Itunes/future sales

B

Beast

New member
I wasn't sure whether to put this in Technology or here, but anyway. Been thinking about this. Vinyl sales are supposedly on the rise. Is the vinyl+MP3 combo where we're headed? Vinyl will always be around..always. CDs have lost their niche for portability to Ipods full of MP3s.

Just wondering what the consensus is here.
 
Last edited:
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Yeah I think we are heading towards cheap mp3 vs expensive vinyl.

UK reggae seven inches are now coming out at 6 quid or 10 quid for limited editions by known producers. Even some of the repress stuff is selling for 6 quid.

This is assuming the music industry survives, of course.

Personally I still buy CDs, but that is probably a generational thing.
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
What is the music industry?

A lot of what it was just isn't necessary any more and has to change or die off. Which in the end I think is absolutely a good thing for music.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
What I mean is that the survival of vinyl as a medium requires industrial facilities like pressing plants. And, to a lesser extent, distribution.
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
Yeah I thought that's probably what you meant.

To be honest I don't really care any more if vinyl survives or not. The biggest errors that music businesses have made have been to do with trying to resist change rather than working with it. So if it happens...

But even if all the current pressing facilities go out of business there will always be some niche nutters who will set something up.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
massrock said:
Yeah I thought that's probably what you meant.

To be honest I don't really care any more if vinyl survives or not. The biggest errors that music businesses have made have been to do with trying to resist change rather than working with it. So if it happens...

But even if all the current pressing facilities go out of business there will always be some niche nutters who will set something up.
Click to expand...

Well yeah I have some sympathy with that, I just have this attachment to vinyl. I suspect it will get more and more expensive to the point where I can only justify buying the odd thing here or there.

Which is probably ok, on environmental grounds alone.
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
Quite funny to see Alan McGee extolling the virtues of 'CD-R culture' in The Guardian the other day. OK it was presumably an excuse to talk about Ariel Pink but you did wonder where the heck he'd been for the last ten years.
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
john eden said:
Well yeah I have some sympathy with that, I just have this attachment to vinyl. I suspect it will get more and more expensive to the point where I can only justify buying the odd thing here or there.

Which is probably ok, on environmental grounds alone.
Click to expand...
Yeah I don't want to see vinyl go. I'm not so attached to it these days though.

The thing about the 'music industry' is the way that has often been equated with the big companies which is obviously nonsense. Most artists just don't need that now, if they ever really did.
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
There is the question of how to deal with the fact that a good proportion of people under the age of 30 now find it hard to grasp the concept of paying for recorded music.

But I still think it's mostly the old model record companies that find that a problem. Artists and labels can be realistic, do your thing, find a few thousand people worldwide who appreciate what you do.
 
slackk

slackk

-
Yeah I went record shopping last time I was in Liverpool (vinyl only, mind, as that's mostly all I buy now bar grime & road rap mixtapes), and my cousin who's 16 said "why are you buying music?"
 
Simon78

Simon78

Well-known member
Hardly any of my friends buy music. A couple of them will buy 1 or 2 cd's a year but that is it.

I only buy old Grime on vinyl, the odd new Dubstep tune and most of the Funky that gets released. Not sure why I bother buying the Funky on vinyl as I use Serato at home and cd's out. They just go straight on the shelf.

I used to shop at BM or Uptown but usually put in a vinyl order at Chemical or Juno on payday now. I buy quite a lot of mp3s from Juno Download/Traxsource and most Grime that comes out on CD.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Now we've got spotify, apart from the odd grime mixtape or £2 bargain bin find, I won't be buying any more cds What's the point?
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Excellent. No buffering. And the adverts aren't even all that frequent. I even listen to stuff on spotify that I have on cd just because I can't be arsed to ratch the cd out of the pile. Perfect for lazy, tight gits like myself!
 
S

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
Retail music is a bit fucked right now unless someone comes up with a bright idea and then other people are bright enough to take it on board.

Slackk's cousin highlights the main issue: that the availability of free pirated music makes the notion of paying for music simply preposterous. The sales of digital downloads might be rising, but at the end of the day I don't think they will ever get to a point that will sustain the retail aspect of the music industry.

The truth is that an Mp3, regardless of the price tag any music retailer wishes to slap on it, is worth $0.00. No amount of marketing is going to change that in the minds of the music (not)buying public who continue to get more tech savvy with each generation.

This is just another example of the music industry's policy of denial and repetition they have been adhering to since Napster first reared its ugly head. Really they have nobody to blame but themselves. They were foolish against all advice, and now it is not long before artists stop needing labels entirely.
 
B

BareBones

wheezy
it was only last year, wasn't it (?), that labels (in a desperate attempt to come up with a new physical product), started selling usb memory sticks with albums on. I think it lasted about 6 months tops. What a pointless and ridiculous fucking idea that was.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
i used to buy shitloads of cds, now probably get about 80% of my new stuff via mp3 (free and paid). obviosuly i like the convenience (and cost savings!) of downloading, but i really miss the community aspect of being in a record store. i love getting turned on to something new that's playing on the store sound system, getting a recommendation from a fellow shopper or store employee, taking a chance on something because you found a cheap used copy, etc.

maybe i'm just old... ;-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top