The single returns from the dead, digitally

updated 7:33 p.m. ET May 10, 2007

NEW YORK - It sounds like a horror movie: a beloved friend is callously exterminated, then reincarnated in a different form to wreak havoc on the killer.

That’s the nightmare currently facing the music industry. Almost a decade after virtually eliminating 45s and cassette singles, thereby forcing fans to spend more money on whole albums, the digital single is largely responsible for the industry’s woes.

Consumers no longer need to buy an album if they want that cool jam they heard on the radio — and in growing numbers, they’re choosing 99-cent downloads over $15 CDs.

Some worry this trend is worsening the quality of albums as a cohesive musical work, and that label executives are more and more interested in quick hits than lasting music or artists.

While the vast majority of music consumers still buy CD albums, they are buying less of them, while digital tracks are exploding: According to Nielsen SoundScan, sales of physical CDs this year have declined 20 percent from the same point in 2006, from 112 million to 89 million. Digital tracks are up to 288 million from 242 million at the same period last year. And that’s not counting the millions of singles that are illegally downloaded.

“Now, we’re in a very difference place in terms of the single business,” Jim Donio, president of National Association of Recording Merchandisers, said in an interview. “The single business is alive and well, and it’s in the form of track downloads.”

The same cannot be said, however, for albums. Even counting albums that are downloaded along with physical CDs sold, album sales are down 10 percent from the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan, continuing a decline that has been growing for several years.

The industry’s hard times are evident in recent label consolidations, widespread layoffs, reduction in budgets and an overall air of belt-tightening.

In 1996, music companies shipped more than 1.1 billion units — all physical product — for a value of $12.5 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Ten years later, despite a decline in physical product sold, they industry has “shipped” approximately 1.6 billion units — but its value is down by a billion dollars, to $11.5 billion.

“There’s probably a fair amount of purchases that would have been albums but are now individual track sales instead,” said Geoff Mayfield, director of charts at Billboard magazine.

And at 99 cents or so, singles bring in much less profit than albums (which is why iTunes has been pressured by record companies to raise their prices).

Other signs show of the singles-driven market: One of the most consistent album chart-toppers is the blockbuster “Now That’s What I Call Music!” series, which features a compilation of the hottest tracks of the season and routinely debuts at No. 1.

And of course there is the enormous popularity of music download services like iTunes. Recently, iTunes introduce its “Complete the Album” feature, an enticement which gives credit for songs purchased from an album toward purchasing the rest of it.

The question remains whether consumers are as interested in completing the albums as they used to.

Ciara hopes so. The 21-year-old’s latest platinum album, “Ciara: The Evolution,” on La Face/Jive Records (a unit of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture between Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG) wasn’t designed to provide just hits, but as an entire experience about her development into a woman, complete with interludes between the tracks.

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