Record Industry crashes, dies

[joseph scott]

This talk of "Record stores are dying/dead" strikes me as a strictly the-view-from-my-front-door arguments.  So yeah, okay, Indiana sucks as far as record stores go, that doesn't mean that the industry is on its knees--NOR does the fact that I can hike on down to Wuxtry and get the new Feist LP in a pinch (not that I'd actually want to--what a load of shit) mean that record stores are prospering.

This is very true. I live in Los Angeles, where Amoeba easily outpaces all other record stores, indie or not. And before that I lived in New York--in the east village there are more indie record stores than starbucks within a five block radius.

And the thing to remember about places outside of large cities is that indies never thrived there. That's the whole reason Wal-Mart and Best Buy were able to get a stranglehold on the music industry. They'd already put mom & pop grocers and drug stores and electronics stores out of business, so everyone in these towns were flocking there. Then they dedicated a couple aisles to music and bam--entire segments of the country suddenly had access to CDs that they didn't really have before--especially at those prices. That's why the music industry became so dependent on the big box stores--the access they gave to smalltown buyers meant a huge boost in record sales. Now that the smalltown buyers don't depend on Wal-Mart's selection, sales drop and Wal-Mart gets closer to abandoning those music aisles. And the record labels suffer because their biggest retailer suddenly doesn't need them any more.

[Maaik]

It's odd to think of Best Buy as an ally in bringing down Wal-Mart, but you're right.

[joseph scott]

It's odd to think of Best Buy as an ally in bringing down Wal-Mart, but you're right.

I wouldn't go that far... to me, a big-box store is a big-box store. Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco - whatever. All work against the survival of record stores, and all hold too much sway over record labels.

That said, places like Wal-Mart and Target are "more evil," in the sense that they are not dependent whatsoever on whether they sell music, while Best Buy uses cheap music as a tool to get you in their store, or to get you used to the idea of shopping there. Their music selection (and video games) are a lot more essential to their overall goals as a retailer.

In order for major labels to survive, they need outlets to be dependent on access to their product (i.e., the compact disc). Wal-Mart and Target are not. Nor is iTunes (never mind illegal p2p sites). If/when Amazon switches over to an iTunes model rather than a mail-order model, they won't be dependent on majors either.

This is what I've been going on about here and at my blog - the labels painted themselves into a corner by becoming utterly dependent on big-box retailers that are not equally dependent on the labels. If you care to support record labels--if you think that's synonymous with "the music industry"--then you should think about where you purchase your records.

[RavingLunatic]

I still say the best way to support both artists and record labels is to just order directly from the label. I don't know why more people don't do this. It's really the only way to go. Unless you have a mom-and-pop indie store you want to support I suppose.

[Maaik]

I still say the best way to support both artists and record labels is to just order directly from the label. I don't know why more people don't do this. It's really the only way to go.

No, it's really not.  Because:

Unless you have a mom-and-pop indie store you want to support I suppose.

See, yeah, I do.  They're not just faceless big box stores, indie record stores are a part of the community at large.  They host in-store shows, stock albums by local artists, some of them carry magazines, books and movies you won't find elsewhere in addition to the glut of CDs and records--both new and used--which you can paw through with your bare hands.  The organized chaos of a record shop invites the patient shopper to happen upon stuff they wouldn't normally seek out and to be surprised.

I'm all for supporting artists, but I'm also a big proponent for supporting my community.  And any place--namely Decatur CD--that'll tap a keg of local brew and host listening parties is a place I want to see prosper.

[Killdozersnakeboy]

That's one of the shit things about Auckland. The independant record stores have completeley died out. It's crappy chain stores, or real groovy. groovy is kinda independant but is a huge business these days so doesn't really count as independant.

Mind you, Auckland has at least 4 small stores that specialise in house/techno etc. Who the fuck is buying all that shit I don't know, but they exist somehow.

[Good Intentions]

Marbeck's is independent, isn't it? It's large and succesful, but not quite Real Groovy's level of quasi-big store-ishness.

[joseph scott]

Anyone seen this blog before? It's got some interesting stuff.

www.indiehq.com

[hannah]

belatedly, seven years late: my brother as CASSANDRA 2000??

[joseph scott]

Anyone see this on Idolator today?

Reports are surfacing that that the three stores that make up the bulk of CD sales right now--Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target--are planning to dramatically scale back their music sections after the holiday season, thanks to executives believing that the CD market is in "permanent decline" and that sales will drop even faster next year than they did in 2007. Cutbacks are expected to be in the 20% to 40% range.

It's basically the fallout we were talking about when this thread was going a few months ago - the labels are paying the price for depending too desparately on outlets that didn't equally depend on them.

[Andrew_TSKS]

hahaha that's intense. "we predict that cd sales will drop dramatically next year. in light of that fact, we plan on scaling back our cd sections, in order to ensure that our prediction becomes a reality."

it's the death of vinyl all over again.

[diesel_powered]

That's why they call it...

[RavingLunatic]

Oh, darn. Best Buy, Wal-mart, Target, that's where I go to get all my CDs.  

[Greg Nog]

It seems strange to me that no one's made ATM-versions of iTunes yet.  You get that connected to some super-fast internet, so that it has access to a huge online catalog.  Each one has a USB port for consumers to plug their MP3-playing devices into, and the consumer can just scurry up to one, plug in, pay some cash, download what they want, and scurry off.

You could put one of these in every Wal-Mart in the nation.  Hell, you could put in a bank of, like, twenty of them, and it would take up maybe a tenth of the space that a traditional CD section occupies.

[Trousers and Pat]

They can put them with the can return machines- only 20 cans to earn a sticky-floor song download!

But yeah, if there was a machine that slapped me in the face each time I gave it money I would use it all the time.

[alistarr*]

if there was a machine that slapped me in the face each time I gave it money I would use it all the time.

[insert sexist joke here, then shout "AM I RIGHT?!!"]

[aftm]

[hi five] FUCK YEAH!

[Andrew_TSKS]

ok, i was looking at that idolator link (which i admit i didn't do yesterday, instead just reading the part joseph posted), and i noticed the last paragraph:

The only consolation? The big-box stores are pulling back the floor space they devote to DVDs, too. OK, that probably doesn't make the music industry feel better. But the plan as outlined by SAI--and the likely scenario of less choice resulting in fewer purchases, thus helping that predicted decline along--makes me wonder how much more important jockeying for those few spaces in big-box stores' aisles will become. Will artists' and labels' rush to offer exclusive extras and special editions for big-box shoppers, which has angered some people in the past, will finally peter out, or will "special editions" turn into the only way that labels can assure space for their wares on those stores' shelves?

anyone else think that maybe this kind of thing will push a recovery for stores that specialize and cds and dvds? because i feel like part of the reason that chains and smaller stores that exclusively sell cds and dvds are going by the wayside lately is because target/wal-mart/best buy have most of the things you'd want, and for cheaper. when they stop having worthwhile stock, i know that people out in bumfuck will be stuck with little recourse, since they don't have smaller stores with better selections in their areas to even patronize. but what about those of us in larger towns, small cities, big cities, etc? i know that for me, my mission to procure an album is not one i will abandon because best buy doesn't have the album in question. i won't just buy a shitty linkin park album because they aren't stocking taking back sunday anymore, so why should anyone else? won't this just lead to people hitting up virgin or fye or whatever their local mom-and-pop joint is? couldn't this actually be a blessing in disguise for the smaller music/movie retail market? am i overly idealistic or just plain crazy, or could this work?

[joseph scott]

I fuckin' hope so.

That's definitely the good side--as long as people are looking for CDs, they will now be more likely to go to actual record chains like Virgin, indies, or iTunes/Amazon (consolation for the bumfucks).

The bad side: the record labels lose all the impulse buys at places like Wal-Mart, where people went to the store looking for glad bags and decided to pick up Faith Hill's new one since it was there. That's probably no small amount of people as far as the labels are concerned (but it is a small amount of people as far as the grocery stores are concerned).

[davy]

yeah, i was just thinking: time for the indies to rise again!

[Andrew_TSKS]

well, joseph, i've been thinking about this for a few years now, and i think one thing we as music fans and makers have to accept is that the record industry is going through a permanent downsizing. there will come a time, not too far in the future, when selling a million records is much rarer than it is now. but i still think it'll happen every now and then, just like some authors can still sell a million books every now and then (granted, it's shit like "the da vinci code" as often as its something with a decent amount of merit like "harry potter", but the record industry is that way right now too). meanwhile, the labels will have to find new ways to exist profitably on an industry where 100,000 to 500,000 sales of an album is the most they can reasonably expect from a hit record. shit, they're already doing it, with ringtones and stuff like that. but i think it'll happen. the only question is how painful the transition will be. i'm sure it'll be a bummer to lose those faith hill impulse buys from wal-mart (though to some extent they'll still happen, i'm sure), but if the record industry even tries a LITTLE, they can deal with it.

[Andrew_TSKS]

David Blackburn, a Harvard PhD candidate in economics, published a paper in 2004 in which he calculated that, for music, "piracy" results in a net increase in sales for all titles in the 75th percentile or lower; negligible change in sales for the "middle class" of titles between the 75th percentile and the 97th percentile; and a small drag on the "super-rich" in the 97th percentile and higher. Publisher Tim O'Reilly describes this as "piracy's progressive taxation", apportioning a small wealth-redistribution to the vast majority of works, no net change to the middle, and a small cost on the richest few.

this is from cory doctorow's column in the september 2007 issue of locus. the main point of the column concerns free downloadable e-books and the way such things being released at the same time as hard copies of books affects book sales, but i thought this particular paragraph was really interesting where music is concerned, especially since i've been making totally unscientific statements to basically the same effect for years. it's nice to have some sort of scientific backing for one's reasoning. before anyone asks, no, i haven't tracked down the paper and read it yet, but i will probably do so, if it's possible.

[John]

David Blackburn, a Harvard PhD candidate in economics, published a paper in 2004 in which he calculated that, for music, "piracy" results in a net increase in sales for all titles in the 75th percentile or lower; negligible change in sales for the "middle class" of titles between the 75th percentile and the 97th percentile; and a small drag on the "super-rich" in the 97th percentile and higher. Publisher Tim O'Reilly describes this as "piracy's progressive taxation", apportioning a small wealth-redistribution to the vast majority of works, no net change to the middle, and a small cost on the richest few.

this is from cory doctorow's column in the september 2007 issue of locus. the main point of the column concerns free downloadable e-books and the way such things being released at the same time as hard copies of books affects book sales, but i thought this particular paragraph was really interesting where music is concerned, especially since i've been making totally unscientific statements to basically the same effect for years. it's nice to have some sort of scientific backing for one's reasoning. before anyone asks, no, i haven't tracked down the paper and read it yet, but i will probably do so, if it's possible.

I can't imagine how those figures can be made to correlate with the massive overall drop in sales volume since '01

[ellaguru]

David Blackburn, a Harvard PhD candidate in economics, published a paper in 2004 in which he calculated that, for music, "piracy" results in a net increase in sales for all titles in the 75th percentile or lower; negligible change in sales for the "middle class" of titles between the 75th percentile and the 97th percentile; and a small drag on the "super-rich" in the 97th percentile and higher. Publisher Tim O'Reilly describes this as "piracy's progressive taxation", apportioning a small wealth-redistribution to the vast majority of works, no net change to the middle, and a small cost on the richest few.

this is from cory doctorow's column in the september 2007 issue of locus. the main point of the column concerns free downloadable e-books and the way such things being released at the same time as hard copies of books affects book sales, but i thought this particular paragraph was really interesting where music is concerned, especially since i've been making totally unscientific statements to basically the same effect for years. it's nice to have some sort of scientific backing for one's reasoning. before anyone asks, no, i haven't tracked down the paper and read it yet, but i will probably do so, if it's possible.

I can't imagine how those figures can be made to correlate with the massive overall drop in sales volume since '01

I have no idea if the figures are right at all, but how they could be accurate even in light of the overall drop in sales is if we remember that prolly everybody who ever hits the Billboard charts with pretty much anything is going to be in the top 3% of the earners, I'd betcha.

[RavingLunatic]

well, joseph, i've been thinking about this for a few years now, and i think one thing we as music fans and makers have to accept is that the record industry is going through a permanent downsizing. there will come a time, not too far in the future, when selling a million records is much rarer than it is now..

"We have to accept it"? Who cares? Is there anyone besides the record execs who honestly care if the big shot artists sell 1 million copies or 500,000 copies?