Posted on: Friday, May 3, 2002

Future of music singles appears tenuous

Advertiser staff and news services

Like bulky 8-track tape players and Beta videocassette recorders, the single record — those one- and two-song recordings that launched a thousand bands — appears to be rushing headlong toward pop-culture extinction.

Retailers report sharply declining sales of singles in recent years. U.S. sales last year dropped precipitously to 31 million from 53 million in 2000, according to Soundscan, which gauges music sales.

And the National Association of Recording Merchandisers says CD singles grossed $145 million in 2000, down more than

10 percent from 1999. Their share of overall music sales declined slightly to 1.4 percent.

So listeners who hear a catchy song on a Top 40 radio station are increasingly hard-pressed to find it as a single in the racks of a record store.

"That really blows the deal," said Mindy Ramis, 20, of Mililani. "I'm forced to buy the whole album even when I really am interested in only one song." And that can be tough when you're a college student with a limited income, she said.

But at least some people say rumors of the single's demise are greatly exaggerated.

"I know that a lot of the labels in the industry are trying to kill off that format — the single — but we're selling more now than ever before," says John Timmons, owner of Ear Xtacy in Louisville, Ky. He says that mainstream sales have slumped because major labels believe singles cut into full-length album receipts and don't generate enough profit. "If they can't sell a million copies of it, they don't want to deal with it," he says.

But the single won't completely go away as long as there are music aficionados looking to add an elusive import CD single to their collections, Timmons says.

Charles Reinert of Louisville says he buys CD singles when he's filling in gaps in his collection of albums from the 1960s and '70s. Those albums, from the Beatles to Pink Floyd, were once exclusively on vinyl. "Slowly but surely, I'm trying to get that collection on CD," he says.

If major labels abandon singles, it's likely that they'll still exist as the statement of hardscrabble bands working to get their music out to the public any way they can. Musicians point out that many artists establish a critical reputation through local sales of vinyl singles before a signature label takes note. Only then, once those bands have moved to a corporate home, do major record companies realize there's a market for singles.