CD'S will be gone in 3 years Sales plummet

[Drudge]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070322121539.enwwmbqh&show_article=1


US CD sales plummet as people turn to digital music downloads 
 
Mar 22 07:15 AM US/Eastern
       
 
 




  US sales of music compact discs plummeted 20 percent in the first three months of the year as downloading of songs continued to knock the underpinnings from record studio revenues.
Eighty-nine million CDs were sold from the start of the year through March 18 as compared with 112 million CDs sold during the same period in 2006, according to figures released Wednesday by industry tracker Nielsen SoundScan.

Purchases of digitized albums online failed to make up the difference -- instead they dropped from 119 million during that time period in 2006 to 99 million during the first three months of this year, SoundScan reported.

Meanwhile, sales of individual songs in digital format on the Internet rose from 242 million tracks during those months last year to 288 million this year, according to SoundScan.

Consumers are sending a message to artists that "while you may have put a lot of thought into the sequence of the album, I only like these three songs," said digital music industry analyst Michael McGuire of Gartner Research.

"It comes back to consumers being in complete control of their media experience, and that is not going backwards," Gartner told AFP while discussing the drop in album sales and the rise in single-song track purchases.

"This is a tough business being a record label because they have to find new sources of revenue."

Overall album purchases, calculated by considering every 10 track sales the equivalent of an album, were down by 10 percent in the first quarter this year from last year when 131 million albums were sold, SoundScan figures showed.

Music industry statistics show that CD sales have declined steadily for more than five years but still account for 90 percent of album purchases.

The relentless popularity of digital music downloads on the Internet is taking the legs out from under CD sales and leaving studios with nothing to stand on if they fail to adapt to online distribution, McGuire said.

"The last couple of years the music industry didn't move fast enough and they are trying to catch up now," McGuire said. "But, the whole digital thing is a train that is picking up speed."

EMI and Warner Music, two of the world's four major studios, are quickly investing in online "search, discovery and recommendation" tools such as websites at which users share song playlists and recommendations, McGuire said.

Instead of letting CD sales erode as they warily eye online forms of distribution, studios should turn the Internet to their advantage, according to McGuire.

Online communities can be courted and members given easy paths to websites or real-world stores where music can be purchased.

"The imperative is for studios to find as many frictionless transaction paths as possible for digital content," McGuire said. "An important component is embracing discovery tools on social networks."

Protecting music from piracy is an unavoidable burden of online song distribution.

Music must also compete more than ever with computer games and online video for people's "time, eye balls and wallet share," McGuire said.

A high-profile casualty of the shift to digital distribution of music was the iconic Tower Records chain of stores started in California in 1960.

Tower records closed its real-world stores in December of 2006 and exists as an online book, music and video stop at the website www.tower.com.


One Thing I d know, and that's hiphop is going the way of the DO-DO-Bird. Ap-reports hiphop music sales have dropped 30 percent in the last 2 years. More than any music genre in the last year.
 

[Don Jacob]

One Thing I d know, and that's hiphop is going the way of the DO-DO-Bird. Ap-reports hiphop music sales have dropped 30 percent in the last 2 years. More than any music genre in the last year.
 

-remember disco?
-remember new wave?
-remember hair/glam metal?
-remember grunge?
-remember ace of bass


the culural impact of hip hop will cease to exist, but like james hetfield said , "but the memory remains?" . it'll always be in the memory of the history of music but the next wave will be this whole gnarles barkley/ gorillaz  hip hop/rock hybrid.

[J$crILLa]

fuck that

GO BUY SOME CDS yall

[Low Key]

Physical media will NEVER go away. It might be scaled back but they will always sell it. I still see NEW vinyl for sale and pretty much no one has turn tables anymore.

[Twentytwofifty]

Fine by me, I'm done CDs anyways.  I only listen to music in digital form now. 
I'm actually thinking of selling all my CDs now, don't need them.

[MontrealCity's Most]

AMking music myself i dot like this but im also guilty of downloading music. To me i use it tho as a preview so i doiont get ripped off

[Shallow]

the next wave will be this whole gnarles barkley/ gorillaz  hip hop/rock hybrid.

Think so? Maybe. I'm not sure the whole rapping aspect is really to leave completely just yet. Maybe a more sing song or scream rap over harder instrumentals. Usually after such a commercial phase of music like what Hip Hop has been, the new kids want something that makes fun of the commercialism. Not so much literally in song but in its style. Now whether that'd be a sub culture like the 80s punk revival or a dominant force like grunge we'll have to wait and see.

I'm calling this now though; a boy band will emerge and sell huge records using hip hop drums and maybe fast, but soft, distortioned guitars.

[d-nice]

fuck that

GO BUY SOME CDS yall

[Digital Pimpin']

Can't beat the sound of a new CD bumping through your speakers - unless you get your digital media at 320kbps, but I digress.

[MIAMI4LIFE]

downloading I think will overtake the sales of CD's in a few years but they will still be sold ,they are too valuable, look at Vinyl still around after all this time

[Al Bundy]

Fine by me, I'm done CDs anyways.  I only listen to music in digital form now. 
I'm actually thinking of selling all my CDs now, don't need them.

where do you buy your music? because most digital forms of music are DRMed to hell and in 128kbps. i'd rather buy a cd for 10 bucks with every song in CDQ.

[Tanjential]

One Thing I d know, and that's hiphop is going the way of the DO-DO-Bird. Ap-reports hiphop music sales have dropped 30 percent in the last 2 years. More than any music genre in the last year.
 

-remember disco?
-remember new wave?
-remember hair/glam metal?
-remember grunge?
-remember ace of bass


the culural impact of hip hop will cease to exist, but like james hetfield said , "but the memory remains?" . it'll always be in the memory of the history of music but the next wave will be this whole gnarles barkley/ gorillaz  hip hop/rock hybrid.

none of these genres were 20 year plus phenomenons.

rock sales took a dive around rap's ascent. it still exists like a muhh.

-T

[Larrabee]

I've never been a fan of iPods or that digital shit, I'm always gonna purchase 85-90% of my music in CD form.

I doubt that CD's will cease to exist though. Maybe labels won't distribute as much, as far as shipping them out to stores, but they will always be around. Like dudes said earlier...vinyl is still in existence, so are CD singles.

[Tanjential]

would be sick if corporations left the CD business and the only people still making CDs are indie companies.

-T

[Shallow]

One Thing I d know, and that's hiphop is going the way of the DO-DO-Bird. Ap-reports hiphop music sales have dropped 30 percent in the last 2 years. More than any music genre in the last year.
 

-remember disco?
-remember new wave?
-remember hair/glam metal?
-remember grunge?
-remember ace of bass


the culural impact of hip hop will cease to exist, but like james hetfield said , "but the memory remains?" . it'll always be in the memory of the history of music but the next wave will be this whole gnarles barkley/ gorillaz  hip hop/rock hybrid.

none of these genres were 20 year plus phenomenons.

rock sales took a dive around rap's ascent. it still exists like a muhh.

-T

Disco is simply didtial dance music and it's still around in other forms. New Wave is just rock and roll with a digital feel and that never really left. Is She Really Foing Out With Him isn't too different than something No Doubt would realease. Metal was born in '69 or '70, it went though changes and hit it huge in the 80s with a bit of fluff but it was there and it died in 90/91 as a major  force but stuck a round in the background. Grunge was an offbreed of both punk and metal depending on which band you think about. Nirvana was more punk and Soundgarden was more metal. And Ace of Bass is an eternal force the likes of which that will outlast everything wlse in our current culture.

Anyway, these genres had a lot longer life than it seems.