The irony is, like the LP a few years ago, there is a hipster movement to bring back the cassette.
I see some bands are releasing "Cassette Only" albums. It never ceases to amaze.
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- Thread starter Andre Marc
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The irony is, like the LP a few years ago, there is a hipster movement to bring back the cassette.
I see some bands are releasing "Cassette Only" albums. It never ceases to amaze.
THAT I don't get. I have two different chapters in my analog life. The first where I didn't even own a protractor and the second where I was actually taught how to do things right. After the first, I jumped head first into digital. After the second, I wished I'd never gotten rid of my LPs and bought practically every title I had in CD. Just as well though, my ignorance had probably trashed those LPs anyway. In any case, I'm thoroughly enjoying my return to vinyl just as I am enjoying my forays into Hi-Rez now that I finally have a fiber connection. CDs? I have a player that I really like and the format isn't as bad as it is sometimes made out to be. It's just no longer my first option when I do have an option.
IIRC Alan, the Minidisc was meant to be a digital replacement for cassette tapes as a recording (mixed tape) making medium more than anything else, definitely not a delivery medium from the get go. It was the cheaper to market alternative than DAT. Not too sure about prerecorded DCC. On the other hand, prerecorded compact cassette (lossy
What I think is that they didn't see the dark side see computer audio coming. They should have the day the first 16bit sound card was launched especially since companies like Philips were providing chips! Convergence had happened. No amount of law suits could turn the tide back so they simply hopped on the bus.
My point wasn't so much about MD, but DCC. Philips touted it to us as a replacement to compact cassette and CD in one. Philips had an odd half-right/half-wrong view of music in the 1990s. Music was all about digital portability (DCC having the advantage of not skipping like a portable CD player at the time), while the future of CD was more to do with CD-Video and CD-i with its added content and 1980s games graphics.
IIRC, the idea surrounding DCC and copying was that Philips thought direct digital copying would be impossible because it included SCMS.
That it got this spectacularly wrong on almost every level wasn't a function of a lack of vision on the part of Philips. A crushing lack of pointing that vision at the real world... yes. But it had big ideas.
Look up where they obtain their LP sales figures from [I'll give you a hint--it's not from independent stores that are the biggest sales outlet for LPs). It's far from accurate.
Even I'm not totally convinced CDs will stop being made completely any time soon. Radically scaled back, yes. But stopped altogether? I think that's unlikely. Global CD sales have gone from a 2000 peak of 2.5bn to last year's figure of 833m (source: IFPI), so the market has dropped away by about two-thirds in a dozen years, but there are still genre and whole countries where CD is still a major player.
My concern remains how big a scale back, and the speed of that scale back. I don't think a CD market in the US that was a billion units a year at the turn of the century and is below 200m units today affords us much right to be complacent, even if the likelihood is that CDs will still being made for the foreseeable future.
What I don't get is how they're not making a profit selling CDs when the manufacturing costs are like $0.25. Even with royalties, etc., record labels are still making a good profit. Or is it maybe a reflection on the quality of the music being released than the CD itself. Nowadays, it's a miracle if an album has more than one or two memorable tunes. Ergo, the push to Itunes where you can get your two favorites songs off a CD for 0.99 each rather than paying $15. (might be more since haven't bought a CD in years.)
Are you saying indie stores don't use Soundscan? BTW, if LP sales are being under reported you can bet CD sales are too.
The record label makes a profit if enough CDs sell in good number. This is oversimplified, but if that label has 100 acts in a month that each has a 10,000 CD run, that's a $250k investment in CDs. The change in the CD market means currently maybe five or ten of those acts will sell well, and the others will sell in tiny numbers, or not at all. The hope for a record label is the sure fire hit sells by the truckload, to help offset the money lost from the poor performance of the others. But all you need is six bad months where you are paying out a quarter of a mil and getting back five grand, and the company is toast.
This - plus the fact that the head of the label and many of its acts label had a titanic nose-candy problem - was the problem that sank 'successful' labels like Creation Records. Bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream and Boo Radleys made Creation a whole heap of cash. But there were also a lot of bands like Biff Bang Pow!, Felt, Momus, The Weather Prophets, The Jazz Butcher, Fluke, Swervedriver, even My Bloody Valentine who were either financially unsuccessful, or expensive, or unsuccessful and expensive. Eventually the balance tilts into the red.
Increasingly, chart CD sales are now often sold through supermarkets. I don't know if the same holds in the US, but in the UK you pay 'tribute' to be on the supermarket shelves, even if you've charted. If your record label can't or won't buy your slot on the CD charts, your record is 'out of stock'. And there is absolutely no guarantee that paying for position in a supermarket equates to sales, because you are dealing with a very fickle buyer.
Yes, a lot of this comes down to content. And yet more comes down to the people who made grand claims about being hit makers and musical Svengali proving almost completely unfounded.
Very few independent stores report to Soundscan. Large chains yes (the few that are left). Indie stores no.
I won't dispute that Alan. In between CDs and the rise of small flash and hd players was the CD-R. CD-R is the equivalent of thermal paper. I lost a whole lot of work to Florida's summer sun parked in the shade. When the iPod came out it was a godsend even if I had to make do with lossy just so the music would fit. On the go all of this is quite listenable, at home, it's only listenable if its playing in the background behind lots of chatter or after a LOT of stiff drinks. LOL.
Alan, with all due respect, some of your points are pretty sensational and fantastical.
First, no one forces the record companies to sign as many acts as they do. Their rosters swelled to unsustainable levels.
Secondly, there is nothing new about artistically and critically acclaimed acts who were very influential selling small numbers. My collection
is littered with albums by artists who did not sell didley squat but are talked about as deities.
I personally have not seen CDs sold in supermarkets here. But maybe others have.
Here is a good one for you, I just saw an interview with Scott Weiland who said rock fans stopped buying new albums but
country fans are buying them in huge numbers.
The punch line? The country fans are too stupid work their computers LOL.
So in essence, one could argue we are being a fed a crock about how bad the decline is if indie stores don't report. Many of the CDs I purchase
are from small indie e-tailers.
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
I'm looking at a MAM-A contract now where they are charging $100 for Clover processing, $300 for Stamper and $2.90 /disc for a short run of 5000
JVC charges even more!
But major labels don't do 5000 runs. Chad Kassem, Audio Fidelity, and MoFi do 5000 runs. And that is why their discs cost $30.
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Noted!
I also see that many labels on Amazon offer CD-R services certain titles...basically CDs on demand. I ordered
a few that had decent art work and were burned specifically for my order.
I also see that many labels on Amazon offer CD-R services certain titles...basically CDs on demand. I ordered
a few that had decent art work and were burned specifically for my order.
Soundscan is not precise. Its only an approximation of sales. Its based on a weighted average with certain key regions/cities compensating for the lack of reporting by independent stores.
Its not as though every CD or LP that passes through a check out scanner gets accounted for.
Hey, now.....some of us Country fans simply like physical media.
Tom
Good one! As mean as it sounded, I had to chuckle.
