Offmessage

This is fascinating. Apparently “average teenager’s iPod has 842 illegal music tracks“. Nice headline. In the detail, however, comes the fact that on average that iPod has 1770 tracks, meaning that only 48% of the tracks are “illegal”. In the under 18 age group this figure grows to 61%.

When I left home (1990) I took roughly 50 prerecorded purchased albums on cassette with me. In those days there were approximately 10 tracks to an album; none of these 16 track monsters you get today. That means I had roughly 500 legal tracks on cassette. At the same time I had about 100 7″ and 12″ singles, many of which were repeats of album tracks, adding roughly another 200 tracks.

Alongside my “legal” music I had 40 TDK D90 cassettes (I know this because I was sad enough to number them). These had on average 20 tracks each. That’s 800 “illegal” tracks.

So, age 18, I had roughly 1,500 tracks, of which 53% where “illegal”.

This is remarkably close to the current figures. What’s more interesting to me is that I was properly obsessive about music at that age. But, I had less than the current average total number, and less than the current average “legal” number.

So let’s get this straight. Today’s average music consumer has more legal tracks than an obsessive music collector of 20 years ago.

“…this totally dwarfs that, and anything we expected”

Fergal - bite me.

No, not my current facebook status message, but the latest invention from our German friends (and the saviour of Charlie Simpson…  You know, him out of Busted).  One side is a 3 minute vinyl single, the other a full CD album. Or, as RetroThing puts it, “Two obsolete audio formats in one“

The music industry just got another step crazier…

In Florida, Utah, and soon in Rhode Island and Wisconsin, selling your used CDs to the local record joint will be more scrutinized than then getting a driver’s license in those states.

I can’t quite understand this. As any serious music fan knows often the only way to get hold of particular tracks is through the second hand market. The day that we can legitimately purchase new any or all tracks that we want from an obscure artists back catalogue is a long long way off, and seriously may never happen. By making it harder and harder to purchase second hand records they are killing the collector (or anorak, depending on your view…).

It was completists that pumped the UK single charts for years in the eighties, and it was those same completists that rebought their entire collection on CD, and then on heavy weight vinyl, and then 20th, 25th, 30th anniversary editions. Take the joy out of seeking out the rare and unusual and you knock the top off an already struggling market.

Of course, they already know this, but are just too damn scared to grasp the change they need. Like Doug said, it is only those in trouble that truly innovate. Give it a year or two and they’ll sort themselves out (one hopes).

Are JPEGs the new album covers?.

From the WSJ:

• US CD sales for the first three months of this year plunged 20% from a year earlier,
• The sharp slide in sales of CDs has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads,
• About 800 US music stores closed in 2006 alone,
• This year has already seen the two lowest-selling US No. 1 albums since current sales recording processes were set up in 1991,
• oh, and Apple have sold over 100million iPods

I wouldn’t want to be a music exec in 2007. It ain’t gonna be pretty.

In the history of unnecessary live albums foisted on the public it’s rare that the record company actually listens to the band when they ask for it to be withdrawn… This time Sony has - Deep Purple’s Live 1993 is withdrawn after Gillan asks fans not to buy it.

10 albums in 10 minutes, including Magical Mystery Tour, Nevermind and SMiLE.

Best selling album of the year fails to ship 4 million copies. Not a great surprise, but it is a rapid and consistent decline. Am I the only one that thinks that downloads don’t replace the physical product?