Re: [ARSCLIST] the long-predicted tipping point

[Roger and Allison Kulp <thorenstd124@xxxxxxxxx>]

OK,it's not like anybody with a couple of brain cells to rub together couldn't see this hasn't been coming for the past ten years or so.Big media corporations are notorious for not keeping up with the times,and in many ways,they are still back in the 1980s.I still buy a lot of vinyl,although I will admit,it's been about a decade since I set foot in a retail store.The counterpart to selling downloads for vinyl is to press a couple of thousand copies,and selling them exclusively online.This has been going on for years.

I assume that by vinyl,here,they mean selling new pressings of the same old warhorses, like  Blue Note jazz from the 50s.and 60s.Yawn.Somebody with a little imagination ought to start putting out high quality vinyl of unissued radio broadcasts of jazz,classical,and rock,that have already come out on CD,as well as titles like "Fresh Blueberry Pancake" 

http://ezhevika.blogspot.com/2006/03/fresh-blueberry-pancake-heavy-1970-us.html

that were insanely small private pressings when issued.As for classical,this:

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=106484
http://public-domain-archive.com/classic/download.php?lang=eng&album_no=170
is a fine example of what I am talking about.This positively SCREAMS OUT for an audiophile vinyl release.

If Testament http://www.testament.co.uk/shop/catalog/lp.aspx ; thinks they can sell enough of those Keilberth and Knappertsbusch Wagner sets at £59.94
                                                
                                                to £119.99 each,there is a market.Licensing couyld probably be handled through the labels that put the CDs out.

Something to think about.

                                                    Roger

                                
                                
                                    
                                        
                                            
                                                
                                                    
                                                




--- On Wed, 11/26/08, Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [ARSCLIST] the long-predicted tipping point
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 4:07 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/media/26music.html

There was also an article in the Wall Street Journal this week about how the
hit-dependent major labels are in a bad bind because a bunch of high-profile
artists won't be delivering their albums in time for holiday sales. Most
interesting, according to that article, the top-3 music retailers are now, in
order:  iTunes, Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Given that Wal-Mart and Best Buy have
both reduced floor-space for CD's, the only places left to find reasonable
variety are big online merchants like Amazon or, if you will settle for lower
audio quality, iTunes. The WSJ article also mentioned this new trend of major
artists both self-releasing and also doing exclusive intro-time deals with one
retailer (for instance Wal-Mart for the Eagles and Best Buy for Guns n Roses).
This puts further pressure on the (very) few independent and regional-chain
music stores still in business.

However, not all is glum, for now. For the classical fan, ArkivMusic has
thousands of CD titles back in print via their ArkivCD on-demand CDR program.
And for the jazz fan, some old chestnuts that were not remastered to the highest
quality as CD's are back out in well-mastered black vinyl as part of the LP
niche-revival. For any genre, some to much of what was in print in the phat
years of the mid-90's is out of print now (what percentage is out of print
depends on the genre), but there is still a decent variety choice if you're
willing to deal with an online retailer (a place like Wal-Mart or Best Buy would
probably admit, if you found a semi-honest spokesperson, that they are not about
deep variety but rather are about moving the chosen hit-hopefuls quickly via
high-traffic displays).

The bottom line, however, is that the printed/published/retail-channel CD is
slowly heading to the dustbin. I would say the download alternative, at least
the most popular versions (iTunes, Amazon, Real, Yahoo, etc) are an inferior
replacement due to lossy encoding and lack of graphics/lyrics/discographical
information in many cases -- yes, there are a couple of niche players now
offering CD resolution and better, but they are for now small-time with limited
variety and few mainstream titles. Perhaps once the industry gets its head
around the idea of not being the physical-printed-matter business (and fully
exploits the biggest advantage of download selling --  variety so buyers have
the maximum number of one-cut choices to cherry-pick -- thus having much less of
the back-catalog out of print becomes an economic imperative, but cheaper to
accomplish since there's no need to produce and manage physical inventory of
CD's), download quality and download economics will improve.

-- Tom Fine