Singles sales rose 10% for the fourth year.
Our industry "bosses" are really clueless, aren't they? They simply don't understand the new world, new technology, new model.
Give up on albums - apart from "collections" and concepts.
Concentrate on making and breaking mass appeal singles.
Restructure the companies more in the shape of XL and demolish the dinosaur "majors" (oops - that's just happened, with EMI cracking up).

It would all be so different if I was still (as PM Blair said) "making an enormous contribution to one of our country's great success stories".

www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/02/uk-...c-sales-decline-2011

JK please stop stop stop this madness.
The fact that singles ROSE shows that the industry is supporting them.
Albums are essential for many artists and they have a right to exist.
My final point is why don't you STFU (said with a smile and with all due respect) and set up your
own label and DIY.
Making and breaking mass appeal singles? Are you having a laugh? Them days are gone.
Even your Alex Day single is hardly mass appeal. Fans had to buy multiple copies to enable it to chart.
Nothing wrong with that but wake up to the real world. Spotify and Youtube make albums much more of a
better bet for most. Your post shows that you have not quite got the new model yet.
The major labels don't have a right to exist. If someone else does it better then kudos to them
and long live them.
Just stop bashing the majors it is getting quite monotonous hence I am jaded and bored by it all

I'm sorry J&B, yet again you're wrong.
You've fallen for the old assumption that performers and great artistes are commonplace.
They are few and far between.
Those trying to make a living out of music try desperately to erect stars out of tat like Duffy and Terence Trent Darby.
Majors know that the big profits come from musical stars and their collections but the genuine stars have always been rare.
Majors (and executives or commentators like yourself) inflate and exaggerate in order to erect stars out of one hit wonders.
But the reality is - most great music is short bursts of singles; brief three minute masterpieces.
Instead of trying to make stars out of one offs, music people should concentrate on finding, promoting and capitalising out of those genuine, real hits - through airplay, commercial use, packaging, images - and cutting their costs (vast monies wasted by labels).
Yes it's wonderful when a genuine star arises from a hit.
But take it as a bonus and don't build your entire raison d'etre on that pathetic desire.
Concentrate on finding, making and breaking real mass appeal hits and budget your company on that.

As for starting my own label again at 67.

No thanks!

I think I know what Ken is driving at here. There are huge hits, which seem to subliminally stick in the subconscious, and the majority of people remember and like them. They may not be music fans as such, but a lot of them will buy, download or get these hits from file sharing websites. Having mass appeal they get aired the most on radio, and are licensed more for use in adverts, cover versions and the like. These tunes usually have a great hook and a very simple structure - people like simplicity - and they're typically banal, derivative and corny. But of course, in commercial terms they're like gold dust.

I only became full comprehensive of how record co execs minds work (or don't) when the top A&R man played me (an admittedly great version ) a "new original song" as he described it..which his label was releasing..Pass The Dutchie by Musical Youth.

He got very peeved when I pointed out it wasn't a new song and didn;t speak to me for months after.