End of physical singles?

By John Earls

The third-best selling single so far this week is a reissue of The Stone Roses' Elephant Stone. It's sold 406 copies.

OK, that's only if you took download sales away. But that means that, for all 7"s and CD singles sold on Monday, the No 3 would have sold pitifully.

Only JLS' Beat Again sold over 500 copies, shifting 3,809 copies. What has happened to the physical single?

After JLS, there's a huge drop in sales until you reach Green Day's 21 Guns, which sold 477 copies.

Some singles that are selling well on download have sold in such miserable quantities on 7" and CD, you wonder why the labels made them at all.

Florence And The Machine is at No 16. Her total 7"/CD sales this week? 64. Similarly, Daniel Merriweather's Red has sold 42 physical copies.

It's interesting to note that, for all the hype, sales of songs via mobile phones haven't really taken off.

They're doing about twice as well as physical singles, with the Top 10 averaging 500-1,000 sales via phones.

This is intriguing, because urban acts who are traditionally big sellers on mobiles are able to jump several places up the chart - by default, as the physical singles is dying out so much.

It was only three years ago that Gnarls Barkley's Crazy became the first single to reach No 1 solely on download sales.

For the past decade, there have been semi-regular features saying the 7" and 12" single has been making a comeback. But the statistics don't back this up.

As a boutique item in indie/dance shops vinyl has some credibility - but nowhere near as much mainstream impact as CD singles had until recently.

The big problem for CD singles is that shops simply don't sell them any more.

PS recently went to the biggest "record" shop in Britain, HMV on Oxford Street in London, to try to buy the current CD singles by Freemasons and Pet Shop Boys. HMV didn't sell them.

Are HMV not selling them because there is no demand any more... or because a £4 CD single is less profitable for shop space than a £40 PC game?

There have been plenty of debates before about whether it matters if an an album or single matters more to its owner if it's a physical or download.

Whatever side you're on, one thing is being lost out on here: the B-side.

From The Beatles to Oasis, bands once viewed them as release valves for their experimental songs. As people choose to only download one song, a good B-side is now as rare as a CD single.

i think artists take note that there are alot of good fans that want a real single release, i'd prefer a real one over a digital one.