old man gets angry about the present, suggests everyone behaves as if it were twenty years ago.

Posted on August 3, 2009
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I went into a J and B store the other day with a friend to buy a computer.  Whilst we were there, I became momentarily distracted by the shelves of cd albums.  How long had it been since I’d been in a record store?  There was a time when I’d visit them practically daily, browsing through the racks, sometimes buying, but as often as not just trying to keep abreast of what was happening.  So it was in the deep nostalgic glow of a glorious past that I began to flick through the albums displayed.  “what is this shit?”  The selection was appaling, overwhelmingly dominated by a selection  of golden oldie’s and crass R’n'B.  My friend was looking for a new Iron and Wine album, a well respected must have for any decent indie folk collection, they had only the one pallid offering.  I told her not to worry, she could just stream it at home on her new computer, even as I said it, I thought that is the very reason there is no life in this store, just the empty blaring wail of an artform disappearing beneath the waves.  I’m hoping that you will read the small excellent piece that I’m about to cut and paste in the space below, which contextualises a few alarming staistics about the industry, one of which I’m about to tell you now. “of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer.” So as we worry for all those millions of unloved orphans, with nothing but their own filespace to call home, lets remember, there was once a time when we took the time to know a whole suite of songs, slowly coming to terms with the ones we originally hated, only to find that they were the best ones.  Oh the past – it was so fucking good. I might go stream a Led Zeppelin album. From Charles M Blow at The New York TImes

The music industry’s deathwatch kicked off about a decade ago, but it seems the vigil could soon be over.

According to data from the Recording Industry Association of America, since music sales peaked in 1999, the value of those sales, after adjusting for inflation, has dropped by more than half. At that rate, the industry could be decimated before Madonna’s 60th birthday.

The speed at which this industry is coming undone is utterly breathtaking.

First, piracy punched a big hole in it. Now music streaming — music available on demand over the Internet, free and legal — is poised to seal the deal.

The problem is that if people can get the music they want for free, why would they ever buy it, or even steal it? They won’t. According to a March study by the NPD Group, a market research group for the entertainment industry, 13- to 17-year-olds “acquired 19 percent less music in 2008 than they did in 2007.” CD sales among these teenagers were down 26 percent and digital purchases were down 13 percent.

And a survey of British music fans, conducted by the Leading Question/Music Ally and released last month, found that the percentage of 14- to 18-year-olds who regularly share files dropped by nearly a third from December 2007 to January 2009. On the other hand, two-thirds of those teens now listen to streaming music “regularly” and nearly a third listen to it every day.

This is part of a much broader shift in media consumption by young people. They’re moving from an acquisition model to an access model.

Even if they choose to buy the music, the industry has handicapped its ability to capitalize on that purchase by allowing all songs to be bought individually, apart from their albums. This once seemed like a blessing. Now it looks more like a curse.   continue reading

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