[kj] OT: Music industry - decline in CD sales

[Brendan Quinn]

It seems to me like we're in a kind of limbo state, artists are either shy
of releasing new stuff until they are confident about how / which medium to
do it on, either that of they have all gone to shit. Jaz pointed out in that
NZ interview that Reznor has a good model for making money, with high priced
collectable stuff for a smaller amount of fans.but I can't see that working
as well for newer bands as opposed to established acts. Mind you most decent
bands these days seem to be the 70 / 80s / 90s bands still going or reformed
anyway.

 

And I'd prefer to see distribution going local / decentralised as opposed to
getting centralised through the likes of Amazon and the big supermarkets.
The idea of buying a CD in a supermarket.ugh. Feels totally wrong.

  _____  

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of Jerry Butson
Sent: Saturday, 31 January 2009 03:49
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)
Subject: Re: [kj] OT: Music industry - decline in CD sales

 

Unstructured stream of consciousness:

I work in the music business (when they'll let me) and, whilst I don't have
any figures as to the supposed decline in CD (as opposed to any other
format) sales, it's not rocket science to suppose that this is the case.

The thing is the record companies used to have the monopoly on distribution.
With any decline in physical sales they'll have less stuff to ship which
will affect the people who sell it to the shops, make it, package it, design
it, print it, put it into boxes and take it to the shops. The major
companies still distribute their own physical product but they're
downsizing, but it's the companies that only do distribution that are
suffering (bye bye Pinnacle, EUK). Digital distribution isn't controlled by
the record companies so they can't lay a claim to it in the way they did
when they ran huge distribution companies.

If anyone is making huge profits from distributing digital music it ain't
the record cos. I just heard today that Amazon did amazin' business at Xmas.
That won't hurt the record cos (though I bet Amazon drive a hard deal) but
it will hurt the record retailer (bye bye Zavvi, who were caught nastily
between the closing door of declining high street sales and the frame of
their distributor, EUK, going bust).

But the big record cos are shrewd multi-national players and they won't go
down just like that, will they? They're very good at what they do, they just
have to find new ways to do it, so they're busy snapping up little companies
that have merchandising rights to print t-shirts et al and look at buying up
rights to sell things that still make money.

The thing is that the predicament the record companies find themselves in
will actually make things worse for anyone who's not into mass-market rock
and manufactured pop. these companies won't just give up. Like in say
they're very good at what they do and it's easy to say bye bye to their
bottom rung of loss-making guitar bands whilst hyping up Sugababes and
X-factor winners to an ever eager army of TV fans, courtesy of the
ever-hungry media who love a good rags to riches story.

So more records/downloads/whatever by fewer singers get sold to more people.
They won't just give up.

Where this leaves OUR kind of music is questionable. On the one hand the
bands of today have unprecedented levels of control over their own marketing
and distribution, gaining support virally from networking sites, underage
gigs and P2P sites. On the other hand no one's going to take a chance on
them unless they've already shown they've got what it takes. The musician of
today not only has to be a musician but also a business (wo)man and we get
bombarded by more and more mediocre bands who know how to design a web site.

So the record company of yesteryear (while they chose who they were going to
promote and ultimately who we were going to listen to) had a purpose in that
they allowed musicians to be musicians without having to worry about the
other stuff, gave them a load of money (that had to be paid back in the same
way as a student loan) and said to them "go and do what you do best".

I don't care where the music comes from, I just love music. But the business
is/was my livelihood so I have a vested interest in it continuing.

Anyone still awake?

jerry (the other one)

 

2009/1/30 Janean Lancaster <Janean.Lancaster at hopwood.ac.uk>

I digressed a little there and didn't even mention the record companies.
Yeah - sod 'em.  Money-grabbing-middle-men.

 

  _____  

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of Janean Lancaster
Sent: 30 January 2009 15:57 


To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)

Subject: Re: [kj] OT: Music industry - decline in CD sales 

 

That pretty much sums up how I feel about it too.  I download in order to
hear stuff, and my favourites are bought on CD.  Only because I want to be
able to re-rip at higher bitrates as my hard drives/ipods increase capacity.
I've not paid for very many downloads.  

 

I agree about missing the old days - sitting on a bus, poring over the
artwork of the goodies in your bag on the journey home from the shops.

 

I too spend much more on gigs.

 

If album downloads were lossless and included a nice PDF of
artwork/lyrics/credits/whathaveyou that you could print off to get stuck
into while listening to the music, I would be glad to see the back of CDs.
And I would have so much more shelf space at home.

 

  _____  

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of Brendan Quinn
Sent: 30 January 2009 15:28
To: 'A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)'
Subject: [kj] OT: Music industry - decline in CD sales

 

Do we have many people who work in the music industry on the list? I wanted
to voice an opinion about the decline in CD sales. 

 

I read these articles all the time, on tech sites and general news, about
the *terrible* decline in CD sales revenue and how it's affecting Sony and
Time Warner and Geffen and all the other music companies. And then I get
into the comments section, and the thing that strikes me is.people seem to
take the problem seriously. But I can't really see a problem?

 

Haven't we all been bitching about record companies since the day dot?
Artists and consumers alike? Aren't they the toll-booth between legitimate
artists and people who would benefit from their art? Don't they artificially
ratchet up the prices to consumers and down the prices to the artists,
didn't they charge more for CDs than cassettes despite cassettes costing
more to make (50% premium is the price I remember paying in the late 80s /
early 90s in NZ, $30+ vs $20). Don't they develop these shit Britney Spears
and boy bands that have no artistic merit whatsoever and pollute our youth
with mediocrity and perpetuate these negative stereotypes? Didn't we have to
pay a small fortune to change the media format of our collections from
records or cassettes to CDs, despite having - surely, already purchased the
rights to the content? Why are they complaining that we're getting a free
ride in the current conversion? Haven't the artists been complaining about
being ass-raped by these guys ever since Motown records, or before?

 

Okay, so piracy is illegal, a whole generation is getting stuff for free and
artists are losing out. But are they really? Are they artists that tour?
Because while my CD spend has all but dried up to a flaccid husk of its
previous self, my gig spend has at least compensated, probably moreso, esp
considering I have more disposable cash than when I was a destitute student
and buying CDs. And if it's a tough 5-10+ year transition into the digital
age.well if we do away with the record company tax / toll-booth that sits in
between artists and their audience - who cares? What did these guys do
anyway? Did they scout talent that now won't come to light? Ever heard of
the internet? If I can hear about fucking ThumbMan (which admittedly
brightened my life for a good 45 seconds), then I'm pretty sure I'll her
about the next Radiohead without Subpop telling me all about it. 

 

To me the main loss is the kids who are getting all this music for free and
therefore fail to appreciate what it's like to work a shit job and save up
for a few weeks to get the latest Led Zep or to flesh out their Sabbath
collection, walk home with a record burning a hole in their bag, and then
listen to it the whole way through while looking at the artwork and smoking
some oregano their mates sold them as hash and having the single best day of
their lives until the lose their virginity, but I digress..

 

People losing jobs isn't nice to see, but that's a whole different debate.


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