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CD Music Sales Down 20% In Q1 2007
prostoalex writes "Music sales are not just falling, they're plummeting — by as much as 20% when you compare January-March 2007 with the 2006 numbers. The revenue numbers are actually worse, since CD prices are under pressure. The Wall Street Journal lists many factors contributing to the rapid decline: 800 fewer retail outlets (Tower Records' demise alone closed 89); increasingly negative attitude towards CD sales from big-box retailers (Best Buy now dedicates less floor space to CDs in favor of better-selling items); and file sharing, among others. Songs are being traded at a rate about 17 times the iTunes Store's recent rate of sales. Diminishing CD sales means that you don't have to sell as many to get on the charts. The 'Dreamgirls' movie soundtrack recently hit #1 by selling 60,000 CDs in a week, a number that wouldn't have made the top 30 in 2005."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=227533&cid=184 33111
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
"You're not entitled to my money" is that lesson.
I have nothing to say.
Only recording artists will be hurt over the long run. Those who are willing to sing for their dinner will do well.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I wonder a bit about iTunes vs. peer-to-peer metrics. On iTunes one is liable to buy a single track or two whereas on file sharing services downloading the album is usually the only choice (even if you only want one track). This alone would account for some of why file sharing is so much more voluminous.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
The other day, I was in a trendy clothing store. Embarrassment aside, I could not believe all of the innovative music that they were playing. There was one particular track that I wanted to buy so I queried the sales folk as to the artist name and title. They had no idea and were not provided with any resource to fine out.
But that got me thinking: The ClearChannel monopoly on our radio stations is the source of this problem. They "pay to play" the same 40 songs all day.
I remember back in the early 90s when the FCC allowed this sort of thing (it was previously not legal for a single company to own more than a certain amount of radio stations in a given market... I don't know the exact detail but I remember the discussion). I look back on the variety of music from pre-monopolization and it really illustrates the difference.
But they can always blame the pirates.
More
The idea of buying an entire CD for one song on the radio has gone out of fashion. People now realize that one popular song can be found on iTunes, obviating the need for buying 12 to 15 other, useless tracks. If this fact alone doesn't account for 20% plummeting in CD sales, I would be surprised.
And the fact that Q1 of 2007 has had virtually no decent new music released couldn't have anything to do with it?
This is a time when the R&B era is over and Hip-hop is on the decline. Traditional Pop music seems to have all but vanished, rock music has never recovered since the 90's and Punk for several years has been hit & miss.
Is anyone surprised people are buying less music?
For the most part, I agree, the stuff that most of the music industry churns out is just that - stuff the music industry CHURNS out. It's default, boring, rehashed stuff. Why even listen to it, let alone buy it.
Places like iTunes, better yet, offer ways to buy just one track (how many times do people buy an entire CD simply because they like one, maybe two tracks?). Much cheaper.
Maybe it'll force "artists" to produce somewhat decent quality music.
we could say it was the music buying populace engaging in a measured boycott of the industry fronted by the thugs at the RIAA, but sadly, I don't think that's it. And I can't even say that it's because popular music (you know, the kind that climbs the charts) sucks, because it has sucked for 20 years or more (I blame The Cherry Hill Gang). I know why I so rarely buy CDs anymore (there's little I like, and Pandora hasn't catalgued bands I do like yet), but I am considered a social deviant so I don't ascribe such simple and straightforward motives to the mass of the music buying populace.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I have admittedly narrow tastes in music. As one of my friends pointed out I only like bands that released stuff between the years of 1994 and 2000, with a couple of exceptions.
So the part of the reason sales are down is because I haven't heard anything I wanted to buy in years.
Question everything
Music is one of those things that you just don't need a brick-and-mortar shop to sell, or even a physical item. I'm sure the established industry will do everything it can to blame illegal file sharing for this trend, but that is only a vain attempt to prop up a dead business and keep a whole lot of useless people employed collecting big paychecks.
The simple fact: Their business model is obsolete. I would even go so far to say that the recording industry as a whole is obsolete now that the people who actually make the music have to power to self-publish and self-promote to the entire world.
=Smidge=
Sure they're down 10% overall, but as someone else mentioned, how are the Indi bands doing? I'd say they're up.
Music industry needs to spend less time blaming P2P and pirates (Arrhhh!), and way less time recording dicks like K-Fed.
oh come on now, they've been saying that for decades. And besides we're talking about a 20% drop between 2006 and 2007. Whilst much of the music I find is crap to my taste there is some good stuff around, and I haven't noticed a 20% drop in quality of music a year ago.
...when the compact disc (CD) arrived.
This is no different than the other evolutions of music distribution.
GET WITH THE PROGRAM, RIAA, or die a shameful, greedy death.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You don't understand however that the music of these artists is not why people buy the music. Since the 1960's, music has been an accessory to a lifestyle. Despite what you may think, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, etc will be forgotton in 50 years. Hell, most kids today easily would never recognize a single Fleetwood Mac or Beatles song... they'd recognize Beethoven's Fifth however.
We long ago lost an appreciation for true musicianship - what these scoundrals push upon the masses is degenerate filth that caters to the most base desires. It's no wonder these artists have to become addicted to vice - they know deep inside their lives are worthless and they have abused their Apollian gifts to corrupt the masses instead of improving them.
From the very beginning, institutionalized "popular" music has always been overt propaganda, pushed upon the people by a wealthy elite in control of the mass media infrastructure. They clammor endlessly on slashdot against Payola, but that is how the system has always worked. THe Beatles became famous because record company executives bribed radio stations around the world to play the crap constantly. The drug culture aspect was in addition to a panacia to the despair of these artists, an inducement to the nihilistic children of the post-war world. They two were filled with the despair of impotence, as they adopted without question the pacifistic, materialistic ethos of that new era.
In short - the artists can never be proteted. They are used like the animals they are, and always have been.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
According to wikipedia, the total population of Asia is 3,902,404,193. North America has 518,575,412. I would venture to say their music industries are probably more diverse and robust than ours. Just because you have heard J-pop and/or K-pop, does not mean that is the only type of music coming from that region.
How about
1. Everybody over 20 has now finished replacing their vinyl and cassettes with CDs
2. The only records you get to hear about are the handful of rubbish on the radio playlists that you're already sick of.
3. Under 20s are now pissing their money away:
PS: Kids! Get off my lawn!!!
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Yeah, because we all know, that all the old music (previous recorded) is just going to suddenly disappear...
VHS tape sales down Q1 2007! CDs are old technology. They skip. Their expensive (still). People would rather make their own. I haven't found a CD in quite some time to listen all the way through. MP3s are in now. Their portable and don't skip and are cheap to buy online. Its not file sharing that is decreasing sales, its just the fact they are easier to pay 99 cents and download online versus going to a store. Finding the CD. Hoping you like it. Etc. VHS tapes were down when DVDs came out. DVDs will start to dwindle eventually when HD-DVD/BlueRay is standardized and comes down in prices. Its just trends that the RIAA still likes to focus on as a reasoning for action when that really isnt the only cause of sales dropping. /end old information that keeps coming back as NEW
Bryan
Have you heard of Fay Wong? or did you know that Jacky Chan is actually a very successful singer.
Jay Chou is a pretty good hip hop artist compared to many US artists.
I picked that up from a 1 week stay in China, without knowing a single word of Chinese. the music I heard while there was often much better than anything else. The variety was staggering, I wish I knew the artists names.
A song is on the order of around 4Mbytes encoded in MP3 (yes, I know about lossless and that is bigger). There is NO economics value of distributing music on CDs anymore. People stop uses horses when the automobile came about. I am sure all the stable hands were crying bloody murder about losing their jobs then, but people can't stop progress just because they are in the wrong industry. Same thing happened to typists. Same thing happened to slide rules manufacturers. Same thing happened to VHS. Same thing happened to cassette tapes. The same thing will happen to distributing music by CDs.
Let's face it folks. The problem with declining CD sales is due to one reason: the retail price is too high.
With prices going for US$15 or more per album-length CD even at Best Buy and Wal-Mart, the recording industry has priced their product in a cartel-like fashion that actually encourages ways to beat the system, whether it's piracy or buying music at a lower price through legal download sites. Why do you think the iTunes Music Store has done so well? Anyway, the RIAA should seriously consider setting a much lower price for a new album-length CD, probably more like US$12 per album maximum. At these lower prices, there is vastly lower incentive to pirate music, since more people can actually afford the real product.