Sales of Major Label Music Declining

This is a great article about the decline of music cd's recently.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117...ml?mod=rss_free

Of course, the RIAA would have you believe the sky is falling and that illegal file trading has caused this problem. I disagree.

1. There is a definite lack of major sales artists. Overall, major music releases just suck and corporate controlled radio is not helping either.

2. We may finally be seeing a backlash from the consumers who are tired of being treated like criminals.

3. We are finally seeing a flattening of music sales because people are finding new bands outside of the mainstream record companies. This is probably a large part of their problem and the reason they are trying to run Internet radio out of business. This scares them more than anything else. If we tracked indie sales and internet sales better, I bet we would find that more music is being sold overall, it is just not all major label music.

There is also a decline in sales of albums because there is a large percentage of people who had to buy the album in the old days just to get the one or two songs that they truly liked. I know in my collection of cassettes and CDs, there are just a few that I like every single song and there are several where I truly like only a few songs. Most of the cassettes that I have replaced with digital audio, I haven't downloaded the entire album but just the stuff that I liked, and I think everyone but the most die-hard collectors is going to do that.

There is a paradigm shift happening in the recording world, one that will bring ALL the music to the people, and let the people be the arbiters of what is good and what is not. The record companies are fighting back, but in the end, they will change, or they will perish. The short tail is dead, long live the long tail!

If this latest assault by the RIAA on internet radio can be staved off, I think things will begin to fall into place the way anyone with half a brain knew it should, with internet radio as accepted and ubiquitous as terrestrial radio, $.99/song (or less) downloads, without bothersome and ineffectual DRM. A nice profit can be made without pissing off their customers, and they may find it's CHEAPER to do business this way. Shit, they can put together their OWN internet radio stations, using their massive inventory as their library, and advertise what music they want to sell by PLAYING it.

I think the traditional 'music store' is going to die, or look very different. I'm thinking of a place that will burn a custom CD for each customer, with nice custom disc labeling and cd booklets. . . IF they can get that figured out before the whole world is comfortable with doing it themselves. I know a lot of us do similar things now, but many ppl still have money to spend and can't burn & print their own stuff, or would prefer not to (or would like a more polished look than they can accomplish on their own). The stores might be a branch of a popular online music vendor, and each can advertise for the other through signage and browser ads.

I'm looking forward to the end of the bullshit, but it'll take us 5-10 years to get there. Heh, I'm glad I kept the avatar 🙂