LONDON, July 18 (UPI) -- British music mogul Alan McGee says increased reliance on Internet downloads has likely signaled the end of the singles era of music.
The Creation records founder added that the increasingly technologically based world of music has grown beyond the control of major labels and will likely make the once popular musical format obsolete, The Guardian reported.
"Downloads will be king within the next couple of years," McGee said on his Web site. "The majors have lost the football."
While McGee believes the decline in singles' popularity to be inevitable and indicative of a change in power in favor of musicians and smaller labels, the British Phonographic Industry rejects that view.
"It depends how you define the single," a BPI spokesman told the paper. "In terms of the volume of single tracks that have been sold, the market has doubled in just over a year. What has happened is that the singles market has accommodated a new format, the download."
