----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stewart Mason" <flamingo@theworld.com>
> Also, despite the industry's continued poor-mouthing, last week set a
sales
> record, according to a story I read on E! Online: "Fueled by the Norah
> Factor, the post-Grammy album rush and Valentine's Day, more than 8
million
> albums were sold last week, the biggest selling five-day period (not
> counting the November-December Yuletide season) registered since Nielsen
> SoundScan began tracking in 1991."

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.  I have long wondered (as a
marketing and media research professional with a passing interest in music)
whether we're seeing a slump in the sales of pre-recorded music, or just a
shift in the % of such music sold through non-SoundScan channels.  When I
look at the music I buy by year, there is a definite increase in the
percentage of non-SoundScan channel purchases since 1991.

Just anecdotally, I was talking to my sister's sister-in-law (I'm still not
clear if that makes us related or not) who lives in a rural area in upstate
NY.  I was asking what music they listen to,  and her and her partner said,
after naming a few artists,  that they listened to a lot of CDs they bought
at shows from local artists playing the cafe in town.

Are we really buying less music-- or just less big label product that is
easily tracked?