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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | ronald and karen sanchez <eldeluxe@mcn.net> |
| Subject | Re: the death of the CD |
| Date | Thu, 04 Sep 2003 17:52:13 -0700 |
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I'm not so pessimistic. People are buying vinyl at a healthy rate again. Even
Radio Shack is selling turntables, after a 20 year gap. There are always going
to be people who want the who album. I suppose the sales levels will eventually
return to the same as it was in the 60's, when albums were the premium format.
Singles were the mass marketed items. Now there just is no audience for
singles, being replaced by downloads.
Sooner or later, peoples i-players and hard drives are gonna crash, so they'll
have to rethink their whole method of collecting. They'll probably just give up
on music and start raising families. Just take a look at all the mix tapes you
can buy at thrift shops!
The thing is for bands to make their albums worth the money. Good songs
presented at "album" length. The 74 minute albums are just so hard to listen
to, and more than a little responsible for the lack of interest. On the other
hand historical releases and reissues should be as full as possible.
Interesting covers are also part of the deal. How many cds do you buy that have
dull grafix or just loads of impossible to read lyrics? Remember those early
CBS cds that just had blank insides?
As for shuffle play, I think this is actually a great listening tool. I was
talking to Scott McCaughey about the last few REM albums and how they were too
long. A problem corrected on Reveal. He agreed. I told him I had to listen to
New Adventures and Up in random mode to find those extra songs that I always
missed when I played those cds straight through. I works for some old faves
too.
Cheer up
RS
Robert Berry wrote:
> I think the CD probably is going to die, but what bothers me the most about
> this is that it means the death of the *album*. If we go to an
> all-downloading model, it means that people will just be picking and
> choosing individual songs they want to hear. It will no longer be possible
> for an artist to release a unified album of material -- I mean, you could
> release a whole batch of songs all at the same time, but there's no way to
> ensure that people will hear them all together, or in the order you want.
> And there is no way to do transitions or links between songs. No more Abbey
> Roads or Dark Side Of The Moons.
>
> Of course, it's possible that I'm deluding myself and the album is already
> dead. Even people who buy CDs today are likely to play them in shuffle mode,
> or burn their own mix CDs. I guess we'll be going back to the way it used to
> be before the 1960s, when the song was the basic unit of currency.
>
> But I'm gonna miss the album.
>
> Robert R. Berry
-- Ronald Sanchez
Director Of A&R
Career Records
www.CareerRecords.com
The Donovan's Brain Web Site
www.Donovans-Brain.com
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