West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => West Coast Classics => Topic started by: Don Seer on June 26, 2006, 04:25:36 AM
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OK.. so the industry claims album sales are down, blaming it on bootlegging etc. Now i'm not gonna claim it doesn't happen etc.. but what improvements can be made to combat this? and what reasons stop you buying albums? add your own/comment on other peoples additions..
I'll kick it off with 2..
1) Selling wack albums through a strong lead single. So many times back in the day I bought albums off of a strong single which turned out to be wack. People don't want to be ripped off.. if the single is tight, they expect the album to be comparable. I wanna know the albums solid before I buy it. The internet is clueing people up on poor product.
2) Putting out different versions of albums. Example. I forgot a DVD edition of J5s Power In Numbers was coming out so I copped the normal version. Now i'm pissed off. Another variant of this is when a 'special edition' comes out a month or two after the drop to boost sales.. either with videos, bonus tracks or some other shit. Thats shitting on the early adopters in my book! how come people who buy it two months later get a better deal than the guy who bought it the day it came out? and the third similar example.. bonus tracks on foriegn version. for example.. 213.. europe got an extra track.. aint that some shit?
3) The over milking of formulas.. If a debut sells well an artist is expected to repeat ad infinitum.. I'm sick of weak sophmore efforts stifled by people being forced to follow the formula of their last album "a song like this, a song like that".. people want something new!
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theyre not in stores here and buyin online is too expensive cuz of s&h
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yeah availibility is an issue.. i normally bulk buy 5 or so at a time to make it worth my while
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for me, its artists releasing albums with 18 tracks or whatever, and only 3 or 4 are actually decent
you can only get burned so many times
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I never stopped buying albums and I never download a whole album to listen to.
What I do do is listen to snippets on CDuniverse, CDconnection etc. If I like the sound of the majority of tracks I pick it up. That way I still get the excitement of the first listen to the proper album, without the risk that I've just bought a hot mess.
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well, what i consider before buying a cd, is the quality of the artist, whether its someone i know, and i know they can put out good music, i would be willin to take a chance on buying there album jus by hearing one single or jus having faith. If its an artist thats new i will wait to see album reviews and get a second opinion before i buy.
but seeing how it is so easy and cheap to rip it off the internet i have to admit, it has been along time since i actually bought a cd from the store ( Bun B - Trill) and i have been meaning to buy more from the store seeing how most of the time the real cd has better quality and more features than downloading,
well thats my 2 cents ;)
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I never stopped buying albums and I never download a whole album to listen to.
What I do do is listen to snippets on CDuniverse, CDconnection etc. If I like the sound of the majority of tracks I pick it up. That way I still get the excitement of the first listen to the proper album, without the risk that I've just bought a hot mess.
well, what i consider before buying a cd, is the quality of the artist, whether its someone i know, and i know they can put out good music, i would be willin to take a chance on buying there album jus by hearing one single or jus having faith. If its an artist thats new i will wait to see album reviews and get a second opinion before i buy.
my thoughts exactly
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I've bought too many albums in my life. If I don't think I'll listen to it a lot in the future (i.e. too many garbage on the album) or if it doesn't fit in my collection, I will not buy it.
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I've bought too many albums in my life.
Not possible ;D Music's such a major part of my life I couldn't imagine thinking I had too much.
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Say what you want, but some people don't buy albums because they don't give a fuck about the artists, and it's free to download. I know people that haven't bought an album in years, and everytime I buy a cd, they ask me why the fuck i'd wanna spend money on a cd when you can download it for free.
I buy 5-10 cd's every month, but i'm sure 80% of them are 2+ years old... i'd rather spend $9 on a good cd from 2000 then $15 on a crappy cd from 2006.
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I've bought too many albums in my life.
Not possible ;D Music's such a major part of my life I couldn't imagine thinking I had too much.
I used to think like that for a long time, but now I don't really care anymore about Lil Kim or The Nutty Professor II soundtrack, lol
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i'd rather spend $9 on a good cd from 2000 then $15 on a crappy cd from 2006.
yeah most cds I buy are a couple of years old as well
Also if I'm tired of a cd or I don't like it I just sell it
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Well one thing is I dont ahve enough money. Id rather spent the money I have on clothes and stuff like that than a cd with 5,6 good songs on it.
The only cds I buy these days are when Im collecting stuff from artist I like the most -->> Busta, Xzibit, Snoop, Meth, Redman, Dre, some Wu Tang
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Yeah around here I they are not so many, and that available. What I mean is I went to the biggest mall in my town, and all I could found is The Game, 50 Cent, Eminem, Dre-2001, Eazy E-Eternal E, Public Enemy(for the last 2 I was amazed actually) but the problem is they are like 40$/album and that is a problem when my salary is 100$. The thing is they are too expensive for me, that's why I download(NOT bootlegg). I buy the romanians hip hop albums cause they are acceptable. Anyway if I'm looking for the artists that I listen to in my stores...there's no chance :(
BUT as I keep saying to my cats around here, If you like the music, go out and buy the original. THAT IF you want to hear your fav artist again on your speakers. I say it like this, they respect us by making a new record, we gotta respect them by buying their efforts. You can't go to the shop and not pay for the ice cream(actually I use to slip one everytime I can) but you see my where I'm going right? Give me 800$/month salary and 200$ I'd give on albums and DVD's.
For you, cause I think that 80% of this forum can afford buying original shit, go out there and support your fav artist. If we'd bootlegg Cube's album, E40's album, The Doc, in a big proportion, you think we would have what to talk about?
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You rarely see a tightly produced album from front to back these days, because everybody has to get Scott Storch, Just Blaze, The Neptunes and Kanye all over their shit so you don't get albums with strong themes running through them, just a bunch of production guest spots. That's why people only tend to like 2 or 3 songs on new albums and don't buy them.
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They're cheap and try to make up excuses about tha quality of an album to make their cheapness seem non-existant
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You rarely see a tightly produced album from front to back these days, because everybody has to get Scott Storch, Just Blaze, The Neptunes and Kanye all over their shit so you don't get albums with strong themes running through them, just a bunch of production guest spots. That's why people only tend to like 2 or 3 songs on new albums and don't buy them.
That's true. But it's not to take anything away from the producers you mention. A big part of is that those producers charge so much for a beat that unless you're part of their clique you could never make it financially viable to hit them up for 12-15 tracks.
As far as I'm concerned, Kanye (for example) has shown he can create a cohesive album as the (nearly) sole producer in Be. That album had a strrong theme and vibe throughout.
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For the last couple of years the only reason I purchased albums was to have it for my collection. I only listen to CDs 5% of the time, I listen to my mp3 player the rest of the time so CDs aren't being used that much anyways. Over the last year I've really cared less and less about my "collection", it's much easier just to download it and I'll save $20 too. Even if I know an album is good I really don't see why I should buy it, I don't listen to the CD anyways, it will just collect dust.
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Overseer is right about most of his reasons, here's my personal reasons why nobody buys albums. I believe all of these are 100% valid, I've thought about this a lot.
1. The availability of free copies of the album via the internet. Bitch, moan, lie, complain all you want, everybody and their brother downloads albums free these days instead of paying for them. If you do not believe this, look @ the trend in record sales. Country records have rising sales figures, while hip hop and rock have declining, and hip hop and rock are traditionally the only records you can get ripped for free on the internet before they come out.
I'm all about blaming the industry for starting this process because of their greed for a larger percentage of the album's money, but you also have to realize that the industry puts out many, many acts before they find one that turns a profit. So while they may be fucking somebody like 50 cent over, there's 100 kurupt or shade shiest or whatever albums they put out and lost money on.
2. Like O said, most albums have 1 or 2 cool tracks, the rest are shit. In general, most musicians don't have much talent. They may be good at a few things or be able to make a decent track every once in a while, but these guys are going in and just storming through their album and then releasing it, instead of working and working and working to get the most creative, most 'every track is brilliiant' album they possibly can. Much of this is the record company too trying to stick to a formula like O said. There are FEW ACTS that can consistantly turn out a dope song at will, maybe somebody like Prince is talented enough to go in and lay down nice track after nice track, but most of the musicians signed today in any genre just are not talented enough to consistantly make brilliant music.
The answer to all of this is for record companies to make albums cost 5 bucks. I would buy a SHITLOAD of cd's if they were 5 bucks each. TONS OF THEM, because it would be more worthwhile to have the actual cd and the book and the art and all that shit then it would be to waste my time burning cd's. They could easily do this, too...
In the 50's and 60's, new record lp's were like 49 cents. Everybody made money. No problems. They're now trying to tell us that the modern equivalent of a record lp should cost 32 times more due to inflation? CD's cost about the same to manufacture now that LP's cost to manufacture then, maybe less. I'll pay 10 times more, but not 32 times more. Come on, we're being fucked.
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most of my albums are very old, i rarely spend money on recent release. I own about 100 original cd's and a lot more of burned one. I think the sound quality is better on original cds and i like to own all the classics. But it's true that music really sucks nowadays.
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In the 50's and 60's, new record lp's were like 49 cents. Everybody made money. No problems. They're now trying to tell us that the modern equivalent of a record lp should cost 32 times more due to inflation? CD's cost about the same to manufacture now that LP's cost to manufacture then, maybe less. I'll pay 10 times more, but not 32 times more. Come on, we're being fucked.
yup and back then.. LPs werent really popular.. shit used to go 10x platinum as a single.. it was all about singles for a long ass time.
now the single is "dead".. although it seems there is a resurgence in digital singles..
WHY? because people buy the track they like online.. and stick it on there iPod or whatever and they're set..
for me personally my music HAS to be dynamic.. as i have 1) mp3 headunit in the car.. 2) mp3 player on my pc's at home and work.. and 3) mp3 player in my phone that i use at the gym. I want to swap the songs I like between them all easily. First thing I do when I buy an album is rip it to mp3. My cd's never get scratched. they get bought, and stuck up on a shelf collecting dust.. whats played is whats ripped!!
which brings me on to another point.. people used to do cd copies before mp3s became prevalent, and before that shit used to be on tape.. i have a huge box of tapes originals and dubs.. i used to lend people tapes/cds and never get that shit back.. with mp3s.. bam.. have a copy.. everyones happy.. its not like it wouldnt have happened anyways.. its just easier now!
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theyre not in stores here
Thats what I v been saying for years now :)
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bc i can download them for free in 2 minutes.
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European cats shouldn't complain... I hardly buy any cd's from Norwegian stores, I order them from American sites... new cd's never cost more than $20 including s&h... and now the dollar's weaker than ever before.
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from reading this thread..it sounds like buying album is similar to play lotto...never know exactly what you get..
may come out wack.
if people wanna burn cd..let them.....maybe because they cheapskate...
however, it can be a sign that the artists are wack.
and they to step up.
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A: The price(but they tend to low a lot these times,but still expensive in france) same goes for books...
B:people is lazy(that include me) id rather get the whole thang in 5 min & playin xbox instead of doing the queue 10 min to get my album
C:Wack albums can't get u out of ur chair...PERIOD(& when i say wack,im far of the truth)
D:Rap music is teenagers oriented whom from what i know,don't have the wallet full of bucks...this explain that....(people(teens&parents) got to deal with books,food,getting dressed well,videos games(hella expensive) etc....to many things to buy to feel urself ''inn' &up to date.
But u know it's not a bad thing what's happening ,im happy the majors have less money
If everybody gets indie like 50% of the artists,we'll get good music im pretty sure about this.
All that money that was surrounding the industry(well there is still lot of money dont get me wrong) was killing & flooding the market thats how we got dance stuff in the early 90s(remember dance stuff?) & all those 1 cent artists..
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I still buy all my albums , for three main reasons
1) I dont have a computer that is quick enough to download an album , it takes me half an hour to do one track.
2) I still enjoy the buzz of going to the shop or the cd coming in the post and me opening up and putting it in my system for the first time.
3) I actually like having a booklet and seeing who produced what and what was sampled.
I also like to support the actual artist.
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I still buy all my albums , for three main reasons
1) I dont have a computer that is quick enough to download an album , it takes me half an hour to do one track.
2) I still enjoy the buzz of going to the shop or the cd coming in the post and me opening up and putting it in my system for the first time.
3) I actually like having a booklet and seeing who produced what and what was sampled.
I also like to support the actual artist.
i do too support artists, but not the wack ones.
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I stopped buying for several reasons:
1. Music is boring nowadays. Nobody can really hold it down for a whole album anymore, with a few very rare exceptions. Most albums that I burn I only listen to 1 time, and thats it. Why waste my money on something I will only listen to once, other than a couple of songs.
2. I just in general don't support the music industry. It's hella shady, and I been a fan long enough to see enough artists get screwed over, and see artists change, and see a whole bunch of bullshit all due to music becoming 90% business nowadays.
3. I already own nearly 300 westcoast rap cd's, and I feel at this point in my life I need to spend my money wisely and invest it, and as far as economic matters go, buying music is not a good investment.
Yeah I download most westcoast albums still. But a lot I don't even get to listening to. Most only get 1 listen. I have been downloading albums for 6 years now, and I still bought all the albums I d/l for the first 4 years. But then it got to the point, that by the time the real album came out, I had already listened to it enough, that I bought the actual cd but never even listened to it, because I already got sick of it from the d/l copy.
Bottom line is, this music industry fell the fuck off. You want my money, well you better put out a damn near classic album. Out of the last 2 years, I think Ice Cube is the only one who deserves my money, I think I will buy his album. Otherwise aint' shit dropped worth buying.
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I never stopped buying albums and I never download a whole album to listen to.
What I do do is listen to snippets on CDuniverse, CDconnection etc. If I like the sound of the majority of tracks I pick it up. That way I still get the excitement of the first listen to the proper album, without the risk that I've just bought a hot mess.
I used to do that, but some albums I couldn't find in store, so I juss d/l them now, especially older albums.
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3) I actually like having a booklet and seeing who produced what and what was sampled.
Haha im terrible for that, i read liner notes all the way through - its a sad habit, but i love it ;D
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I used to love buying every new album, but after around 2002 the replay value on many sucked......enjoyed reading linear notes too but then the same old producers were doing shit....im with what grundy said but i will occasionly buy new albums such as Cubes...MAYBE just maybe DPG's but I do wish they had the alchemist joint on the LP, make it more worth my while.
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Too many people relying on excuses IMO. I'm not condemning downloading or anything like that but to stop buying stuff all together is taking it a bit far. The "fuck the industry" mindset is all well and good but it's not just hurting the rich execs and shit, it also hurts the artists as well. I think anyone who says there's only a couple of albums, if any, from the last few years worth buying is either too picky or listening to the wrong stuff. Me myself, I usually check a few tracks out beforehand and if I like em I'll buy the album, if not I won't.
I think everyone's just gotta remember that not everyone cakes big time off this like a 50 or a Jay-Z or the label bosses.
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Another thing too is people complain about songs like Candy Shop and shit that cater mostly to young girls but if too many people start d/ling everything and buying nothing how is this gonna change? Like if for instance a Reasonable Doubt, Doggystyle, Illmatic, etc was released nowadays and blew away the overly poppy type hip hop sales wise, don't you think the industry might try and jump on that and skills would matter again? I know it's wishful thinking but if enough people supported properly it could happen.
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from reading this thread..it sounds like buying album is similar to play lotto...never know exactly what you get..
may come out wack.
if people wanna burn cd..let them.....maybe because they cheapskate...
however, it can be a sign that the artists are wack.
and they to step up.
where i buy my cds i can listen to them before. The seller open it for me and i listen to it tru headphones
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1. Cost
Like someone earlier mentioned, cd's are expensive. When I was in junior high/high school, I could get a tape from the record store walking distance from my house for $6.79 and a single for $1.99. Nowadays you could pay $20 for a CD.
2. Availability
Record stores are a thing of the past. All of the local record stores in my area have vanished. The wherehouse record store in Santa Ana that had all the hard to find underground shit disappeared. The Music Market store I frequented in high school vanished 10 years ago. The other wherehouse closeby down the street closed down. The virgin megastore in triangle square closed down. There are no Tower records closeby. Nowadays I have to go to Target or Best Buy to by cd's or order them off the internet. It's not the same.
3. Downloading/burning cd's
Let's be real. Many of us have downloaded great albums without bothering to purchase them. I just recently purchased a copy of "Streetz is a mutha" after listening to a burned copy since '99. I still don't own a legit copy of Stillmatic even though it's my favorite album that's come out in the last 5 years, nor do I own a copy of "The Fix" by Scarface, another album I love. From '02 thru '04, I bought maybe 5 cd's total. I didn't start buying cd's again until late '04. This year I've bought probably a couple dozen cd's already. Yeah back in the days we dubbed tapes but let's be honest, the duplicating and burning of cd's is happening at a much larger scale than tape dubbing back in the days. I know heads who haven't bought an album in years.
4. Inferior product
The record industry is putting out inferior product. No one wants to spend $18.99 plus tax for a cd with 3 good songs on it. In the early 90's, I rarely regretted buying a tape. Also, losing $8 on a tape vs $18 on a cd is a completely different thing. Regardless, many people are just turned off by the state of music nowadays, which is keeping people out of the record stores.
5. Artists not putting out albums
Case in point, Crooked I, Sly Boogy. Who wants to spend $12 for a wack half-assed mixtape? Put out a quality albums instead of peddling bullshit mixtapes.
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3) I actually like having a booklet and seeing who produced what and what was sampled.
Haha im terrible for that, i read liner notes all the way through - its a sad habit, but i love it ;D
Me too.
I actually only buy old albums from band/artists I like. The last cds I bought were the first two Bob Dylan albums. It's exactly like Mauzip said though, I don't want to clog up my collection with stuff by artists I don't really care for or anything similar. I want my cd collection to be of the best. In this year I've only bought one recent rap album and it was Common - Be.
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because of limewire.
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because of limewire.
lol, and because of Kazaa, Morpheus, and the artist formally known as Napster.
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mIRC is where its at.
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because albums over all suck now days. usually an album has about 4-5 good songs about 12-13 filles. which is why i stick to making mix cds.
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I don't buy albums anymore because the majority of them suck and they cost to much money.
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I've bought too many albums in my life. If I don't think I'll listen to it a lot in the future (i.e. too many garbage on the album) or if it doesn't fit in my collection, I will not buy it.
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OK.. so the industry claims album sales are down, blaming it on bootlegging etc. Now i'm not gonna claim it doesn't happen etc.. but what improvements can be made to combat this? and what reasons stop you buying albums? add your own/comment on other peoples additions..
I'll kick it off with 2..
1) Selling wack albums through a strong lead single. So many times back in the day I bought albums off of a strong single which turned out to be wack. People don't want to be ripped off.. if the single is tight, they expect the album to be comparable. I wanna know the albums solid before I buy it. The internet is clueing people up on poor product.
2) Putting out different versions of albums. Example. I forgot a DVD edition of J5s Power In Numbers was coming out so I copped the normal version. Now i'm pissed off. Another variant of this is when a 'special edition' comes out a month or two after the drop to boost sales.. either with videos, bonus tracks or some other shit. Thats shitting on the early adopters in my book! how come people who buy it two months later get a better deal than the guy who bought it the day it came out? and the third similar example.. bonus tracks on foriegn version. for example.. 213.. europe got an extra track.. aint that some shit?
3) The over milking of formulas.. If a debut sells well an artist is expected to repeat ad infinitum.. I'm sick of weak sophmore efforts stifled by people being forced to follow the formula of their last album "a song like this, a song like that".. people want something new!
damn ur right, thats what im thinkin too
1. too many times recently have i heard (a downloaded) album which is just wack, or is wack after a few listens....they need to put more effort in making tight cd's, nuff said.
2. different versions just are stupid, ppl will wait for the special edition and once that comes out everyone has downloaded it already and dont buy it anymore...
3. they try to make clones of the most succesfull album, theres not much room anymore for creativity these days, everything gotta be sure to sell loads of shit, eventually that shit is gonna work against you...and thats what we see right now
plus:
i live in netherlands and theres not many stores who actually sell hiphop cd's, its just the normal mainstream 50's, Em's and the Kanye's not the more underground-like artists...
if i want the more "rare" albums i gotta buy them online in english or american stores and cuz i dont got no creditcard i cant buy that shit....simple as dat
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i just like the feeling when you buy a cd..... and i like the booklet :)...
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i just like the feeling when you buy a cd..... and i like the booklet :)...
yeh same with me.. i always read through the booklet before putting on the actual album