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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | DanAbnrml9@aol.com |
| Subject | Re: CD sales in 2003 |
| Date | Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:43:57 EST |
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In a message dated 2/19/2004 4:02:37 PM Eastern Standard Time,
audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
<< And this also totally ignores a separate phenomenon-- that fragmentation
among the music market (e.g. major labels merging and dropping artists, who
then use alternative distribution modes; consumers buying discs at shows or
online from small retailers and the artist directly) means that many units
shifted are not making SoundScan at all. >>
And furthermore it ignores the 4 discs that Stewart picked up at Newbury
Comics, since we no longer report to SoundScan. We stopped due to competitive
issues--I think there are several articles readily available in Google as to
why--but basically they were helping the Wal-Marts and Best Buys in our immediate
area find out which emerging acts were selling so they could be hot on our
heels in carrying stuff like the Postal Service or the Shins that they would've
have bothered with otherwise. We take the risks, they reap the benefits.
Also, this relates directly to the "record stores out of business" thread
that just started--yesterday I took a road trip down to Rhode Island, and a main
point of this trip was to visit some of the record stores that were a major
part of my teenage years. And I was very very saddened (though perhaps not
shocked) to learn that SoundWave in Narragansett, RI had closed. This place was
IT--I bought nearly everything either there or at Newbs in Warwick, and the guy
who ran the place was great. He'd always talk about music, make
recommendations, and price used CDs low enough that you'd be willing to take a risk on
something (I bought the first FOW CD used a couple months after it was released for
$5--the guy told me it was "great", and boy was he right). I went to his old
location (wedged next to Blockbuster in a large, nondescript 80s era shopping
center with a supermarket and a Marshalls) and found he was gone, so I went to
another indie competitor--Narragansett Disc--a few miles down the road. The
guy working told me about SoundWave's sad tale--how he left the plaza because he
couldn't afford the rent anymore and opened the store in another location,
but it was already in the throes of death and didn't last more than another
year. I guess it closed for good last summer. He was definitely one of those
downloading-is-killing-the-industry types, who I don't FULLY agree with, but I
couldn't argue that he was experiencing it firsthand given the store's reliance on
college students. He also told me that his own store (Narragansett Disc)
likely won't be around much longer, and he has on good faith that the other
URI-area store (Richie's House of Bargains, on campus) may not last long either. I'd
been gone for so long that I didn't realize things had changed so much. :(
-Jason
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