close to breaking Michael Jackson’s record of 110 million copies sold which he reached with his 1982 album “Thriller”.