Posted on 05/28/2007 5:23:23 AM PDT by WL-law
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the Beatles album often cited as the greatest pop recording in music history, received a thoroughly modern 40th-anniversary salute last week...
But off stage, in a sign of the recording industry’s declining fortunes, shareholders of EMI, the music conglomerate that markets “Sgt. Pepper” and a vast trove of other recordings, were weighing a plan to sell the company as its financial performance was weakening.
... Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services. Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. “Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales,” Mr. Sinnreich said, “and then everything goes kaput.”
... Even as the industry tries to branch out, though, there is no promise of an answer to a potentially more profound predicament: a creative drought and a corresponding lack of artists who ignite consumers’ interest in buying music.
.... that is compounded by the industry’s core structural problem: Its main product is widely available free. More than half of all music acquired by fans last year came from unpaid sources including Internet file sharing and CD burning, according to the market research company NPD Group. The “social” ripping and burning of CDs among friends — which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing efforts — accounted for 37 percent of all music consumption, more than file-sharing, NPD said.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sgt Pepper eh?
bought the LP
bought the cassette
bought the CD
bought the computer to burn the CD’s and DVD’s
It’s clear that record companies have lost touch with reality.
http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/05/28/ae/columns/local/hipster/doc46556fb93f237323857710.txt
Ping
I remember reading a story in Forbes in the late 80s early 90s about how the Grateful Dead was one of the richest entertainment enterprises in the world, and it was a group that famously rejected the music establishment.
That's a huge part of the problem. Even if I wanted to pay for any music that I get, almost none of it is worth buying anymore. The entire 'music scene' that we all used to love is dead. This is all due to the major recording companies love of money rather than music.
There have been,at best,about 20 songs released in the last 15 years in which I’ve had the slightest interest.My music collection consists today of about 5,000 songs and is about 99.5% complete thanks to CD purchases and CD burning (most of the purchases were made before I learned how to burn CD’s).
They made their own bed..
I agree. There are few groups that have any real talent. The songs are trashy. Many also just are dancing to tracks and not actually singing out of the studio where there voices can be manipulated into sounding mediocre.
I buy CD’s every now and then. A couple a year. One of my last ones was Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest hits. That was from when they were a blues band. Long before they became pop. I looked for about 15 years for it to replace an album. I found a Dutch release of it on Amazon.
Stick a fork in them, they are done!! I love it.
The “artists” can go back to making a living the traditional way....PERFORMING!
Napster killed the industry. Technology spawned the recording industry, it is only fitting that technology took them out.
Most of it is sheer repetitious noise that sounds more like an exploding boiler factory than music.
The guitar has become the tissue-paper and comb of modern musicians. Most “artists” have no more talent than a hammer beating on garbage can lids.
Personally I’d like to see most artists selling their music directly via downloads and CD sales from their own websites and affiliated/regional websites plus larger venues like iTunes. Nowadays it’s alot easier to self-produce CDs- even without your own website there’s places like Cafepress and CDBaby.
Radio station managers could really play a big role by having a few hours of special programming dedicated to local and/or “internet” artists. To me, radio is very boring. Even satellite radio I find repetitive (and for no ads they sure do alot of self-promo). If there was a local station that played 80% good “unsigned” bands with little repetition, I might start listening to the radio again.
They get no help from radio either.
Once one gets one's personal listening device all loaded up, more time is spent listening to that "old" content and not to acquiring newer stuff.
This is not surprising.
I walk into an airport record store and find NOTHING on a CD I want to buy.
There were a few mildly interesting titles but nothing I would pay a premium to own right there.
I think what is happening is the same thing that happened to the railroads. The record companies thought they were in the format copy sales business rather than the sale of songs business. They thought with each new format they could regenerate the same profits over again. The railroads thought they were in the train business rather than the transportation business.
On a bright note, hopefully this will end the rap music degeneration of music.
CD’s as the recording indiustry knows them are dinosaurs and headed for extinction.
Both my wife’s and my own vehicle came with CD players that play MP3’s. MY home computer sounds as good as any stereo I have ever owned.
Why would I pay $20 for something I only want for one or two songs, when I can download those songs, put them with all my other favs — burn the MP3’s to a CD .. and suddenly I have 6-8 hours of music to listen too (and I can put it on shuffle) instead of having to costantly swap CD’s.
PLus add Satellite Radio to the mix (Sirius 15 - CLassic Rock Rewind) — and I have two options for hours of listening on the road.
This is true. Years ago a record label would sign on a relatively new and unheard of band and invest in them, counting on the fact that they would eventually get popular and earn them some money. After getting popular these artists would go on huge national and world tours, staying around and releasing hit albums for 5 - 10 years, and sometimes longer. These days that no longer seems to be happening. Now, the record labels will find someone who will release a song, the record labels will push it on all the big radio companies using bribes and other kickbacks, and they will get themselves what we always used to call a one-hit-wonder. After about a year this artist will no longer be heard from, and the record label moves onto the next artist for that top 10 hit single.
what is bad is when nobody even wants to download it for free.
I love the old Peter Green FWM. Thanks, now I have to hit iTunes.
Apple has actually pushed things in the right direction. EMI a big label will now allow Apple to sell their music without tags of any kind. Apple has stated this is the right way to go for the consumer but of course the music industry resisted that.
As a result it is anticipated more companies will follow EMI. Some studies suggest people are introduced to artists and then will go out and buy more of their music. Those that don’t buy aren’t likely to buy no matter what digital rights managment prevention is employed.
The other issue is that quality is important to some people. The big two SACD and DVD-Audio did not reach general acceptance in the market because the focus was on copy protection. As a result you had a rich great format for listening that you couldn’t even make a copy of for your car.
SACD was a tremendous opportunity lost IMHO. The sound is so great but most people will now never experience it. Think high level vinyl quality without the record noise with wear and tear.
But after all the noise pollution to our society with the negative nihilism of rap firmly injected, no one will be crying for these folks.
It may actually be better for some great artists to reach an audiience. Jazz/modern artists like Eric Lewis who is one of the best piano players in the world may reach an audience since people will look for quality over advertising.
http://www.jazzcapital.net/artists/eric_lewis.php
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