http://music3point0.blogspot.com
 
No platinum album.
 
Zero. None. Aucun.

Further down in my newsfeed, there was an article about Iggy Pop not making a living with his music anymore and another where Paul Stanley was making a statement about piracy.
 
It was disheartening to see Stanley's own fans comment that he should just shut up, that he was rich and so on.
 
Not only people are stealing and rationalizing it to themselves, but they now go public about it and, adding insult to injury, tell the artist that they rob to just shut up.

stupid u2 and the free release......
 
LOL

Note that it is albums that are not reaching the million copy sales. RIAA awards platinum to > 1 million selling singles as well, and includes legal digital downloads in the accounting, so 60 platinum songs in a year with zero platinum albums, implies that the market has moved to digital. That should be no news to anyone. As someone who was raised on the single release 33&1/3 vinyl distribution model, I watched albums turn into the only game in town and now deja vu. Given the opportunity to disaggregate  really good singles from the more expensive package including not so great stuff, it is not surprising that the album model is dying for lack of customers. For artists and record companies, the digital model has not proven anywhere near as profitable as the album system did. For customers, it has given them a lot more control and more bang for the buck, and for pirates it has been a bonanza.

I don't think it's unexpected. 
 
Though it re-enforces the feeling that I may be part of a dying breed who values albums over singles, listeners that are usually more inclined sit down and listen to music. 
 
As a musician, especially when writing for someone else, I realize that I somehow became conscious of the tyrannic grip of the dumber and dumber market rules - get to the point and hook your listener within the first 10 seconds or you've lost them. 
 
No more intro, no more building up. We need a song that's Chorus-Chorus-Chorus-Alt Chorus-Chorus-Chorus.
 
Some artists undoubtedly filled albums with sub-standard material and got their platinum album on the sole merit of a hit single or two. But in many cases, the album provided an outlet for the artists to express themselves outside the constraints of the hit single paradigm.
 
As such, there are lots of records in my collection which I enjoy from A to Z w/ the exception of the hit single. 
 
Though it was unavoidable, it's sad to see that the age when market and artistic vision coincided a bit more - an age where people wanted albums like DSOTM, when popular music had evolved from the 3 chords cliché love song into things like Stairway to Heaven.
 
Remember when Uptown Girl by Billy Joel topped the charts? Man, there's enough music in there to make 20 songs by current standards... Back then, THAT was pop!

You have a good point Rain. A well done album is an artistic creation that is greater than the sum of its parts.  The mix tape that became a popular courtship tool when cassettes were all the rage captured that same hunger for a thematic unity to the listening experience, but gave the listener/compiler a sense of being part of the creative process.  Are courting couples exchanging play lists these days?
 
The most popular music currently seems to be what we used to call "party" music--not the kind of thing you would listen to by candle light on a rainy evening. If you just want to hear HIT HIT HIT in successive three minute gulps, it is hard to beat the radio, or currently the cell phone or MP3 player with the advantage of no Dj's or advertisements.
 

Rain
Further down in my newsfeed, there was an article about Iggy Pop not making a living with his music anymore and another where Paul Stanley was making a statement about piracy.
 
It was disheartening to see Stanley's own fans comment that he should just shut up, that he was rich and so on.
 
Not only people are stealing and rationalizing it to themselves, but they now go public about it and, adding insult to injury, tell the artist that they rob to just shut up.

The most flatheaded and idiotic excuse for neglecting artists' right to their work is just that: They're so rich!
But it's only the voice of the rich ones that arouses interest and makes it to the media. They talk also for the millions who make a penny now and another later.
 
99% of the artists who collect some kind of royalties from any source are far from rich. Most of them most likely  have to keep a "normal" day job to make ends meet, and the others live from hand to mouth and do need every single dime their art can bring.

Pretty soon the only ones who'll be able to make a living in music are those who can actually perform live in front of a paying audience. How retro! 

bitflipper
Pretty soon the only ones who'll be able to make a living in music are those who can actually perform live in front of a paying audience. How retro! 

This is an excellent point, and it comes at a time in history when playing live in front of an audience is not the only way to make music. Kitaro in concert looks a lot like a guy on stage supervising his computers. Still the guy in the mouse head seems to be making it pay.

I remember seeing Shawn Phillips in my little hometown in Canada in 1990 IIRC. At some point, he said that we'd be listening to his new compositions, which would be played back by a computer. He had the computer on stage on a little table, so he just pressed a button and sat there, hands on his knees, looking at the audience. 
 
It was kind of odd, but cool at the same time.