Many an independent music retailer has put forth the following argument in defense of CDs. For one, the physical existence of a CD means it's not privy to such nuisances as a faulty hard drive. Second, the CD will surely last longer than any potential format changes in the digital world, say a company deciding to change or no longer support the copy protection it embeds in a file.
This morning, Boing Boing got hold of an e-mail from Wal-Mart that said the company was no longer going to support files with digital rights management (DRM), meaning any DRM-encoded files purchased from the Wal-Mart digital store would no longer be supported by the company. According to the e-mail obtained by Boing Boing, Wal-Mart states that it had been offering DRM-free music since February of this year. Any recent purchases are thereby safe (David Cook fans just let out a sigh of relief).
But from August of 2008 to early this year, Wal-Mart's files came with DRM-encoding to limit copying. Those files will need to be backed up -- burned onto a CD --to ensure that that they will continue to be playable after Oct. 9, when Wal-Mart will no longer support its DRM software. After that date, music and videos will only work on the original authorized computer, but should you reinstall your operating system or should the computer crash, the files will be worthless.
Quotes Boing Boing of the Wal-Mart release:
If you have purchased protected WMA music files from our site prior to Feb 2008, we strongly recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you will be able to access them from any personal computer. This change does not impact songs or albums purchased after Feb 2008, as those are DRM-free.
Beginning October 9, we will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com. If you do not back up your files before this date, you will no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash. Your music and video collections will still play on the originally authorized computer.
Quick thought: Moving to DRM-free MP3 files is a good thing, all for the very reasons outlined in this post. Music files encoded with DRM is subject to the whims of the company selling the music, or the music industry itself, and that's not fair to the consumer.
However, if a company offered DRM-encoded music in the first place, it should continue to provide support for the files, at least for a longer period than the two-week notice Wal-Mart is giving. Rather than put the onus on the consumer to burn all his Wal-Mart-purchased music to a CD, I would argue the corporation should in good faith replace the DRM music with good ol' fashioned MP3 files.
Here's a bargain: Paul Westerberg this weekend released an one-track, 44-minute song via Amazon.com, distributing it to the online seller with the help of TuneCore.
The cut, really one 44-minute album, is available for 49 cents. It's essentially one long, scruffy, low-fi melding of a dozen-plus Westerberg songs.
A tracklist on PaulWesterberg.net puts it at 22 songs. I haven't owned it long enough to critique it, but Westerberg fans will be pleased, and it's certainly as tunefully scrappy as his full-priced albums for Vagrant Records in 2003 and 2004.
Billboard.com posted some details on the album, with quotes from Westerberg's manager Darren Hill. Apparently, the album was just finished last week. Said Hill to Billboard's Jonathan Cohen: "He finished it on Monday, sent it to me on Tuesday and it was out this weekend."
But 49 cents? That's a bit removed from the iTunes standard of $9.99, and at first, it might seem to mark a new low for the cost of an album. But credit TuneCore for making something such as this possible.
With Westerberg selling this as one track, it's only costing Westerberg a whopping $9.99 to sell it online, according to TuneCore's figures. That's simply a $9.99 flat yearly fee. (The single/album is also available via TuneCore.) Without taking into account any fees that would go to Amazon.com, only about 22 people would need to purchase the album to make back the $11 distribution fee.
Update: Originally, I had the distribution fee at $10.98, but a TuneCore rep got in touch, and noted that there are no additional charges for distributing a single. For albums, TuneCore charges an additional .99 cents per track per store.
Are the ever-increasing gas prices taking a toll on the touring market? A number of top-level touring biz execs seem to think so, as quoted by Rolling Stone in this news item from the magazine's current issue.
After noting that sales for tours from such top-tier artists as Bruce Springsteen and Nine Inch Nails appear to be slow in some markets, Steve Knopper's story quotes Alex Hodges, chief operating officer for Nederlander Concerts in Los Angeles, as saying about gas prices: "It has an effect when people are filling up their cars for $80 ... How many concerts are they going to go to with all the other costs?"
Of course. 'Cause the problem may not actually lie, you know, within the music business.
But there's more.
Noticing that name events like Coachella and Bonnaroo have sold out, Rolling Stone later quotes AEG live president Randy Phillips as saying: "My concern is going forward. I hear oil is predicted to reach $200 a barrel on the open market — if that keeps ratcheting up, I'm not sure what the impact is going to be."
Mired in what will soon be an eight-year downturn, the music business has not only struggled to sell CDs, but has failed to find a consistent price point for new albums. Amazon.com is bringing the cost of an album to new lows, having publicized Tuesday its sale price of $1.99 for a piece of Coldplay's catalog.
Throughout the week, the digital retailer will offer each of Coldplay's prior albums at the $1.99 price point for one day as part of its "daily deals" program. While this writer thinks it's high time that music retailers began heavily discounting the cost of MP3 albums, Apple's iTunes store has set the $9.99 standard, despite the desires of major labels for variable pricing. (Regardless of sound quality and distribution costs, it's an inferior product to a CD, as the consumer must back up the files.)
Time will tell whether the Amazon.com promotions help the retailer chip away at iTunes' market share for digital downloads. Nevertheless, the move represents a bold new price point for the cost of an album, which has been in a state of gradual decline, both digitally and physically.
Less than 10 years ago, it was common for albums to cost $15 and above. Apple helped redefine what the price of an album could be in the minds of consumers, but Steve Jobs' company is far from the only reason that albums are costing less and less.
Let's look at a brief history at the recent decline in the value of the album:
2000: The effect of Napster and the rise of file-sharing on the music business is probably a bit overblown. If one wants to trace the recent woes of the music business to a starting point, 2000 is arguably as good as place as any. It was in 2000 that the Federal Trade Commission declared that consumers had paid about $480 million more than they should have for CDs over the previous three years.
The cause, according to the FTC, was minimum-advertised-pricing, or MAP, policies, which the major labels had adopted to put an end to heavy discounts at music retailers. With MAP in place, retailers that sold CDs below a certain cost, say $12.99, would not receive cooperative advertising funds from record labels (the practice of reimbursing a retailer for advertising costs, such as featuring an album in a Sunday advertisement distributed in newspapers).
With the FTC breathing down its neck, and consumers rightfully fed up at continually seeing $16.98 CDs, the major record labels acquiesced to the FTC, and abolished MAP. A large retailer could now receive funds for advertising a new Madonna album, and then use said Madonna album as a loss-leader, altering what a new album should cost in the minds of the consumer.
2002: Before iTunes even exists, Best Buy warrants a news mention in Billboard for selling the Dixie Chicks' "Home" for $9.99 ... for one full week.
2003: Apple launches the iTunes store, which sets the cost of digital downloads at 99 cents and full albums at $9.99, price points the major labels agreed upon. With Apple refusing to budge from the $9.99 standard, the amount became a fixture for what a new album should cost -- or at least not cost more than.
Additionally, during the 2003 holiday season, Billboard reports that Best Buy sells a handful of new CDs for $7.99.
And finally, the world's latest distributor of music, Universal Music Group, introduces a sales-reduction program it dubs "JumpStart," which lowers the wholesale cost of a CD to about $10 in exchange for guaranteed store space/marketing opportunities.
2004: The $8.99 price point for new, on-sale albums starts to take hold at retail. Billboard's retail expert Ed Christman reports that Target begins selling U2's new effort, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (released in November 2004) at $8.99.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. During 2004's holiday season, mass merchants such as Target sold Nirvana's box set, "With the Lights Out," for $27.98, more than $10 below the wholesale cost. The set, according to Billboard, came with a $59.98 list.
2006: Heavy loss-leading at mass merchants would no longer just affect major releases on the level of a Justin Timberlake.
In early 2006, Best Buy raises the ire of independent retail community when it places about 20 titles, including releases from the Arcade Fire, Antony & the Johnsons, Broken Social Scene and Atmosphere on sale for $7.99, $2 below cost. The promotion became news when Patrick Monaghan, who runs small label/distributor Carrot Top Records in Chicago, wrote a letter to the participating labels and discussed the sale online.
In one sense, the promotion recognized the growing mainstream importance of the independent sector. But by selling the albums at $7.99, the major retailers reinforced the belief that CDs were overpriced. Independent retailers who couldn't afford to take a $2 loss per CD were hit the hardest by such deals, and the success that stores such as Best Buy have had at moving into the independent sector have certainly done more to destroy the mom-and-pop outlets than any amount of file-sharing.
October 2007:Radiohead releases its latest album, "In Rainbows," online, telling fans they can pay what they want, or pay nothing at all.
February: Online retailer Amie Streetsecures top-shelf indie artists such as Cat Power and the New Pornographers for download. Albums cost nothing to start, and increase based on fan demand. Not yet having secured a copy, I legally download the National's "Boxer" for free.
March: Nine Inch Nails follows Radiohead with a tiered pricing structure, allowing fans to download its new album, "Ghosts I-IV," for as low as $5, or as much as $300. A few months later, NIN releases new album, "The Slip," to the Web for free.
Also in March, Billboard breaks the news of Wal-Mart's plans to introduce a new tiered pricing plan for CDs, which would see catalog titles selling for as low as $5.
June:Amazon.com says it's selling Coldplay's past albums for $1.99 for a limited time, and has already discounted Madonna's recent "Hard Candy" to $3.99.
"Hard Candy" is expected to debut at No. 1 next week, and should supply continued good news for the music biz this April. But while Mariah Carey just scored the biggest first-week sales total of the year -- with her "E=MC2" selling 463,000 copies last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- the RIAA's 2007 year-end stats arrive to remind us all just what an aberration that was. Overall CD shipments in the U.S. dipped 17.5%, after a 12.1% decline from 2005 to 2006.
There was, however, some good news. Vinyl shipments were up 36%, rebounding from a 7% dip from 2005 to 2006. Distribution of digital albums was up 54%, and digital music videos also saw a huge jump, climbing 43%. Subscription services, however, don't seem to be taking with consumers, as they were up just a tiny 7%.
Overall, though, digital sales accounted for 23% of the industry's revenue, compared to just 9% in 2005. Mobile sales, which includes ringtones, downloads and ringbacks, among other new media tchotchkes , experienced a 14% increase.
The strength of the mobile market, in fact, is illustrated this week by none other than Madonna herself. She'll be broadcasting four songs live via Verizon from her New York club gig Wednesday evening. Billboard notes this is the first live mobile simulcast. But those who miss it -- or have to take a call once Madonna takes the stage -- can access the content for up to 30 days.
A much-hyped return to a more straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll sound gives veteran rockers R.E.M. its best debut week in more than a decade, and country superstar George Strait nails his fourth chart-topper with “Troubadour.”
Strait’s “Troubadour” sold 166,000 copies in its first week to top the U.S. pop chart, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Strait’s 2006 effort “It Just Comes Natural” led the tally with 232,000 copies when it debuted.
While not immune to the industry’s overall decline in CD sales, Strait has been as consistent as they come. He has now topped Billboard’s country chart 22 times.
R.E.M., meanwhile, sold 115,000 copies of its “Accelerate,” giving the band a No. 2 debut. With that number, that band accomplished a rare feat in today’s music climate – actually besting the first-week sales of its prior effort.
In 2004, R.E.M.’s “Around the Sun” sold a tepid 61,000 copies when it arrived. The act last debuted at No. 2 way back in 1996 with “New Adventures in Hi-Fi,” which sold 227,000 copies when it landed on the chart.
Further down, bluesy rock duo the Black Keys experiences its best sales week of its career. The act’s “Attack & Release,” produced by Gnarls Barkley’s Danger Mouse, entered at No. 14 after selling 29,000 copies. Previously, the act had never sold more than 11,000 copies in one week, which was the first-week total for 2006’s “Magic Potion.”
Other notable newcomers this week include rapper Trina, whose “Still Da Baddest” enters at No. 6 with 47,000 copies, and Van Morrison’s “Keep It Simple,” which bows at No.10 with 37,000 copies.
Music purists probably wouldn't equate Mariah Carey with legendary acts such as Elvis and the Beatles, but when it comes to chart-topping records, she's now outstripped the King -- and she's on pace to take down the Fab Four.
Carey's latest single, "Touch My Body," made music history this week as she surpassed Elvis Presley as the solo artist with the most No. 1 singles in the modern pop era.
The cut is her 18th No. 1 song and the first single from her "E=MC2" album, due April 15.
Carey bests a tally Presley has held for 40 years. He last topped the singles chart with "Suspicious Minds" in 1969.
Carey's 2005 comeback, "The Emancipation of Mimi," spawned two No. 1 hits, "We Belong Together" and "Don't Forget About Us." Should the new album meet with the same degree of success, she could tie or even best the Beatles' 20 No. 1 singles, a record for any pop group.
Billboard's associate director of charts, Silvio Pietroluongo, noted that "Touch My Body" would have hit No. 1 sooner if it had been made available digitally at an earlier date. Finally released online last week, "Touch My Body" had been the only single in the top 75 of Billboard's Hot 100 that was not available at digital retailers.
“Touch My Body” sold 286,000 downloads in its debut week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, breaking the 277,000 record set last year by Rihanna's "Umbrella." “Touch My Body” rocketed to No. 1, up from No.15 last week.
Despite the impressive digital number, Pietroluongo stresses that Carey's milestone has nothing to do with the state of the industry in 2008. Sales of digital singles may be soaring and album sales in 2008 are trailing those of 2007 by about 15%, but most of Carey's single successes came in the 1990s, when radio weighed more heavily on the Billboard Hot 100.
"This has more to do with longevity and popularity than anything else," Pietroluongo said. "She's only had four No. 1 singles this decade, so it can't be portrayed as anything to do with the state of the music industry. Mariah has been popular for about 20 years."
Presley scored the majority of his No. 1 singles in an era when the chart was based almost entirely on sales, Pietroluongo said.
But Carey isn't the only diva to start challenging the King this week. Madonna, returning with her "Hard Candy" on April 29, has overtaken Presley as the artist with the most Top 10 singles in the modern pop era. Her "4 Minutes," featuring Justin Timberlake, gives the artist her 37th Top 10 hit.
Madonna's "4 Minutes" also experienced a boost from digital sales, having sold 217,000 copies in its first week of wide release at digital retailers (prior to last week, the cut had been available only through Verizon). The sales pushed "4 Minutes" to No. 3, up from No. 68.
And late last year, rapper Jay-Z tied another Presley record. His "American Gangster" was his 10th No. 1 album when it was released in November. Again, only the Beatles have had more chart-topping albums, with 19.
There's some non-diva news on the charts. Reality TV proves again to be a healthy supplier of chart-toppers, as Day26 from MTV's "Making the Band 4" debuts at No. 1.
The act's self-titled debut sold 190,000 copies in its first week, displacing another "Making the Band"-built artist, Danity Kane, who led the chart last week. Danity Kane falls to No. 4 this week.
Meanwhile, rock act Panic at the Disco lands at No. 2, as its "Pretty. Odd." opens with 139,000 copies. It's the best sales week for the Fall Out Boy pals, who saw their debut, "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out," top out at No. 13.
Alt-rock survivors Counting Crows enter at No. 3 with a fifth studio album, "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings," which sold 106,000 copies. It's the band's highest-charting album since "Recovering the Satellites" bowed at No. 1 in 1996.
Jack White side-project the Raconteurs lands at No. 7 with "Consolers of the Lonely." The album's release had been announced only one week in advance, but it still sold 42,000 copies. Also, the first new album in more than 15 years from the B-52's, "Funplex," enters at No. 11 with 30,000 copies.
Reality show-bred girl groupDanity Kane lands atop this week's U.S.
pop chart, and gives the graduates of MTV's "Making the Band" its
second No. 1 album. Meanwhile, rap newcomer Flo Rida finds that even a
pair of hot-selling singles doesn't guarantee a six-figure entry.
Danity Kane's "Welcome to the Dollhouse" bows atop the chart, selling
236,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's on par with the
234,000 first-week figure for the act's 2006 debut, which went on to
sell about 922,000 copies.
Entering at a distant No. 4 is Flo Rida, whose "Mail on Sunday" follows
his Top-30 singles "Low," featuring T-Pain, and "Elevator," featuring
Timbaland. "Mail on Sunday" sold 86,000 copies, but the release feels a
bit anti-climactic after the digital sales posted by his singles.
"Low," for instance, has sold 3.4 million digital downloads to date,
which, according to Billboard, makes it the top-selling digital track
of all time. "Elevator" is no slouch, either, having sold 373,000
digital downloads.
Gnarls Barkley's rush-released "The Odd Couple" arrives at No. 18. It
sold 31,000 copies after being released to digital retailers on March
18. The CD had originally been pegged for an April 8 release, but was
bumped up after leaking online.
Of the 31,000 copies sold, 26,000 were
from digital retailers. No surprise, as physical retailers began
selling the album as it arrived throughout the week.
Grammy watch: Gnarls Barkley's debut, "St. Elsewhere," scored an album of the year nod, but its success was driven largely by the runaway hit "Crazy." Thus far, "Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)," the first single off of "The Odd Couple," hasn't taken hold, despite "The Odd Couple" being a fascinatingly weird listen. Reviews on "The Odd Couple" have been positive, but if the album doesn't spawn a breakaway single, it'll be curious if Recording Academy voters are just as kind to the electro-soul duo a second time around. For what it's worth, they should be, as it's an album worthy of being added to the below list.
2009 Grammy album of the year contenders:
Gnarls Barkley, "The Odd Couple" Radiohead, "In Rainbows" Lupe Fiasco,"The Cool" Sheryl Crow,"Detours" Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, "Raising Sand" Mary J. Blige, "Growing Pains"
Picture: Danity Kane, by Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times
In a week when two major pop acts are challenging the relevancy of first-week sales numbers, rapper Rick Ross topped the U.S. album chart with his latest, "Trilla." The album enters at No. 1 after selling 198,000 copies.
Yet changes are ahead for the weekly sales tally.
On Monday,the Raconteurs, which features the White Stripes' Jack White, announced that its latest, "Consolers of the Lonely," will be released March 25, writing in a statement that the group does not want the album "defined by its first week's sales." "Consolers of the Lonely" had been pegged for late April release.
Then genre-hopping pop act Gnarls Barkley rushed its latest, "The Odd Couple," to digital retailers on Tuesday, two weeks early, and has been shipping the album to physical stores throughout the week. Manager Jeff Antebi of Waxploitation said the concept of promoting an album for a big first-week sales number was no longer relevant.
"It's a big deal in the context of the old guard -- where you land on the Billboard Top 200," Antebi said. "To a lot of people, that's the goal. . . . I think it's an outdated, completely impractical, strategic mind-set. It is just as outdated as releasing a single three months early."
After the industry has seen straight-to-Web releases from Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead, Antebi said record companies will soon be releasing albums, then promoting them after the fact, adjusting the marketing plan based on what is or isn't working. As an example, Antebi said the top-downloaded Gnarls Barkley song on iTunes was "Going On," and not the singles "Run (I'm a Natural Disaster)" or "Who's Gonna Save My Soul."
"You should service press and service radio after you have serviced retail," Antebi said.
"Odd Couple" will show up on next week's chart, and Antebi said the success of the album would be better evaluated in a year, not a week.
As for the rest of this week's tally, the 27th volume of the "Now! That's What I Call Music" compilation series enters at No. 2 with 169,000 copies, and Snoop Dogg's "Ego Trippin' " lands at No. 3 with 137,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Rapper Fat Joe debuts at No. 6 with "Elephant in the Room" (46,000 copies), and Miley Cyrus is back in the Top 10, at No. 10, with her live album, "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: The Best Of Both Worlds Concert" (34,000 copies).
Photo: Gharls Barkley in Los Angeles, 2006. Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times
Grammy-nominated act the Raconteurs are forgoing the traditional four-month lead time for a new album and will release its sophomore set, "Consolers Of The Lonely," in one week. The album will be available in a variety of formats and at a number retailers, including digital outlets, mom-and-pop shops and "corporate superstores," according to a statement from the act's publicity firm, Presshere.
Additionally, the Raconteurs, featuring Jack White of the White Stripes, singer/songwriter Brendan Benson and members of the Greenhornes, will not include any bonus tracks tied to a specific format or retailer. The latter has been an unfortunate trend in the music biz of late, sending fans on a virtual scavenger hunt to track down all the random tracks assigned to various retailers.
The move follows such straight-to-the-Web releases by Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, but neither offered as quick of a turnaround to traditional retailers as the Raconteurs are promising. Record labels have traditionally asked for three or four month lead time to get in album into stores, plotting radio singles, interviews and retail campaigns. The band's statement notes that "some places couldn’t move this fast," and will not have the album available on March 25, although such stores are not singled out.
Wrote the band in a statement, "The Raconteurs are forgoing the usual months of lead time for press and
radio set up, as well as forgoing the all important 'first week
sales.' We wanted to explore the idea of releasing an album everywhere
at once and then marketing and promoting it thereafter. The Raconteurs
would rather this release not be defined by it’s first weeks sales,
pre-release promotion, or by someone defining it for you before you get
to hear it."
Insta-reaction: It's about time that a major record label, in this case Warner Bros., and a successful act not only did away with old industry standards, but roped in traditional outlets (record stores) as well. With music inevitable leaking to the Internet, the concept of a multi-month set-up for a new album is quickly becoming irrelevant, if it isn't already. While the Raconteurs are doing away with the concept of releasing an advance single designed to build hype, such a move meant more when radio was king, and it isn't anymore. Like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, the Raconteurs are turning their album release into a news story, and creating excitement about an album, rather than having each single dissected as it makes its way online.
The cut, really one 44-minute album, is available for 49 cents. It's essentially one long, scruffy, low-fi melding of a dozen-plus Westerberg songs. 
