LeDisko said:

Its not so much when it started its when it became the rule of the day, 20 years ago there were about 2 or 3 albums that debuted at Number 1, now everyone does, and if you dont its considered a failure or flop. There is this compulsive disorder with labels to just focus on week 1 and 2 for sales and then throw in the towel, its insane, and its not even an accurate way of tracking overall sales, its not really tracking over the counter sales, its an account of what stores bought from labels and re-ordered.

CinisterCee said:

It's honorable - and I'm with you on that. I wish more people were.

A coworker of mine brings in at least 3 new CDs a week, but they're off of BitTorrent (the whole CD + artwork). I wholeheartedly disapprove of that!

Personally, I enjoy a CD more knowing that I paid for it. I don't feel right "owning" a CD that I didn't buy. Trust me, in my group of friends I am the only one who feels that way . . .

I also feel good knowing that I am supporting the artist I'm listening to - especially "legacy" acts like Paul McCartney, Prince, Bowie, etc.

lastdecember said:

Do you think that lower CD prices had anything to do with it? I mean sure, units sold are down, but remember when CDs were almost $10 more? That could be partially to blame.

I agree though, there's a big hype for an albums first few weeks. I don't think it'll ever return to normal though.

There was a short window after the demise of CD singles where people would buy the whole album to hear that ONE song they loved . . . now they download that ONE song and do NOT buy the album!


[Edited 3/22/07 18:55pm]

Se7en said:

I dont think pricing is an issue, the label pricing and what they charge the stores however is what forced retailers out of business, and that is a major fact that sales are way down, sales are down almost 20% mainly because 1000 stores shut since last march, so get used to albums not selling the way they used to, the ones that will be hurt mostly by this are the new artists, artists that already are established despite lower sales have their fans and their fans will find the music from them somewhere. Another thing is the whole marketing thing, singles were a tool not a hinderance, the elimination of singles was nothing more than labels knowing they had SHIT artists and they wanted consumers to buy full cds knowing they were good for one or two songs. I still see people spending money at import stores buying new Madonna cdsingles or Pet shop boys singles or Depeche singles, so the argument that singles were bad for business was SHIT. It basically comes down to the fact that the industry is not artist driven anymore, you have a few today, but as the decades go on you see less and less artists and more flava of month or week in some cases.

Se7en said:

but riaa is cracking down better be careful with those Now they r targettin unviersity campuses !! but bitTorrents r good for unreleased concert footage like musicology tour which u cant buy!!

lastdecember said:

Yeah,that's incredible,isn't it? These so-called "hot" artists can barely sellout an arena.They have to add several other acts to the bill,just to sell alot of tickets.That's why Christina's tour features The Pussycat Dolls and that awful P.Diddy-produced group Danity Kane.Imagine if Beyonce were to go on tour right now,playing large arenas with no opening act.Her tour would fail.On the other hand,longtime artists like Madonna,U2 and Elton John have no problem selling out large arenas.These are people who are considered "past their prime" and yet they're the ones making all the money on tour.I don't think too many of today's artists are groomed to be credible live acts who will be able to tour decades from now,long after their "heyday" is over.
[Edited 3/23/07 2:04am]

See, it's right there. Put something other than that damn teenge crap out, and more mature folks will buy. I'm certain this would be true to more than just classical fans.
But then again, there IS great music out there, isn't it? It's just not getting an audience. I think a big problem really is that there's no outlet to promote music. MTV, radio - blah.

SoulAlive said:

I went on one last week. I bought some originals and reissues just because I've grown to love the warm sound of vinyl again.

I agree with many if not most of you. I'll offer a variation on a lot of theories posted here.

It seems as though the music industry, in both style and substance, is skewing younger and younger all the time. The songs are more producer-driven than artist-driven. The co-opting of hip-hop has produced pedestrian MCs with killer hooks who sell a lot of records. The most hyped rock bands out today seem as though they're pantomiming innovators of the past.

Those with the most disposable income -- single people in their 30's and 40's --are ignored. And as the radio crams a limited number of songs down the audience's throat, some of us are using our resources to find artists that appeal to us but are not marketed. As a result, a lot of good artists develop loyal followings that are not large enough to justify marketing investments, and so they languish or are dropped.

I and many of the newer artists I follow am pretty much irrelevant to the mainstream music industry. That might hurt the industry's bottom line, but as long as the work of my favorite artists (past, present and future) are available in SOME legal format, then I'll be just fine.

calldapplwondery83 said:

A few months ago I went CD shopping . . . I picked up the new Tom Petty (Highway Companion) and the new Jonny Lang (Turn Around). Neither of which had any airplay or videoplay, which is sad. They are 2 brilliant CDs! I bought them having already known about those 2 artists . . . had I not already known about them, those brilliant new CDs would've gone undiscovered for me.

It seems that most of the new acts coming out seem to cater to the "lowest common denominator" in society. They don't provoke thought or individuality. Hell, half of them sound formulaic, as if there's a computer somewhere that you enter keywords into and it spits out your lyrics for you.

NDRU said:

I'm with you. It's all an experience, the going to the store, opening the wrapper, reading the liner notes- I need that.

Hell, I still like looking at LP album covers.

musicman said:

The songs that iTunes offer do NOT sound as good as CDs. Case in point: I downloaded Prince's SST/BNO for 2 bucks thinking it was only going to be an online release. They sounded good enough. I found the official CD single on Amazon, and ordered that . . . OMG - the difference was insane! The CD blew the downloads away.

I'll buy a one-off song here and there, but for albums it's CDs all the way.

SoulAlive said:

SAY IT!!

asg said:

this is just emblematic of the music industry's clueless attitude. record not selling? gee, the problem must be that people are not buying cds, instead of the problem being people not wanting to buy the music contained on that particular cd. instead of the problem being that nobody gives a shit about some manufactured goober fuckass peddling autotuner-drenched corporate retard-rock and who looks like a parody of a gap ad. the record industry treats the music-buying public like fucking idiots who will lap up whatever the major labels throw at them, they dont credit the public with any sort of intelligence or ability to make up their mind whether or not something is actually good, because without the internet they were able to get away with shovelling whatever shit they wanted for so long.

Se7en said:

Unfortunately, you're in the minority if you think so. ALL of my friends look at me like I'm crazy when I say that 192kbps mp3s do not sound as good as a CD.
Some of my friends were in Russia and Turkey recently and when they came back they told me about these stores that I wouldn't believe and so on. Turns out there are stores selling mp3s CDs with for example all of Nick Cave's albums in 192kbps and cheap-ass self-printed artwork for 2 or 3 Euro. Yeah, that's heaven to me.

LINER NOTES!!!

am I the only one who buys cds for this?

FUNKitUP said:

Liner notes are essential to me!

I agree that certain MP3s and AAC files sound great - there is a point at around 192-256kbps that the songs become "transparent" (meaning they reach the point where humans can't tell a difference from CD-quality).

My problem is that they charge the same amount - 99 cents per song. Now I can go buy the whole CD for 9.99, which usually has around 12-15 songs.

For "lossy" files (MP3), they should be charging half - for "lossless" files, they should be charging 99 cents.

Could this be the death of music?

FUNKitUP said:

No, I love LINER NOTES!!! I was putting some Incognito on my iPod today and I was reading the liner notes as it downloaded. I thought wow, this has become a forgotten thing in this generation. I thought does anyone even care who played which instrument or wrote which song anymore? Then I thought do these mainstream acts even play instruments or write songs anymore? Do they even have background vocals? Maybe there's nothing to write/read in liner notes for mainstream acts nowadays.

Se7en said:

There is a new format called OGG its better quality then mp3 and the file is half the size

OGG is like a open format with no royalties unlike mp3

asg said:

Actually OGG (short for ogg vorbis) isn't new; it's been around for about eight years. But you are right about the size and sound quality; I have converted some of my albums to OGG format and transferred them to my iRiver MP3 player. OGG files at 80 to 96 kbps (depending on the source of the recording) are equivalent to MP3 files at 160 to 192 kbps. OGG files at 128 kbps are equivalent to MP3s at 256 kbps, and OGG files at 192 kbps are almost lossless.

Unfortunately, other than iRiver, there are very few mp3 players which support OGG files; most of them only support MP3 or WMA files, and the iPods support MP3 and AAC files. (AAC is Apple's version of MP4, which when properly encoded is as good if not better than OGG files; but the files released on iTunes are of incredibly poor quality.) The other reason people in the USA are willing to deal with inferior sound quality digital music files as opposed to CDs is for convenience. It's a lot easier to carry hundreds or thousands of files on a device the size of a pack of gum or candy bar than it is to deal with a portable CD player which might skip if you drop it or if you go running.

728huey said:

I rip all of my CDs into Apple Lossless, but keep a 192kbps VBR AAC library on my iPod.

Until they offer true lossless downloads, I won't be downloading whole albums.