Question

[Jerome]

for Jerome I think, but anyone can answer of course

trying to keep this simple, but don't know if I can

How does the singles market work in the digital age?

What I mean by that is, back in the days of vinyl, a track was released as a single on a 45 rpm record, fed to radio stations (never payola) in hopes of getting airplay, leading to sales.
These days with all songs being digital, can't radio stations play any track they want?
Are singles still released in any format that you can purchase?
Just confused about how the whole singles market thing now works.

I am just as confused as you are. You can purchase individual tracks online (normally around 99cents/track). I think the radio stations basically have the equivalent of a stacked mp3 player with zillions of tracks on them, but I could be wrong here. One thing I do know is that a lot of the music recorded in the last decade or so has been heavily compressed ( as a result of the loudness wars ). The record companies though that if their track was mastered louder if would be more noticeable on the radio. Unfortunately radio stations compress the material even futher. That's why music from twenty years ago sounds better on the radio than new releases. Also less fatiguing on the ears. I know this does nothing to answer your question but I thought I would mention it as I am busy looking into this side of things at the moment.

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