Out On the Limb

Image by degreeszero via Flickr

As I was keeping up with my Google Reader this afternoon, I came across the handful of articles circulating the virtual news stands about Universal Music Group’s bright idea. Apparently, they’ve found a way to save themselves from this newfangled “internet” thing people seem to be buzzing about. Remember CD’s? Yeah, those discs we all used to buy back in 2001… well, they’re about to get cheaper. Oh, what’s that? No one cares.

Maybe it’s just me… maybe I’m the only one that values my time and gas more than the possibility of saving a buck on the newest mediocre album released by UMG. Here are a few of my concerns:

1. CD sales have dropped by half since 2000. Half. That’s a lot. Pre-2000 sales of recordings were the bread and butter for the majors… now what’s their biggest source of income? Nothing. The song itself is now a promotional tool. The majors have to get that through their thick and naive heads if they want to survive.

2. The convenience of buying online is just too tempting. I don’t remember the last physical album I purchased. Music buying is many times an impulse buy for me, therefore, having iTunes at my finger tips whenever I want it makes for some frivolous spending. Why head to my local Best Buy and browse an extremely limited selection without the convenience of previews, recommendations, and similar tunes? Not worth my time or gas.

3. This is only a “trial”. Apparently UMG calls this strategy an attempt to “attract consumers who have cut back on buying CDs in recent years”. Oh, you mean those customers that illegally download their music for free? This is a toughie… free? or 7 bucks? Say you actually make a few people happy that don’t have a soul and actually buy music at Wal-Mart… then when you realize how much money you’re still not making on CD’s and hike the price back up, you’ll have some pissed off rednecks.

4. Kids these days don’t buy albums, they buy tracks. If you peruse the casual listener’s iTunes library, you’re bound to find a whole bunch of singles. 3 to 7 tracks from a bunch of different artists. Mostly what they’ve been hearing on the Top 40 stations. Mostly what the artists on labels under the UMG umbrella like to deliver. These buyers aren’t interested in the album, my friends… They’re too busy buying the next number one and updating their Facebook status from the their phone.

I guess I’m just a jaded recipient of a Bachelor degree in music business… however, I think many will agree when I say that the major labels are dying dinosaurs and there’s not a damn thing that can save them. Well, except of course hiring me and the other recent batch of grads that understand that the business as they know it is dead… but that’s a subject for another day.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 9:54 pm and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.