Numanoid

And what else could have caused those CD prices to drop? Does no one else remember that the recording industry was successfully sued for CD price-fixing, having kept CD prices artificially high for years? But it's ok when they steal from us, right?

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/n...ttlement_x.htm

wm lopez

Make it worth buying a cd. Back in the 70's LED ZEPPLIN,PINK FLOYD and KISS had stickers and fancy fold out albums. Throw in some trading cards in the cds. Or better yet sell a new release cd for $7.
Back in the 80's when cds started they sold for $15 each and that price hasn't gone down enough.
People are collectors and if the music is good and you package it right and sell the cd for under $10 it would sell.

Coral

I wish Gene would just shut up... and I mean a long time ago so we never had to hear the horrible "music" of KISS.

Music sales were on a huge decline a few years before MP3s were even popular. Hey music industry, adapt or perish.

And CD prices are still too high. As discussed in another thread, the average CD price in stores is around $17 CAD.

emanon

I'm afraid someone has hacked wm lopez' account and started to make reasonably sane posts with it.

auto

I buy lots of CDs. They're usually $7.99 on Amazon or $6.99 on yourmusic.com.

I think that's fair.

Mikael79

It's definitely about value for your money, as mentioned by auto and others.

I download albums all the time, by various methods. Sometimes I pay $5 for an album on Amazon, and then I'll go out and buy the CD because I liked it so much. If it's $15 and all that the CD has is a one-page cover...why pay full price for that? I want artwork, I want lyrics, and I want to feel like I've spent my money on something I will appreciate.

Numanoid

Don't forget the artists. They get fucked most of all by the big record companies.

Dan

^ While I don't totally disagree, don't forget that the artists signed those contracts with the big companies. They knew the terms of the contract (or, they damn well SHOULD have known).

statcat

I know someone who was in a band in the 60s who still makes nothing from the recordings. He actually told me it wouldn't matter to him if someone downloaded the music because there is nothing to make anyway. Many were naive and didn't know better but also it was their big shot so would you turn that down? Many got screwed by their managers and record labels. I know the small faces for one didn't even make any money until Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane were both deceased in the 90s all thanks to people like Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne.

Groucho

iTunes seems to be doing just fine.

Here's my take: back in the day, consumers would hear a song on the radio, and they would go out and buy the full album (singles were available but typically not purchased). $10-$15 to the record company. Then they'd get home and find that most of the album was poop.

Now, they just buy the songs they like. $1 to the record company.

Rocketdog2000

Those things are certainly also part of the shift in sales of CDs/Music - but as someone who's worked in many parts of the industry for the last 25 years, I can say without a doubt that illegal downloading and P2P sites ARE the #1 contributing factor to the loss of CD sales. I've worked as a musician, a writer, in radio, in records stores and for record labels (as well as having many friends who did), and I've seen all the trends that have affected the industry over the years. None, were more damaging the the introduction of P2P sites, and a generation of people who decided they could just take what they wanted for free off the internet, rather than pay for it.

There was a time when, if a major artist was putting out a new releases, the store would get 300 to 500 copies for street date - and you'd often sell most of those in the first week, too. Now, it's more like 30 to 90 copies for the same caliber artist, and you're lucky if you sell half of them. And the prices are cheaper now than they were then, as well.

I know many friends, myself included, who lost their jobs working at record labels, because the entire branch closed for that area (in this case the Boston/New England market). And it wasn't just one label, either, it was most of them - WEA, UNI, SONY, BMG, EMD all shuttered their doors and closed up shop, transferring the work to the New York offices only . The few lucky people who did manage to keep some kind of job, now cover five times as much territory, and work out of their homes/cars.

As much as some folks want to deny it, I know from first hand experience how damaging illegal downloading was/is to this industry.

Mikael79

I don't think there is any denying the fact that it hurt the industry, but the problem is that the industry was too slow to adapt.

AT&T, Sprint, etc. used to be all about landline phones, and yet they adapted to be a part of the wireless market. The music industry acted like a bitter old man clutching to the past and wanted the world to stop progressing to another medium/delivery system.

Rocketdog2000

Well, here's another spin on it, too. Back then, you HAD to buy the album (or the singles, which were very much purchased, than you very much), as that was the only way you could listen to the music. You had to buy the vinyl record, tape or CD to play or your corresponding system, because there were no computers or mp3 players or files that would allow you to play (or purchase) music in any other way. And what did exist was still pretty much in it's infancy. As cool as the advent of mp3 players and the I-pod were, and as much as they made listening to music more accessible, they also did their part in making it more disposable and less valued, too. It was total game changing technology.

Rocketdog2000

I won't argue with that. They were much to slow to adapt. They should have put a stop to it, or at least tried to contain it, back when it first started. That way, they would have at least had a chance at some level of control over it. Once the cat was out of the bag and multiplying, however, it was pretty much unstoppable. You've got folks like Jim Urie at Universal music, or U2's manager Paul McGuiness trying to do something about it now, but they're about ten years to late to really make any kind of difference at this point.

Supermallet

If you're talking about the heyday of CDs that's a fair assessment, but if you're talking about the days of vinyl you've got it wrong. Most people heard a song on the radio, bought the single, and it they liked it and the b-side enough, bought the album (heck, the term "album" in the record industry used to mean "collection of singles" until the late 60's when bands began making records intended to be played in the album format).

And the folks who are trying to stop it still sound like crotchety old geezers with their head in the sand. The only major bands to intelligently respond to P2P downloading have been Radiohead and NIN. And when Radiohead did their "pay what you like" scheme, the music industry freaked out. They (the record companies, managers, etc.) have gone from sleeping giants to elephants who shriek when they see a mouse.

I think, if a band really wanted to connect with an audience brought up on P2P sharing, they need to operate on a principle of openness. They need to make their audience a community. When they play live, let people bring in their cameras and audio recorders. Let them post clips on YouTube. Make the audience an offer: Send us your recordings. The best ones will be posted to our site and we'll charge a small fee for people to download full shows and the person who recorded it gets a cut. If the artist was seen as being open and available and on the side of their audience, they'd get the sales. The music being good isn't enough anymore.

Violets Dyed

^
That was brilliant. I actually paid for the potentially free download from Radiohead. I may have been in the minority but I was so impressed with the fact that they were "intelligently" trying to integrate the new technology into their output as a band. I'll admit, not too many bands besides Radiohead could do this and be successful at it, but the audacity was wonderful and a real breath of fresh air.

I also dig the way that NIN made a lot of the original masters available so that anyone could download them and do remixes. I myself have done 4 remixes of the NIN songs on Year Zero. I really admire someone who digs their fans and wants to work with them.

movieking

I remember back in the 80s when people were complaining about the $20 CD, the standard response from the record companies was that it was the manufacturing costs that kept the prices so high. At that point, it didn't seem possible that there would be a way to have your own music without physically purchasing it, so it seemed like nothing could be done about. Of course, once MP3s were popularized and the prices still did not drop drastically, it became apparent that the whole manufacturing cost argument was a pile of BS.

I liken it to the current ebook industry. You pay $20 for a hardcover new release because of the cost of the actual physical production of the book, which is something tangible that costs money to transfer from trees to paper and then get the printed word added. Now now of this is necessary with ebooks, and in many cases, the prices of ebooks are almost identical to those of the printed books, in some cases higher. Doesn't make sense. If we were paying a premium to cover the costs of the manufacturing, and these manufacturing costs do not exist for ebooks, why aren't the prices reduced?

I am one of those people that truly believe that people would spend more money cumulatively for songs that were $0.25 cents a piece as opposed to songs that are $1. It's almost a box store mentality, you get more for your money, so you don't mind spending more money. I am willing to bet that if one major record company actually tried this model, it would succeed and others would follow.

Hokeyboy

Saying CDs cost $20 in the 80s is a fallacy. Even as early as 86/87 I remember paying no more than $14-15 a pop. If 23 years later they still cost $14-$15, it means they've dropped dramatically in price. Assuming a 3.5% annual inflation, that $15 CD in 1987 would cost $30 now. A "$20 CD" would cost $44 in today's dollars. Meanwhile, shipping, overhead, distribution and marketing costs have gone up SIGNIFICANTLY.

Doesn't mean that they aren't still overpriced, but you can buy 3 or 4 albums digitially on iTunes, Amazon, etc. for what it cost for a single CD 23 years ago, or 2 or 3 CDs from a music store. Provided you can find one, of course.

stp115

And there are bands who have adapted in other ways, too. While I like your idea (a lot, actually), and while Radiohead has helped with a recent project like this for free, some bands have gone a different way. A lot of bands are offerring packages that basically give you different experiencrs at different price points. One price for download only, a little more for download and a CD, more if you add a poster. An intelligent way to stagger it so that everyone spends what they are willing to spend.

Norm de Plume

Supermallet

That's what I was referring to when I mentioned NIN. I have that super deluxe Ghosts set with the Blu-rays and stuff. I probably wouldn't have bought something like that if Reznor wasn't being as open and aware of the new technologies as he is.

Giantrobo

Thank you.

Hokeyboy

Must have been regional. Or my memory just sucks. I recall never paying more than $15 though. And $20 then still equals $44 now, so we're still buying CDs on the cheap, comparatively speaking of course.

wm lopez

No, it's just that there are no politics in this topic and you wish to listen to sense.

wm lopez

I started buying cds in 1987 at $14.99 for a single new release.
I had to find a coupon for a record store that would knock the price down to $9.99.
Only one store in the whole Chicago area did this and everywhere else it was $14.99.
I was still doing this well into 1990's.
By the 20th century music wasn't all that good so didn't buy much , but would still buy greatest hits cds for like $11.99 or so from BEST BUY.
I will pay 99 cents for a hard to find song.
I did buy THE BEATLES boxset that came out not too long ago instead of copying it.