The end of the downloadable single is nigh. With a new corporate strategy under the major label’s belts, are emerged download music shakers like iTunes and Yahoo Music doomed?

It’s been a long time coming. What true music aficionado or even lover can justify iTunes as part of their disposal of music acquisition? The familiarity of music is within an entire album - start to finish; hidden tracks and all. Can you honestly say you would have ever known of the offbeat dialogue within all the Sublime cuts if you were downloading singles? How about Pete Yorn’s ten minute deep hidden harmonious “A Girl Like You”? If you ever downloaded a single tune from Funeral, you are removing yourself from the overall experience of a well produced opus. Diplo just doesn’t work unless you listen from start to finish experiencing true interwoven hip-hop and sound mixing.

Don’t even get me started on the 128kbs quality, or lack there of. I own old Peter Pan 45s that sound better.

Promising vindication is around the corner for the cannibalistic nature of singles. Recently, record companies have been experimenting with the scheme of withholding pre-released singles on iTunes until the full album is released to major distribution chains, thus leaving the power back in the hands of the radio airwaves for appeal and release hype. Who said the CD format was obsolete? Who said vinyl was dead?

Def Jam Recording’s Ne-Yo’s is a proven model. His recently released album, In My Own Words sold 301,000 copies with no pre-release singles available for legal download on the internet until well after the album droped. As a comparison, Chris Brown’s single “Run It”, that was in the itunes store, sold 154,000 copies in its first week. So, if you figure this out by-the-nubmers, Ne-Yo’s So Sick was downloaded approximately 3.4 million times on the peer to peer networks during the week of his album release while the album “Run It” was downloaded approximately 5.3 million times in the same release period. Def Jam plans sticking to this model for future releases as a proven worth and other labels are taking note. Atlantic and Epic are both looking to release air play only singles until the album drops in stores at which point they will allow singles downloads on iTunes et al. What concerns the labels now is how staggering these numbers prove to be. Over the past decade, record sales have seen a downward spiral that the industry has yet to give an answer to. If this holds water, expect major labels to pull their single releases from major digital distributors across the board. Regardless of what side you take in the quality versus the great white-hype debate, the labels may finally have their counter.

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, some groups like Radiohead are releasing works-in-progress via download and are toying with an all digital release of their upcoming album. And you’ll never change the minds of pioneers like David Bowie from not embracing the digital revolution. In fact, I’m not even arguing its negative aspects on the industry. For independent labels and musicians, it’s a blessing as statistics show that more indie offspring purchase albums and not just single downloads, pushing virtually unknown groups to the spotlight - even for a short-lived instant. When you take into account the less spent in distribution and packaging alone, the difference can be staggering on a profit standpoint. Indie singles are far from the numbers of the dominant hip-hop and R&B market reported by digital institutions. Yet they still make up a staggering 18 percent in album sales of 2005 - their biggest share of the market in at least five years, according to Nielsen SoundScan data. Opposite, they were well below the numbers of major label act’s single profits on iTunes and Yahoo Music.

What will be interesting to take note is how the companies investing millions of dollars into the digital industry, including AOL, Yahoo, Google, and rumored newcomer Amazon will respond. You can bet your sweet behinds that they won’t stand around banking on less popular singles to keep afloat. Look for major mp3 distribution centers to sign hefty contracts with labels to obtain pre-release singles. A change is brewing in the digital market once again and we’ll have to see in which direction it takes us.