Orchestras seem happy to give first performances, but how many will play new pieces thereafter? Audiences are small. As composer, teacher, administrator and record producer, he has taken on a task that would have given Sisyphus pause for thought.Īfter all, we don't even know what to call this music: "new", "serious", "contemporary classical"? Record companies are often loath to commit it to disc. Their location is open to several interpretations, but the one I prefer is that Matthews is always active, working, thinking of ways to propagate contemporary music in his many guises.
NEW MUSIC SHELF INSTALL
Otherwise, we might as well install a revolving door at the top of the album chart and have done with it.T here is a fax machine in the toilet of Colin Matthews's house in Wandsworth, south London, and a large pile of recent communications. Streaming remains a great vehicle for discovery, and there's no reason why it can't work for albums every bit as well as it does for individual tracks. But the biz also needs to have the courage to keep working albums so they find an audience, even after they exit the Top 20.
NEW MUSIC SHELF FULL
Swift’s ideas about streaming services promoting full album listening, revealed in Music Week, should be taken up, and chart companies could also surely find a way to weight the streams of those who listen to an entire record. The vast majority of artists still value the album and – if we want that to continue – the biz needs to do more to make sure they reach an audience in the way the artist intended. So much of the industry is still built around the long-player (we've yet to see a concert where somebody just plays their most popular Spotify songs in order, although it might not be far away), yet how many releases in recent years have genuinely resonated with the public as an entire body of work?įrom Lana Del Rey’s Norma Fucking Rockwell to Taylor Swift’s brilliant Lover or Bruce Springsteen's Western Stars, 2019 has seen no shortage of records that hang together brilliantly. That may not matter too much in business terms as the streaming starts to pay its way, but it does dent music’s wider cultural impact. But, while actual album sales are crucial in propelling you to the top in that first week, a blanket presence across the streaming services is fast becoming the only way to extend the chart life of a record. The fact that Hollywood’s Bleeding is a streaming-led album is telling, all other recent chart-toppers have been more physical in terms of their sales breakdown.
And, of the 11 most recent No.1s before The Script, only two remain in the Top 20 this week ( From Out Of Nowhere by Jeff Lynne’s ELO, at No.7 in its second week, and Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding, at No.10 on its 10th week). Sheeran, Billie Eilish and Lewis Capaldi are the only artists this year to return to the top after their initial stint. But while this year has escaped 2018’s Greatest Showman dominance, which saw a myriad of records by established names fail to hit the top, the biz will now be concerned at just how difficult it is to make a record stick in the minds of consumers.
It’s big release season, of course, so you’d expect a lot of records to open large. Since Ed Sheeran’s No.6 Collaborations Project returned to the summit back in August, the position has had a higher churn rate than even Donald Trump’s White House staff. With the arrival of The Script's Sunsets & Full Moons at the summit on Friday, the UK saw its 12 th different brand new No.1 album in as many weeks.
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