Told You The Biz Was A Dead Man Walking

[Kristy]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/chart_music.top.gif

From the CNN hacks once more:

Linky

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/index.htm

"The battle for paying digital customers may have been lost before it had truly begun. In 1999, Napster, a free online file-sharing service, made its debut. Not only did Napster help change the way most people got music, it also lowered the price point from $14 for a CD to FREE!"

Those were the days.

[sonrisa salvaje]

Makes sense. I don't think today's music is any worse than it was in 1999, just equally as sucky.

[VAiN]

Holy shit.. by now they must be down around the $4 billion mark... who will help these poor suffering record companies??? WHO???? Imagine the heartache of selling off your yacht.
Maybe if they got smart, started making a product worth purchasing - whether it be an enhanced CD, something interactive, etc - they wouldn't be in this mess. Fuck them and their greed. I remember when CDs were $17. Cry me a river, RIAA.

[Nitro Express]

Yeah. I remember when cassette tapes were $8 and when CD's came out the record companies doubled the price. It actually cost them less money to burn a CD than to copy to a cassette.

[ashstralia]

i'd imagine that like most of us here, if i really like an album i'll buy a hard copy. and now with cd's at 10 bucks, it's a fair deal.

[FORD]

CD's were initially more expensive to make because it was new technology and there were like 2 or 3 factories on the entire planet that pressed the damn things.

Now anyone can burn a fucking CD on their own computer. A quality CD-R costs about a quarter (and the shit they sell in most retail stores are cheaper than that)

Add in the artwork, shipping costs, even paying for the marketing, and the 8.98 price point would be more than reasonable for a profitable industry.

But let's not kid ourselves, when most of the music itself is SHIT, who's going to pay for it? And when the music is marketed towards 12 year olds who don't fucking have incomes who do they expect to buy it?

Sure mom and dad might chip in a few bucks for the bubblegum now and then, but when junior has a PC and a broadband connection in front of him, why the hell is he gonna wait?

[ace diamond]

Makes sense. I don't think today's music is any worse than it was in 1999, just equally as sucky.

no, i disagree.
now it sucks even worse than it did in 1999.

[chefcraig]

no, i disagree.
now it sucks even worse than it did in 1999.

The fact that you were not inflicting your own musical "endeavors" upon the otherwise unsuspecting planet in 1999 makes this statement true.

[Mr. Vengeance]

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking if the product was "better" (for the record music these days is SHIT) people would pay for it.

Free will always win out over paying for far too many people. I buy all mine.

[ace diamond]

The fact that you were not inflicting your own musical "endeavors" upon the otherwise unsuspecting planet in 1999 makes this statement true.

that's actually not true.
i had some rough homemade demo tapes i was peddling at that time, and i was still performing live often back then.

[BITEYOASS]

Unless their a farmer, a person will not pay for shit.

[Terry]

I feel kind of antiquated these days, since I prefer purchasing and reading physical books and magazines vs. online subscriptions.
I prefer purchasing dvds, and am mildly perturbed that Netflix is phasing out the renting of physical dvds and pushing watching the flicks online.
MP3 players, to me, are just smaller Walkmans with those irritating small earphones that always pop out.
I have no desire to own a cell phone, or a blackberry, or tweet...or twitter, or purchase an iPad or an iPhone...
Seems like everything tangible is fading away and pretty soon the only way to see or hear anything will be via a computer screen.
I like my music and movie collection just the way it is.

I likes things the way they used to be!!!

[Mr. Vengeance]

For Christmas, my girlfriend got me an Ipod touch. I've resisted being a dowload guy for the most part, only buying music online when I can't find it anywhere else. I've grabbed a couple of albums on Itunes, the newest Krokus album and an old Riot album. I pay the $10 for the album. There's just something unsatisfying about it....Some of my favorite memories growing up were sitting in the big chair, with the giant headphones on, listening to a new record (vinyl), while holding the record jacket and reading the notes. Checking out the cover. Reading the lyrics if they had them. Alice Cooper always had great album covers. Gatefolds like Love it To Death, Schools Out, Billion Dollar Babies and From the Inside. The box for Muscle of Love, etc. I used to love to care for the records, cleaning them, putting them away on the shelf in alphabetical order. I still have every album, cassette and CD I've ever bought, a collection nearing 2000 now. I have it all catalogued in an excel file.

It's boring to have the music just go onto your ipod electronically.

[chefcraig]

It just seems so damned disposable now. Those great 12'' x 12" album sleeves have been reduced to a mere 4" x 4" square, so you need a magnifying glass in order to view the track listing and liner notes. And with the notion of downloads, you don't even get that anymore. Like Mr. Vengeance says above, a great part of the musical experience was contained in those album covers, and sadly it appears to be yet another terrific thing that has been swept aside thanks to the onward roll of technology, expedience and so-called enlightenment.

[binnie]

The issue here is that this has now become generational. If you are an 18 year old kid in 2011, you may never have purchased a CD. To me, that has more signigicant ramifications than the loss of money for record companies - it could also spell a change in the format of music as we know it. Kids seem to like a 'pick and mix' approach to music - a fews songs here, a few songs there - rather than appreciating ALBUMS. I think that's the major impact we'll see.

In a sense, I think the whole Prog Rock revival is a reaction against that.

[Jagermeister]

It just seems so damned disposable now. Those great 12'' x 12" album sleeves have been reduced to a mere 4" x 4" square, so you need a magnifying glass in order to view the track listing and liner notes. And with the notion of downloads, you don't even get that anymore. Like Mr. Vengeance, a great part of the musical experience was contained in those album covers, and sadly it appears to be yet another terrific thing that has been swept aside thanks to the onward roll of technology, expedience and so-called enlightenment.

Yeah no shit.

[Mr. Vengeance]

The issue here is that this has now become generational. If you are an 18 year old kid in 2011, you may never have purchased a CD. To me, that has more signigicant ramifications than the loss of money for record companies - it could also spell a change in the format of music as we know it. Kids seem to like a 'pick and mix' approach to music - a fews songs here, a few songs there - rather than appreciating ALBUMS. I think that's the major impact we'll see.

In a sense, I think the whole Prog Rock revival is a reaction against that.

Absolutely Bin. I've been saying for years now that kids today really don't know about the experience of a great RECORD. They download one song. You don't have the experience of hearing a classic album like Sgt. Pepper or Beggars Banquet, or a concept album like Welcome to My Nightmare, hell even just a damn good album from beggining to end like Piece of Mind, and so many others. In a way the biz has gone back to the way it was in the 50's and early 60's, where the single ruled. My parents still have boxes filled with old 45s that I hope to inherit one day. I guess the only hope is that the industry changed back then to album oriented music and might do so again, but I doubt it.

[kwame k]

Yeah...I agree that there's really no Wow Factor anymore. Most everything that's going to be released is available before the release date, so that anticipation of waiting for the day of release, getting the album home and dropping the needle is gone. When radio stations would preview the singles off the album before the release date or play an album in it's entirety on the day it was released...it was an event!

The classic score in a record store......an obscure band and record that you never heard of, buying the thing on impulse and for no other reason than the album looked cool or the band name was intriguing. Wondering the whole way home if you just wasted your allowance/paper route money on a turd or a gem. Running over to your friends houses saying, "check this out", and waiting for their reaction to the awesomeness that that album was.

Yep, concept albums and bands that put out great records from start to finish, very rare today. Think about how many complete albums we were fortunate enough to have come out in our lifetime. Yeah, having those big ass head phones on kicking back and listening to an album start to finish...getting pissed off if your mom or brother interrupted you before you had finished the album.

Good times, damn good times!

I like how music is distributed today.....considering very few, if any record labels, market to my generation and very few bands make complete albums anymore, fuck 'em. I'm not wasting my money on turds that have maybe, if you're lucky, one or two good songs on them. There still are plenty of bands releasing vinyl and making complete albums but they're more likely on an independent label or releasing their music on their own.

We get our generation's music released at StarFucks......StarFucks hasn't been cool since the 90's, fuck 'em.

As an example, The Black Crowes still put out the complete package if you want it and still are making complete albums. I may not always agree with the direction they're heading but the're still doing it that way. There's tons of bands doing it, you just have to look for them....the days of bands that we like being over-marketed are over, we're past that demographic. So what.....

I've said this before....I think it's great that bands have to go back to a more organic approach to sustain a long term career, you know, by touring! Think of all the bands in the last 20 years or so that are huge and received little to no airplay/video play. They're grass roots and loyal to their fan base....old school bootleg trading, allowing their fans to tape and share shows. Shit, some of these guys let you stream their shows live, for free. Their websites have areas dedicated to nothing but that. That's old school Rock-n-Roll in my book!

Fuck these, "Here today, gone later today", bands that are more worried about an image than their music or are a complete product of a producer, record company and outside writer....instead of a partner in the process. Those bands always fade away.....Hair Metal did, disco did and so on. Same thing will happen today.

I like the fact that a band I supported and seen in dive bars year after year, finally makes it.....you feel like they won one for the team and we all share in the victory. Same thing when a friend or an internet search produces a gem and you feel like you're on the ground floor of something hip and cool.

We all yearn for the glory years of Rock-n-Roll but seeing an industry totally implode that has stopped marketing to us years ago and knowing that kick ass music is alive and well but requires some effort to discover....kick ass!

[Bob_R]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/chart_music.top.gif

From the CNN hacks once more:

Linky

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/index.htm

"The battle for paying digital customers may have been lost before it had truly begun. In 1999, Napster, a free online file-sharing service, made its debut. Not only did Napster help change the way most people got music, it also lowered the price point from $14 for a CD to FREE!"

Those were the days.

Cool. I had just posted this on my site less than an hour ago. :)

But, here is an article I posted (http://www.talkclassicrock.com/forums/music-news/1090-rock-singles-market-share-falls-to-50-year-low-in-uk-chart.html) early last month from the UK perspective.

2010 represented a 50 year low.

[hambon4lif]

Some of my favorite memories growing up were sitting in the big chair, with the giant headphones on, listening to a new record (vinyl), while holding the record jacket and reading the notes. Checking out the cover. Reading the lyrics if they had them. Alice Cooper always had great album covers. Gatefolds like Love it To Death, Schools Out, Billion Dollar Babies and From the Inside. The box for Muscle of Love, etc. I used to love to care for the records, cleaning them, putting them away on the shelf in alphabetical order. I still have every album, cassette and CD I've ever bought, a collection nearing 2000 now. I have it all catalogued in an excel file. Just a few days ago, I was reminded of something alot of us have either forgotten or just taken for granted.
I was in a music store that a complete wall of vinyl. Everything was casual and calm until this one guy let out a scream of excitement that made everyone in the store jump. He had just found an album that made his fucking day. It was a copy of Women And Children First. He removes the album from the cover very delicately, tilts it upward and inspects the grooves, and he's holding it like it's the Ten Commandments. After he sees that it's in good shape, he puts it back in the sleeve, and when he does this, he screams again...
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!! IT'S STILL GOT THE POSTER IN IT!!"
I couldn't bring myself to tell him that the 180-gram vinyl re-issues have that poster included in them. Why would I kill this guys joy? He was screaming and jumping around like he had just won the goddamn lottery!!
....it reminded of how much that album meant to me when I was a kid. That was MY favorite album from MY favorite band. That album changed my life, and how I was going to live the rest of it. In fact, alot of the shitty attitude I still have today can be found in the grooves of that album.
I guess alot of us take it for granted because we've played it so many millions of times that it's marinated in our soul, but to see the light that was beaming from that dude when he found that album put a real perspective on things. How awesome this band is, and how much this record kicks fucking ass!
I felt good walking out of that store knowing that later that day, from another house in my town, someone was going to be cranking Women And Children First at a skull-shattering volume.

"Don't want no class reunion, the circus just left town"
Dolemite, Motherfucker!!

[sonrisa salvaje]

You guys are spot on. When i was kid there was nothing like having Kiss Destroyer in your hands and just tripping out on the cover while listening to Detroit Rock City and God of Thunder. We all have those artists today that we are going to go out and buy their physical product no matter what. For me its Dave, Maiden, the Crue. I think if there is some good in the downloading it is the screening element. There were a lot of 70's and 80's bands that i followed into the 90's and felt like i got bit when i bought their cds. A ton of wasted money there. At least i can check something out now i may be unsure or curious about before i blindly purchase it.