Wednesday, September 08, 2010

A Lament for "Forced Consumption"

Album-a-Week laments the fall of music magazines, as represented by the end of Paste:

Let's say you bought an entire album just because you liked one song. After listening to that one song on repeat for days, you ventured into the rest of the album. After listening to the entire album, you ran across the best song of your life. Well, that would never have happened if you hadn't bought the album, now would it? If you just bought the single, you would not have learned about any other tracks on the album. Forced consumption in the magazine format is the same. It leads you through a maze of possible favorites; whereas, online only leads you through what you already know.
He's not wrong.  But the mags need a better tag line than "Forced Consumption: Because We Know Better, Sheeple!" Maybe ConsumptionPlus?

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