Helloooo.....are you listening?

The music industry is in a tough spot right now.....well part of it is. The record companies. With peer-to-peer networks providing the world with a free way to trade music and grab the latest hot single their profits are in peril. So instead of complaining and suing 1 person for every 100,000 that download music "illegally" they should look for solutions and maybe change the way they do business.

With the new generation the CD and traditional way of releasing music is going the way of the 8-track and cassette tape. Maybe there is a better way to do it.

Bands still need the music labels to help them promote their songs/albums and get it played on radio stations, etc. There will always be a need for this, only a small handful of bands have the power to not require a label at all, ie. Radiohead, Coldplay, etc.

So why don't the music labels move away from the CD system and directly into digital version only. Forget the now standard approach of release an album once every year or two years and move to a contract that encourages bands to release a new single track every 3 months or 4 months. The label could actually invest in a sales oriented website of their own so people could buy the music directly from them and other online stores such as iTunes. This lowers the labels overhead and should help to increase profits, plus when you are just buying a single song it seems like so much less. $1 for that new single I love instead of $10-15 for the single and a bunch of filler.

Listen to your customers music labels and adapt.