I’d like to tell you that Christina Aguilera’s "Back To Basics" heralds a turnaround in the recorded music sphere, but I’d be lying.<\/p>\n
What we’ve got here, with the sale of 341,988 CDs in its debut week, is an incredible job of SET-UP!\u00c2\u00a0 Executed flawlessly, Irving and RCA deserve a pat on the back.\u00c2\u00a0 For getting the word out, creating the buzz, and selling through this number of discs.\u00c2\u00a0 But this is a positively old wave story.\u00c2\u00a0 How do I know?\u00c2\u00a0 By looking at the digital statistics.<\/p>\n
You’d think, with that many albums sold in the physical sphere, "Back To Basics" would be burning up the online chart.\u00c2\u00a0 But you would be wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 Christina Aguilera sold a grand total of 18,169 online albums.\u00c2\u00a0 Egads!\u00c2\u00a0 What happened here?<\/p>\n
It’s about the price.\u00c2\u00a0 A double album, "Back To Basics" was sold at $11.88 at Wal-Mart.\u00c2\u00a0 And also under twelve bucks at Best Buy.\u00c2\u00a0 And even under TEN DOLLARS in some locations.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, there was a nexus between hype, availability and VALUE (i.e. two discs for the price of one)!\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, "Back To Basics" was an impulse item.\u00c2\u00a0 No different from the tabloids and candy adjacent to the grocery store checkout stand.<\/p>\n
How did it come to this?\u00c2\u00a0 How did music go from being a religious experience, acquired at the temple, the standalone store with EVERYTHING, to becoming an afterthought, something you could just as easily live without.<\/p>\n
Somehow, via the endless hyping and whoring, mainstream music has become devalued.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not seen as a Mercedes-Benz, but more akin to a Hyundai.\u00c2\u00a0 It’ll get you there, but it’s not meant to last.<\/p>\n
Why weren’t sales commensurate online?<\/p>\n
Well, maybe because the album cost four dollars more.\u00c2\u00a0 Why buy the files?<\/p>\n
I wouldn’t blame Irving here.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not the record company, he just represents the act.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants to maximize revenue today.\u00c2\u00a0 But what makes the label think that when discs are dead, everybody will go pay MORE online?\u00c2\u00a0 God, shouldn’t there be incentives placed in online stores, to get people used to buying there?\u00c2\u00a0 Shouldn’t customers be made to think they’re savvy and forward-thinking, doing the right thing?\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of literally paying more for less?<\/p>\n
If the online version of "Back To Basics" had been $6.99, how many copies do you think would have been sold?\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, if it was SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper to buy the album online, would sales have BALLOONED?\u00c2\u00a0 On one hand I think yes, on another…\u00c2\u00a0 You just don’t have the same buying impulse as you do in physical retail.<\/p>\n
But it’s not like all the rest of the new product is flying out of physical retail…\u00c2\u00a0 The highly hyped Trace Adkins disc?\u00c2\u00a0 114,706 over the counter.\u00c2\u00a0 These are not superstar numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 Seems that in contradistinction to the long tail Internet world, in brick and mortar, it’s only about the hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone’s fighting for shelf space, a deal with the big boxes, to get their discounted product in the face of enough people to sell…oftentimes, not enough.<\/p>\n
Wow, this train is driving so fast for the cliff it’s staggering.<\/p>\n
Indie retail will survive.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s where the hard core musos go to buy physical discs.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a market for vinyl, there will be customers for these stores.\u00c2\u00a0 But the mainstream??<\/p>\n
With the death of Tower, and you know it’s gonna close down, there’s no real way to make it work, the idea of a standalone record chain with deep catalog will die.\u00c2\u00a0 It will leave the public CONSCIOUSNESS!\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, it’s an axiom of business that the fewer places there are to buy your product, the less you will sell.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it would be one thing if the Tower experience was replicated in the big box, but ain’t that a laugh, with so few titles available there.<\/p>\n
As for the big boxes themselves?\u00c2\u00a0 They care about as much about music as you do about your landline long distance plan.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re ITCHING to see them go.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no loyalty at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, just ask Verizon, whose landline business has dropped dramatically.\u00c2\u00a0 Sprint saw the death of the long distance business and went wireless.\u00c2\u00a0 MCI?\u00c2\u00a0 Merged with WorldCom and tanked.<\/p>\n
We’re approaching a wrenching transition.\u00c2\u00a0 One within which physical sales plummet and digital sales don’t make up the difference.\u00c2\u00a0 And no one is planning for this inevitability.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re just trying to milk the last dollars and cents from the old world.<\/p>\n
Music is going to have to drop in price dramatically online.\u00c2\u00a0 So there’s no incentive to steal.\u00c2\u00a0 Or else people will continue to do so, and the majors will become licensing houses and the new music landscape will be invaded by indies, fighting turf wars, to build their touring acts.<\/p>\n
I’d say change is coming, but it’s HERE!<\/p>\n
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