Why album apps won't succeed

We love the idea of the album app. Since the demise of the glorious vinyl album cover we've had to make do with the humble CD inlay booklet. 

Vinyl album covers were not only a canvas for artist  expression (the Beatles and Peter Blake kicked it all off in '66), but our first destination when we wanted to find out who had written, performed, arranged, produced, engineered and mixed the record. We had lyrics, pictures and biographies. Dammit, the gatefold was an essential visual accompaniment to the music.

So why are we so down on the album app? After all, at the very least they provide a curated portal to an artists online presence, including social media channels, tour dates and news, YouTube videos and of course artist's website content, and at their best they can contain unique interactive content and games.

Here's why ..

1) Anyone recently played Peter Gabriel's superb Xpolrer, Skunk Anansie's enhanced CD's, or Coldplay's brilliant Let Us Play? Thought not. All of these titles cost a lot of money to produce, contain great ideas and work, and will no longer run on any current OS. 

We estimate that most apps have a 3-4 year lifespan before needing to be updated, and 6-7 before a complete OS port. That's a huge investment of time and money and we can't see listeners wanting to pay for upgrades.

2) Even the best interactive content is usually only accessed a couple of times. Bjork's Biophilia is an ambitious project, but it's a huge storage hog. We admired it, messed around with it for an hour and promptly forgot about it. We still listen to her music though.

3) Most people listen to music when they are driving, walking or as background music whilst working. Not much of a role for the album app in these circumstances.

4) Video games have raised our expectations of interactive experiences and no album app is going to have a budget that can compete.

5) Does anybody really want to remix their favourite artist's music?

Perhaps you disagree and can see a future for this format. Let us know your thoughts.

Thanks for reading

FairFax