As a music lover and former Nashvillian, I try to keep up to date with the local music scene by way of Grimey's, the all-purpose music store / venue / party pad that features a weekly newsletter. In this week's edition, the master of ceremonies (Doyle) wrote an interesting blurb about the joys of physical music products in an increasingly digital market. I'm more concerned with what's hitting my ears than my eyes, but I can appreciate those who want a physical product, particularly when it's vinyl or if the artist is working through alternate mediums. What do you think? Read on...
"We love music, probably more than is healthy some might say. That’s why we’re here doing what we do all day long everyday. And we like to OWN something. A physical package with cool artwork and liner notes that add context to the experience helps forge a bond between a listener and his new favorite album. I might add that it’s often a life-long bond and vinyl forges the strongest bond of all. The new-fangled digital gizmos sure are handy and I love my iPod. I can see why no one would want to carry a discman and cart CDs around when you can take 5,000 songs with you everywhere in one tidy device. But is that worth chucking the whole idea of a physical format? Will no music-loving kid in the future ever hunt down that colored-vinyl 7-inch by their favorite band? Will they even get a chance to?
I keep reading about the demise of the CD and how bad sales are down in the industry. Well, yeah. Sales are down in the corporate pop world, but ask Sub Pop or Merge how they’re doing these days with The Shins and Arcade Fire (they’re doing better than ever). Ask us or many other indie stores how we’re doing. We’re up significantly over last year and last year was our best year yet. As multi-platinum-selling acts continue to evaporate, CDs will be of significantly less interest to big box retailers like Best Buy and Walmart and you may see them drop the product line completely. And then the major labels will really be in a bind. Digital sales haven’t come close to replacing the lost revenue from physical goods and Best Buy deciding not to carry CDs would surely speed up the decline. And we’ll still be here selling CDs, vinyl and music DVDs even if they are primarily on indie labels. Our customers are more than just consumers. They’re music fanatics just like us and they get that a CD sounds literally 10 times better than an MP3 and vinyl sounds even better. And a CD is a DRM-free music file and you can put it on your iPod or any other digital device you like. And many new LPs come with a free digital download of the album in the package (the new Wilco double LP even gives you a free CD copy!)
The new Dizzee Rascal album is a digital-only release in the US. What’s up with that?? Yes, we’ll be stocking the UK import for real music fans to buy. I can guarantee one thing for sure – if a record label or artist decides to release music only in the digital realm, they are losing sales. And they’re losing sales in the more profitable physical world. Every time some digital-only or iTunes exclusive release comes out, especially for an indie-centric artist, we get folks here in the record store asking to buy it. And when we tell them it’s only available as a download, they are unanimously disappointed. After too many years of ignoring the digital world, I’m now afraid that the majors are embracing it too fully. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Make everything available in as many formats as you possibly can. Give the customer the choice and let them decide how they want to consume their music. Go ahead and grow your digital businesses but keep making CDs (and vinyl, please!) at least for stores like ours who know how to sell them. Don’t you know it’s a long tail world?
Rant over. We’re so excited about some upcoming releases that we’ve gone ahead and scheduled 2 more midnight sales. And we’re about to rock out with Ghostfinger in the store in mere moments. Our community-based emporium of musical goodness is strong. That’s the state of our union."