formica Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 Once again the reports are hitting the press on how the record sales have been affected by P2P music sharing around the globe... read for your selves... Australian record industry falling CD singles sales BBC News Online take on 2003 record sales and we shouldnt forget North America with a Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Statistics on CNet as well an independent report on the RIAA's Statistics thanks to www.ars-technica.com for the informative reading... Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 Rob, i have not ready any of the links yet, but one of the first things that come to mind is..... Have they simply considered that so much of the music they put out these days is crapola? Who wants to buy a $17.00 CD just to get 1 maaaayyyyyyybe 2 good songs? THAT right there is why I have cut my CD spending down 99.5 % from what it was 10 years ago. It has nothing to do with P2P file sharing software. I like having my music in it's original CD format, if there was something worth buying, I'd buy it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 You under estimate my laziness. As long as their is good music their is going to be good music. If no one will learn how to play the guitar then we could be in trouble. If everyone is just trying to write a pop song and not a quality album. Yes their in trouble who cares about them bands. Of course people want to download those poppy songs and not buy the album because the rest of it sucks. The record companys put to much time and money into those one hit wonders and ***** them out untill their useless. Just listen to Tom Petty's last album is great and it is alot about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruinsrme Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 If you offer a decent product people will buy it. First I am not sure if half the stuff on the radio can be considered music. The other issue is the price. If they are loosing money then maybe people feel the value of the item is over priced. Maybe perhaps I want music with real drums, guitars and people that actually sing. I get more enjoyment out britney spears video with the tv on mute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted March 30, 2004 Author Share Posted March 30, 2004 ---------------- On 3/30/2004 2:26:12 AM m00n wrote: Rob, i have not ready any of the links yet... ---------------- lol... you guys underestimate my sarcasm. Take a quick look at the links, and without reading the entire articles, their headlines tell a different story than they try to make us believe. No sympathy from me... Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZAKO Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 I,m sick of guitars & singers over the top singing styles. And do they all have to jiggle their a$$,s? One Brittny copy cat is enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 The record industry is doomed by homogenization and lowest-common-denominator "talent" recruiting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZAKO Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 The record industry got what they deserved. They can now eat the crap they tried to serve to the public. the RIAA started this war & the public answered with not buying that junk. If yuor going to spend $ 17 it better be good talent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted March 30, 2004 Author Share Posted March 30, 2004 Hmmmm... Ok, maybe I should have pasted excerpts of some of the articles... "The Recording Industry has spent a prodigious amount of effort on manipulating statistics in order to shroud the industry in the shadow of doom and gloom." "The Australian market has had its best year ever, but they're trying to cover it up to rhetorical ends. It took a canny finance reporter, SBS's Peter Martin, to decode the spin. He worked out what ARIA knew but decided not to share: when sales cracked 50 million albums for the year it was the first time this had happened. And combined sales of all formats for last year climbed to more than 65 million for the first time." *Singles* sales went down, because they are rare and priced nearly as high as albums... "The BBC recently reported on a record year in the UK, too.... If this is going out of business, then I want to be going out of business!" and in the US "So the record industry cut their inventory (and artist investment) by 25 percent and sales only dropped 4.1 percent, even though the economy is at rock bottom. There were almost 12,000 fewer new releases for the consumer to choose from in 2001 than 1999. The record companies are making MORE MONEY PER RELEASE than ever." ------------------------ The headlines should read "sales, while still on the rise and profits are higher than ever in many markets, still aren't as good as they could be if our model was enforced in such a way that was previously not technically possible, so please invade the rights of others and destroy fair use so we can make even more money." *gets off soap box* ... Rob PS: excerpts are from linked reports and arstechnica ... i guess the links were info overload ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted March 30, 2004 Share Posted March 30, 2004 I feel I have a decent collection of both vinyl albums (about 400) and CDs (about 450). The vinyl dates back to the early 1970s and of course the CDs start around 1981. Prior to the 1970s, I had lots of 8-tracks and many of 45s, all which have all since "left the building". I never did get into cassettes, except to record my own records for portability in my car. Although, a turntable is included in my theater's equuipment list, the CDs would be the only valid point to discuss as the vinyl is no longer widely available. I can testify that the bulk of my CD collection was purchased in both the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s. There was a lull in my buying during the late 1980's. Since the early 1990s, my purchase of new CDs has plummeted. Why? That's simple! It has nothing to do with my lack of financial means to make the purchases, or because I became some sort of reclusive, MP3 downloading maniac. The reason is purely due to: THE CONTENT! Or, shall I say, "the lack there-of?" That lull in my buying in the late 1980s was because of the same reason. I simply did not want to buy what I did not wish to collect. Now, how hard of a concept is that for the record industry to grasp? I'm 52 years old. I have always enjoyed most forms of music, with my favorite being rock. My musical tastes are seldom correlated to my age group as my friends my own age are always asking me how I can "listen to that crap" when they witness my playing something unfamiliar to then such as Depeche Mode, 3 Doors Down or Nine Inch Nails. They tell me their kids listen to the same stuff I do. Well? Get with the program! My music purchases have always been governed by my desire to have a particular song or group. This desire appears to be cyclic in nature and governed by whatever trends the music industry itself decides to crank out and sell to the public. That current trend seems to be based purely on looks and profanity. In this case; the more crap there is, the less inclined I am to buy. And, by the way, you can't hear looks on a CD (and I'd prefer not to hear all the profanity, too, thank you very much.). Yes, it is as simple as that. I still buy CDs, although I am very selective. It's also really difficult for me to deal with the fact that they have never gone down in price. Vinyl records certainly went down in price long before they were obsolessed. So, why not CDs? Wouldn't it make sense to sell a lot more CDs at less and make more money? They would then be more affordable for their primary, target audience: the teenagers! That's what the major computer software vendors have all done. And music CDs are really nothing more than software in this day and age. But, I guess that makes to much sense for the record companies. They're so smart after all: "Hey! Let's start SUING our target audience!" -Yawn. There is one final point I'd like to make: Now that I have a home theater, I find my self more inclined to watch a concert video or music video or a movie, than to just sit and listen to a CD and watch a blank screen. What about the rest of you? Have you noticed this, too? I'm certain this will impact music CD sales as well. They'd better get busy and start suing more customers! SHEESH! -Picky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jt1stcav Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 ---------------- On 3/30/2004 11:34:17 AM Maron Horonzak wrote: ..."If yuor going to spend $ 17 it better be good talent." ---------------- Spent mine yesterday on Norah Jones' latest "Feels like Home". I will always buy my music. Believe it or not, but I have never in my entire life downloaded a single MP3, even when Napster was all the rage and my brothers would download literally thousands of MP3s between them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerSix Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 ---------------- On 3/30/2004 1:25:56 PM picky-picky wrote: Since the early 1990s, my purchase of new CDs has plummeted. Why? That's simple! It has nothing to do with my lack of financial means to make the purchases, or because I became some sort of reclusive, MP3 downloading maniac. The reason is purely due to: THE CONTENT! Or, shall I say, "the lack there-of?" That lull in my buying in the late 1980s was because of the same reason. I simply did not want to buy what I did not wish to collect. Now, how hard of a concept is that for the record industry to grasp? Now that I have a home theater, I find my self more inclined to watch a concert video or music video or a movie, than to just sit and listen to a CD and watch a blank screen. What about the rest of you? Have you noticed this, too? I'm certain this will impact music CD sales as well. They'd better get busy and start suing more customers! SHEESH! -Picky ---------------- Excellent points. I too also feel its a combination of factors, specifically content and an apparent market shift in consumer entertainment options. In the early to mid-nineties, I too was a CD buying fool. I couldn't go to the store without coming out with at least a CD or two in my hand. Over time, my collection grew to over 500 CDs ... well, until a drug addict broke into my house and used most of my music to support his habit, but I digress. Even before consumer acceptance of the DVD, somewhere along the way I just stopped collecting. It was like I just ran out of steam. I wanted to buy, but there seemed to be nothing I was interested in. The music didn't inspire me anymore. Nowadays, I average about one CD every three months. Something else was beginning to take hold. The DVD. In 98, I got into the format strictly out of curiosity. It was a novelty to me more than anything else. I had no real intention to put away my VHS tapes just yet. However, with the DVD came something unexpected - the Home Theater with its 5.1 sound. Along with the HDTV, this relatively new concept to consumer entertainment shifted the market (I think) away from CDs to something much more ambitious - bringing the Cineplex home to your living room. Does that mean the DVD has replaced the CD (music)? No. There is something basic in our being that desires the magic of music. No movie can or will replace that. However, the recording industry has to come to grips with its traditional business model. It needs to do some serious self-reflection to the direction it's heading if it wants to remain competitive in the market. It needs to stop looking for scapegoats in sagging business projections and point the finger of blame where it belongs - at themselves. It needs to embrace new technology rather than fighting it every step of the way. It needs to embrace the consumer and not look at them as pirates and thieves. And finally, it needs to set aside the Britney's and all the other bubblegum and gangsta crap gracing store shelves and slowly regain its soul. Until then, you'll see me over in the DVD aisle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audible Nectar Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 Some good points here.....but now it's time to take this discussion to the end zone. Times are a changin' folks! The RIAA is becoming useless, for a variety of reasons. Crappy, lowest common denominator music rules the day. This is not a "generational" issue. As Griffinator referred to, the product is poor, and seeks to attract the masses. The method of advertising is "old school" - the radio offers little of interest and variety (which, with exception to NPR, has almost rendered my Mac MX-110 tuner all but useless). Lately I have been conducting a minor experiment of sorts, by paying attention to playlists on various popular formats while working my delivery job. The radio plays at the store (so I only hear about a third of what's played), in several different formats (classic rock, alternative, oldies, pop - whatever the in house employees choose). The monotony of the playlists are appalling - especially when one considers the broad reach of the genre. If one wants to sample older, popular, classic rock artists on the radio, you are getting a poor sample. I heard ABBA's "Waterloo" every day at the same time last week. Do you suppose ABBA ever did anything else?? It seems that these stations play the same list all week. This is not suprising, when you consider who owns the channels: The media Megacorps. Clear Channel is the largest and most offensive behemoth, controlling not only the radio waves, but the concert venues themselves. If you get them mad at you as an artist, your stuff doesn't get played. This applies even to established artists - see The Dixie Chicks (although the "boycott" didn't do much - 98% of the tour tickets sold, but it shows Clear Channel's REACH). This homogenized approach bleeds over to the releases too - that is, if you ever get around to buying them. The RIAA (and those artists who sign with member labels) seem to miss the boat here. You might get one or two good songs per release (that is if it's any good at all - often artists make recordings because they are REQUIRED to, not because they are feeling artistic at the time of recording). Many artists are beginning to see the problem, and are addressing the issue in a new way. BE YOUR OWN COMPANY. Market yourselves, sell your own merchandise, sell your own concert tickets, and enjoy complete artistic freedom - as well as the ultimate in respect from your fanbase. ELIMINATE THE MIDDLEMAN. In the internet age, there is all of the adspace a band could want, and the tools to engage in business directly with your fans. If an artist is good, the fans will give the act unlimited free advertising, on forums like these. By doing this, an artist places the money making emphasis on an area outside of CD sales - and if it involves CD sales, those CD's will have more of what fans want, because such CD's were made with complete artistic freedom. No shoddy record or touring contracts, just more of what the fans and the band wants. An excellent model for business in music today lies in Colorado's String Cheese Incident (www.stringcheeseincident.com). On this site are FREE music downloads, concert schedules and merchandise, and a ticket server that will sell you tickets to any of SCIs concerts. They will sell you CDs of recent live performances from the soundboard, or you may record and trade "audience" recordings free. What is being discovered from sites and artists like these is this: If your fans like your product, they will happily buy it from you. If fans illegally copy the music, the artist has control as to what legal course to take - but the artist also keeps a greater portion of the proceeds on sales earned, since the record company isn't taking a cut (they are their own company). Also of note, you catch more bees with honey than fly swatters - ask Metallica's Lars Ulrich. While Lars had a point, HE (and his bandmates) signed thier names on the dotted line (and thus are beholden to the RIAA and the record company's wants). He also pissed off and alienated his fans, by coming across as greedy and money hungry. Gee, if they weren't giving so much money to the record companies, maybe there would be more there for the band! It's not the fans that are ripping you off, it's the record companies, Ticketmaster, Clear Channel, and everyone else who skims funds that rightfully belong to the band. String Cheese Incident is currently suing Ticketmaster over the right to sell tickets to their own performances. Presently SCI is allowed to sell 8% of tickets for Ticketmaster contracted venues - SCI feels (and I agree) that they should be able to sell what they are capable of selling though their own advertising. Ticketmaster (or Clear Channel) didn't make SCI, SCI made SCI - and therefore should be able to sell and profit from thier own efforts. SCI is suing on grounds of "tortious interference with prospective business advantage". Whether you realize it or not, every music fan should be rooting for SCI in this case. This type of case is capable of really shaking up the industry, by wresting control from the megacorps and placing that control in the hands of artists. That will be a win win situation if successful, for artists and fans alike. I don't need the RIAA to find good music, and neither do you. The RIAA is, for all intents and purposes, obsolete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancestorm Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 Picky-picky: Do yourself a favor and pickup Queens of the Stone Age - songs for the deaf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dzapper Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 Audible Nectar, Good points! With today's artists is it any wonder that the top sellers are remixes of classic Rock and "greatest hits" compilations? The media also doesn't want to report on the sucess of the country artists like Alan Jackson. ANd it's funny I haven't seen Nora Jones on Today either and for that matter Dianna Krall. I guess that they are not controversal enough. Rick I'm a goin' fishin all of the time- John Mahal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 ---------------- On 3/30/2004 2:26:12 AM m00n wrote: Rob, i have not ready any of the links yet, but one of the first things that come to mind is..... Have they simply considered that so much of the music they put out these days is crapola? Who wants to buy a $17.00 CD just to get 1 maaaayyyyyyybe 2 good songs? THAT right there is why I have cut my CD spending down 99.5 % from what it was 10 years ago. It has nothing to do with P2P file sharing software. I like having my music in it's original CD format, if there was something worth buying, I'd buy it. ---------------- I gotta agree with m00n and some others,if they had good talent like in times past I'd buy at least a few cds a week.Remember back in the day when there was so much good music you could not afford to buy it all,it came week after week,now its a year between anything worth buying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted March 31, 2004 Author Share Posted March 31, 2004 We have to remember that we get older, our tastes change, and what is often perceived as a "new sound" is actually retro heresy to many of you. The general public buy less as they get older... sorry to break the news. A couple of points I'd like to add: 1) Baby boomers were/are the largest population with disposable money... their buying habits will affect any market. They were of record buying age from the late 60s to the late 80s. 2) The release of superior new formats will spur sales... both the CD and DVD have done so. In the 90s... the same boomers repurchased their collections in CD. 3) DVDA and SACD were released to spur sales once again, but don't have enough superiority to the CD to have all the boomers repurchase their collection a third time... (they have succeeded on a small scale, as how many have DSOTM on all three formats?) 4) Although movie DVDs are not a music format... like mentioned in other posts, they provide an alternate entertainment source. Music sales are stuck competing with movie sales... as the entertainment dollar will only go so far. 5) Price gouging discourages sales... a non-discounted CD can sell for 17$ while the cassette version (if you can still find one) retails for about 9$. The recording cost, marketing, artist rights, are the same in both cases... while the manufacturing cost is higher for the cassette. 6) Many feel DVDs offer better value for you money... as for less than the price of a CD you will often get several hours of entertainment, having cost hundreds of millions to produce. They are simply priced much more competitively than CDs. As a related example, I purchased Portishead live in NYC DVD for about 11$US and it has a 90min to 120min concert (a good recording and visuals), as well as their entire video collection. But even given all the points above, one of the most frustrating parts I find is the fact that the record labels are showing the HIGHEST profits (return on their investment) they have ever had, yet they are whining that they could be making even more. Rob PS: I hope that everyone noticed that my original "subject" for the thread was very sarcastic... as the industry is making record profits regardless of downloaders Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Adams Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 Shooting from the hip....here's a music content/talent challenge. Go to your favorite music store with a small bean bag. Toss it anywhere at the Rock or Pop section. Whatever it lands on, buy that CD. Now do the same at the Jazz or Blues section. Buy that CD. Now listen to them both. I'd be willing to bet you that the Rock/Pop CD sucks and the Jazz or Blues selection is good to outstanding. I'd also bet that 20 outta 20 Jazz/Blues bean bag titles are good and that maybe one outta 20 Rock/Pop CD's are decent. For me, this is why I've been spending more & more of my money at the Jazz & Blues and even the country music sections. By-n-large the talent is much greater and the recordings are typically outstanding. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleve Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 ---------------- On 3/31/2004 8:39:22 AM lancestorm wrote: Picky-picky: Do yourself a favor and pickup Queens of the Stone Age - songs for the deaf ---------------- I saw that album last week in a local record store - the title cracked me up. I have no idea what it sounds like, though. I would imagine.... LOUD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 I saw the Queens of the Stone Age at a local bar 2 or 3 yrs ago and was very impressed,they kicked it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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