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Music - General News
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Monday, 13 August 2007
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Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
Buried
in the rubble of an audio disc format war, with no winner, lie the
remains of two high-resolution audio formats, SACD and DVD-Audio. These
formats held tremendous potential in their day and have left the
audiophile and music enthusiast communities desperate for a
high-resolution answer to their audio questions. A deeper casualty from
the high-resolution audio format war has been the death of the concept
of the album and the near death of music mixed specifically for
surround sound. While Hollywood movies in the theater and on various
disc formats, HD video game titles, and even Las Vegas shows like Love
and Blue Man Group are designed to wow audiences with high-resolution
audio in at least 5.1 channels, today’s music is increasingly being
sold the easiest way possible – through low-resolution downloads for
easy consumption on iPods and computers alike.
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Thursday, 09 August 2007
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Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
The
RIAA has released their 2006 sales report for recorded music, and the
downward trend continues for yet another year. Overall sales are down
0.6 percent to 12.27 billion, which is slightly misleading because the
RIAA is now counting the lucrative, new market of cell phone ringtones
in their overall sales numbers. Without ringtones in the mix, overall
music sales slipped even further in 2006. The low-resolution,
audio-only Compact Disc format continues to age, leaving today's kids
buying video oriented DVDs, high-definition video games and all sorts
of content for their handheld devices such as, cell phones, PDAs and
beyond.
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Thursday, 22 March 2007
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Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
Before
the days of grunge and during a time when the compact disc offered the
consumer a fair value for $18.99, the domestic music business briskly
sold north of 30 billion dollars’ worth of music per year. Powered by
catchy pop acts and surprisingly well-crafted rock and metal, the music
business in the early 1990s made a product that could be sold in a
profitable format in high volumes and that mainstream consumers truly
wanted. Roll the tape forward just a few years and couple the
Nirvana-esque, “I don’t care if I tune my guitar, brush my hair or even
blow my brains out, whatever” attitude with the grunge scene, and you
see the beginning of the problem. Add in the commercial success of
Apple’s iPod paired with the launch of the DVD, which gave consumers
both an audio and a video experience that lasted two-plus hours, had
supplemental goodies, surround sound and ...
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Thursday, 15 February 2007
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Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
The
story of the failure of SACD and DVD-Audio is a long and disappointing
tale that has far-reaching negative impact for the music and
audio-video industry alike. In 1993 the domestic record sales, powered
almost exclusively by Compact Disc, were near 33 billion dollars
yearly. Today, nearly a decade and a half later domestic record sales
have dropped to about $9 billion per year with an additional $3 billion
per year for downloads and another $3 billion for ring tones.
Unquestionably, the music business has lost a lot of its luster in a
very short period of time and is dragging the audiophile market segment
down the drain with them.
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Thursday, 08 February 2007
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Written by
Jerry Del Colliano
As
a long-time Prince fan, I was lured into my home theater this Sunday
afternoon to watch the half time show of the Super Bowl. Despite his
many quirks, Prince is an amazing artist on many levels. His ability to
play more than a dozen instruments, his prolific songwriting and his
cross-generational appeal all make him one of the greatest musical
entertainers and performers of our time. By my standards Prince ranks
up there with the likes of Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Igor
Stravinsky, Miles Davis and John Coltrane as a twentieth century
musical master.
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