On the millennium’s eve, the music industry found itself on the verge of sweeping changes brought on by the rapid growth of the internet and digital media that has resulted in a merger of audio and computing technologies. It was the next step in the progression from mono to hi-fidelity to Dolby sound, from vinyl (a storage medium based on physical vibration) to audiocassette (magnetic) to CDs and mini disks (digital), from gramophones to home stereo systems to portable players. But then physical media disappeared: storage and players merged into a single device, the MP3 player that stored compressed data.

Change’s effects are often summed up in the catch-all phrase “generation gap”, but when it comes to music there’s a definite divide. It’s between those of us who added shelves to bookcases to accommodate a growing collection of LPs and CDs and those who add external hard drives to their personal computers to accommodate a growing collection of MP3s; it’s between those whose backpacks were weighed down by tapes and CDs for our portable music players and those who can fit almost all their music on a device the size of a business card.
I confess: I like the convenience of an MP3 player, but I miss “touching” the music–the ritual of pulling a vinyl LP from its sleeve, carefully wiping it, placing it on the turntable, blowing dust from the needle, then waiting for the barely perceptible sound of its contact with the record’s outer groove. Listening to music was an activity, like reading a book; it wasn’t just sounds on in the background, like having the stereo or radio blaring while you worked, cooked, or walked. That distinction doesn’t seem to exist today. Most teens just laugh at the idea of buying a CD; they just download whatever they want. And few understand the idea of listening to an album, start to finish; the ‘mixed tape’ now rules in the form of an MP3 play list.
Digital media has changed the relationship between music and audiences around the globe, but in Greece, which lagged other Western countries in internet penetration, these changes were more sudden. And their impact is only slowly being felt on the broader culture as music, always as communal as the village feast, is now being pushed into the realm of the personal. But the first wave of change has already swept the music industry.
For some, the MP3 file–the format used to digitally encode audio data–marked the end of an era, an era defined by the concept of the album, the modern evolution of classical music’s symphonies.
“I think we’re shifting back towards the single track,” says Socrates Soumelas, a record producer and content manager for Vodafone’s full track digital download service. This shift, he adds, has been taking place over the last fifteen years. “In the 1960s, we had the 45-rpm singles, then recording artists turned to the album and began making ‘concept albums’, complete with gatefold sleeves and inlays; these were like small works of art. With the first digital era, along came CDs and things became smaller again. The album lost its ‘art’ aspect so the consumer started thinking about music as ‘music’ again. Then came this obscure thing (that’s not even a ‘thing’..) called the MP3 and people started listening to music on their personal computers. So, first you lost the visual aspect of the album and then you lost the hi-fi aspect. A generation has grown up that doesn’t know you could enjoy music like this, so they don’t care any more. And this does away with both the need for the artistic and the physical aspect of the album.”
 “Personally, I don’t like the shift away from the album,” says singer-songwriter Dimitris Panagopoulos. “Some people say that when songs were released on 45s as singles, with one song on the front side and one of the flip side, this was better than an album because each song had to stand on its own and wasn’t couched in an album. I disagree. I like to give work a unity, for it to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I don’t want the listener to hear just one song.”
But sometimes that’s all listeners do hear anyway. Panagopoulos himself is a case in point. Although he has recorded and released five albums–and commands a group of loyal fans–he is known to most Greeks for a single song, “Avra” (Breeze), off his 1988 debut album.
Digital technologies didn’t just break down the album: they broke down some of the barriers to the recording industry. New software and the internet made recording cheaper, accessible to almost any band with access to a personal computer. Bands began appearing out of nowhere on entertainment-oriented social networking websites like MySpace.com. And while the mere act of uploading songs doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be heard, it did make it easier for bands to find an audience. In Greece, it gave alternative bands enough access to audiences and exposure to push them closer to the mainstream.
 “But in the end, what reaches people is what is marketed and promoted. Those who get airplay will sell–like they always did,” says Panagopoulos. “The potential for being discovered is tiny. The exploitation of the internet to promote those being marketed is disproportionately greater. Once again, it’s the industry-advertised artists that are benefiting.”
A decade ago, no one quite understood what the disappearance of physical media would mean for the music industry. Retail was the first to feel the change, although in Greece record store sales have also been hit by the inclusion of CDs as newspaper premiums and, most recently, by CD releases in direct-to-kiosk formats.
Since digital technologies appeared, the record industry has been obsessed with piracy. The first war was waged against CDs; nothing was gained except the realization that the CD which they sought to protect wasn’t the product but its storage format. In the second war now being waged against illegal downloads, their attention has shifted.
 “Our interest is now in RTPs,” says a record company executive. The Real-time Transfer Protocol is a packet format used in streaming audio and video. “It’s more expensive for the consumer, but there’s greater income for record companies as it cannot be pirated.”
Having addressed sales, record companies also began looking at ways to exploit digital technologies. This shift from the album, says the executive, makes it easier for record companies to test the waters for new artists or new projects. “Say you have an artist whose last CD was a moderate success. He wants to release his new work but doesn’t want to cannibalize it, so it’s released as a digital single instead.”
Ironically, while digital technologies are credited–or alternately blamed–for the changes sweeping the music industry, these are actually being fomented by television and how this medium is starting to use digital technologies to shield itself from their effect. This goes hand-in-glove with the record industry’s marketing strategy which is, as Soumelas notes, that record companies don’t market music, they market artists.
The renewed popularity of talent shows, which in Greece especially dominate private channels’ programming, has placed television in the bird-dog seat of music marketing. Whereas radio was once the primary vehicle for promotion as airplay was free if DJs liked a song while the cost of TV advertising was prohibitive, television is now the main vehicle for promoting new artists.
“With television ‘talent shows’, you have instant stars, but you don’t have hit songs. The talent show winner is a household name, but he/she doesn’t have a song to match it,” says Soumelas.
The problem is that the record company is committed to the winner–the prize is a recording contract–but has no way of predicting that winner. To capitalize on the show’s momentum, the record company has to act fast, but writing and producing a song for a specific voice takes time; so does distribution.
“What we’re seeing now–and this has been totally helped by the digital, non-physical product–is that record companies pick a contestant to invest in. This isn’t expensive as they don’t need to pay for advertising and don’t need to have an album. All they need is a song; once you have the singer, all you need to do is record it,” says Soumelas. “And in the last six months, we’ve seen that you don’t even need radio airplay any more as consumers go straight to Youtube.com–almost immediately after the show–and enjoy the videos.”
Soumelas sees a new wave of change as record companies turn their attention to distribution in the digital age.
“People want access to the internet–and that’s what they’re willing to pay for. You cannot have access to the internet without an internet service provider. So the thought is that the record industry will go the way the film industry did with television and movies on free channels. That is, record companies will just sell the license to distribute their music and will charge a monthly fee for this that will be passed on to the consumer,” he says.
So where does that leave the Greek record industry? On the brink of another change that will redefine Greeks’ relationship to music.
“The product has changed. The artistic element of the product has changed. How the product is marketed has changed. Now I think its distribution will change, too.”