Retiring Baby Boomers Fuel Two-Channel - Sales Surge in 2007

[mrmusic]

Originally Posted by jotham

Many, many times, I pay $15 for a CD and find out it has one good song on it if I'm lucky.

I went to Bittorrent to download some music that I thought I might like. I liked about 25-50% of it and went and purchased the CDs. The rest, I haven't listened to but I figured I would give some of it another try and see if it might be more to my taste the second time around.

Perhaps I'm an anomaly in that I'm willing to purchase music I already have but I don't necessarily think so. I do feel that paying $12-15 a CD is still a ripoff but I don't have much of a choice morally.

I'm trying to explain one person's purchasing psychology (myself) . . .

I purchase approx 90 CDs per year so I believe I've paid my dues to this debate.

Jotham, I'm SO glad to read this post. I think your purchasing philosophy is much more widespread than people might think. I've been saying something similar for years.

I understand the attraction of MP3 players like iPods but it breaks my heart that the quality is so lacking. An entire generation is going to think music is supposed to sound that way.

I've spent my life listening to, thinking about, dreaming to, talking of, playing on the airwaves, showing on television, and writing about music. I love music, I love musicians. I'm married to one. They deserve to be compensated for their art, and compensated well. But the current system doesn't serve them, and has always given the lion's share to the middle men.

I have always made tapes and then burned discs of music I love and shared it with friends and acquaintances. I've never felt I was taking a sale away from an artist. Rather, I feel I've been responsible for 1000s of sales of great albums and songs people might otherwise have never been aware of. It's spreading the word, just like the writing and broadcasting.

I think a lot of people, and especially Boomers and Gen-Xers, want something in their hand, something they can see, when they go to pick out the music they want to hear at that moment, and I'm not talking about a little sliver of white plastic. Something that has a photo or some artwork to it, something with a list of the songs. Something that triggers that meaningful association they have to the music. Something more than a line of type in a window. How soulless is that?! That moment of choosing may be brief, but emotionally it's important.

I've always done what you do: download and listen, then look for the CD (or SACD, or DualDisc, or DVD-A, or whatever remains) to own and use, to show to friends and loan (and usually other work by those artists). The whole process of downloading and organizing and then putting that music where you want it (home system, car, MP3 player, computer) is a bit messy (and still mysterious to many Boomers) and time-consuming. Great if you're in school and that's your priority, not so convenient in the adult world. If you're in the adult world with adult money, maybe you'd rather pay for the package.

Not pay $12-19, I agree, we all feel ripped off; the music industry made its billions from overpriced CDs and now they're crying because they haven't figured out how to profit from the new technology, and they waited so long it's probably too late now for the generation they've lost to illegal downloading.

But I don't think you're a thief. You have paid your dues. And you'd pay much more if it were available, and reasonably priced. The 30-day idea may be a good one. You say you're spending over $1,000/yr for CDs anyway. Multiply that by millions and see what the record industry is losing. And I think you are typical of many.

The clueless, blind, certainly deaf, pig-headed, anti-art, lawyer-MBA-dominated Mr. Jones music business deserves to die. Track down your customers and take them to court, indeed.

Radiohead was a first. Sure a lot of people took their sample for free. But Radiohead got a mailing list of how many million fans? Priceless. Don't cry for them. Bands will look back and say, those smart geeks, those were the days.

Give us reasonably-priced hi-def non-copyable catalog to play on our A/V systems and just watch those wallets open up.

[JerryDelColliano]

I believe that anything over $9 for a CD is unjust.

-----

My father has done some research at the University of Souther California music school for labels like WEA to find that Gen Y thinks a fair price for music is more like $0.10!!!!

[JerryDelColliano]

I look at the music industry like a forest fire (a sore topic in these parts recently - thank God it rained pretty hard yesterday).

The fact is at the end of the heavy metal era (early 1990's) when band's stopped caring about how they played, how they looked and music was sold MOSTLY to back catalog CDs by the album - the music industry was doing domestically about $33,000,000,000 yearly. Today back out 3 bill for legal downloads and 3 billion for ringtones - that overall number is more like $14,000,000,000. With GenY perfectly willing to steal music when it doesn't mean that much to them yet at the same time willing to pony up $60 for Halo 3 - the music business simply needs to hit rock bottom and that isn't that close yet. There are too many Boomers as Mr. Music described who arrogantly still think they know what is going on. They don't. Simply check the score board. You can NOT give up on the album concept but the majors have. You can not give up on quality sound but the majors have yet HDTV, HD games and movies in HD boom in sales.

In terms of the fire - we need to have all of the dead growth burned off to get back to the glory days of music. An entrepreneurial time like in the mid-1960. Remember: people love music more today than ever. 120,000,000 iPods sold proves that. There is a HUGE audience out there but as Dick Clark is famous for saying "if it ain't in the grooves - it ain't in the grooves" Clearly, today's music isn't musically important enough to compel large volumes of people to buy it. Perhaps a return to development of artists could fix that because in the 1960's that was what a label could do for an artist. I once met Sir George Martin here in LA and he spoke of what it was like teaching The Beatles to get professional instruments, to tune them and be real musicians. In the forest fire - its time we burn off all of the talentless bling bling rappers and Divas and replace them with artists who can play, write and sing. People know the difference and will buy the music. Lastly, labels to save their asses need to sell HD music in mass in the album format - not pushing downloads as anything other than a promotional too. Make a $10 HD DVD album SO IRRESISTABLE with HD concert footage, interviews, games and other goodies PLUS 24-192 stereo and 24-96 surround mixes. People will hear and apreciate the difference but they will not beat the major's doors down. This is something the labels need to promote themselves and with 9 figures worth of funds. The days of free ads on FM radio and MTV are gone and Rome is burning.

My bet is the arrogance of the Boomers that run the labels will allow the city to burn to the ground.
--

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by JerryDelColliano

I look at the music industry like a forest fire (a sore topic in these parts recently - thank God it rained pretty hard yesterday).

The fact is at the end of the heavy metal era (early 1990's) when band's stopped caring about how they played, how they looked and music was sold MOSTLY to back catalog CDs by the album - the music industry was doing domestically about $33,000,000,000 yearly. Today back out 3 bill for legal downloads and 3 billion for ringtones - that overall number is more like $14,000,000,000. With GenY perfectly willing to steal music when it doesn't mean that much to them yet at the same time willing to pony up $60 for Halo 3 - the music business simply needs to hit rock bottom and that isn't that close yet. There are too many Boomers as Mr. Music described who arrogantly still think they know what is going on. They don't. Simply check the score board. You can NOT give up on the album concept but the majors have. You can not give up on quality sound but the majors have yet HDTV, HD games and movies in HD boom in sales.

In terms of the fire - we need to have all of the dead growth burned off to get back to the glory days of music. An entrepreneurial time like in the mid-1960. Remember: people love music more today than ever. 120,000,000 iPods sold proves that. There is a HUGE audience out there but as Dick Clark is famous for saying "if it ain't in the grooves - it ain't in the grooves" Clearly, today's music isn't musically important enough to compel large volumes of people to buy it. Perhaps a return to development of artists could fix that because in the 1960's that was what a label could do for an artist. I once met Sir George Martin here in LA and he spoke of what it was like teaching The Beatles to get professional instruments, to tune them and be real musicians. In the forest fire - its time we burn off all of the talentless bling bling rappers and Divas and replace them with artists who can play, write and sing. People know the difference and will buy the music. Lastly, labels to save their asses need to sell HD music in mass in the album format - not pushing downloads as anything other than a promotional too. Make a $10 HD DVD album SO IRRESISTABLE with HD concert footage, interviews, games and other goodies PLUS 24-192 stereo and 24-96 surround mixes. People will hear and apreciate the difference but they will not beat the major's doors down. This is something the labels need to promote themselves and with 9 figures worth of funds. The days of free ads on FM radio and MTV are gone and Rome is burning.

My bet is the arrogance of the Boomers that run the labels will allow the city to burn to the ground.
--

The thing is that single songs can be downloaded for a dollar.

This isn't smart. Have they forgot the "single?" Singles always cost a bit, if you didn't want the whole album they'd get more for that song.

I really think $9 to $10 high quality HD DVD albums would be smart and allow singles for $4 to be downloaded. It would improve album sales, and while the more expensive singles for download might **** some off... buy the album where you can rip the song for yourself and have other tracks.

[JerryDelColliano]

Nobody wants to pay $4 for a single unless its LOADED with added values, HD sound, HD Video and more.

[Enoch]

OK, I read all the above. My turn. Lamentations. Lamentations.
Xorbitman wrote, "Most consumers like me that have CD collections numbering over 500 cds (in my case over 1000) were reluctant to throw it all away to start over with SACD."

To that I say, you don't have to throw away anything. You just need to look for the album you want in DVDA/SACD first, then if you don't find it, get the CD. In other words, build your library, from here on out with DVDA/SACD in mind as the prefered augmentation to your existing library.
"Secondly regarding BOSE....carefull what you say here...."
No highs? no lows? Gotta be Bose.

Deacongreg wrote "The only hope I really see, is with companies like Onkyo, Denon, Pioneer, and Yamaha continuing to make great home theater receivers at reasonable price points, that those into the surround sound craze, once they have their HD DVD or Blu-Ray player and hear what it sounds like, maybe this will peak their interest in high res audio."

This may be our only hope Obi Wan. Bleak as that sounds.

jotham wrote, "A studio generated rip in a high level of quality for a fair price of $5-7 would just stream money out of my pocket."

Everyone listen up who hasn't tried this site yet. MusicGiants http://mgn.musicgiants.com/

These guys rock and could use our support.

I was born on the cusp. 1964. It's an odd place to be. I own all the good formats of hardware and the crappy ones (I just make sure my mp3 player can play FLAC). The music world is looking bleak. Lamentations.