Relevant Tidbit
The RIAA—remember, they are the recording industry organization that was suing grandmothers when their grandkids downloaded Britney Spears’ songs on home computers—has triumphantly announced that illegal file sharing in America has been “contained.” This is great news for the music industry; now if only they could figure out why album sales are still declining. Obviously it has nothing to do with the variety of mainstream music.Or quality thereof...
It looks like digital sales are up 77%, seems to me they could have achieved the same result without all the scare tactics and hoopla. I think this is due more to the advent of the IPOD and ITUNES as opposed to the efforts of the RIAA. If you provide a logical, practical and legal alternative to file sharing, people will gravitate towards it. Not that you're going to stamp out file sharing altogether, because you won't, but people want digital alternatives for music and when it's not provided by the antiquated RIAA they'll get it elsewhere.
I'm psyched for the emergence of the IPOD and ITUNES. New technology is good for the music industry and for the music fan, but as the RIAA has demonstrated quite unobtrusively, change is never easy.
posted by fuel52 at 1:08 PM
1 Comments:
Perfect example: I was going to buy a Stevie Ray Vaughn albumin, but I couldn't find one with the particular songs I wanted: Texas Flood, Taxman and Sky is Crying. I could get these three songs by buying any combination of two albums, but to the tune of like $27, it just wasn't worth it.
I borrowed Sky is Crying from Lee, so rather than SRV making 1 sale, because his estate doesn't put all of his greatest hits on his Greatest Hits Album...they sold zero.
Other than that, I haven't even attempted to buy an albumin in a while. Music today mostly doesn't interest me. Perhaps its because I don't branch out enough and follow enough non-mainstream bands, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to do such. I don't have a burning desire for the "lastest and greatest", and I'm quite satisfied with the music I already know. It seems like whenever I'm introduced to some thing I like it's old, and they are already broken up/dead.
Maybe I'm being narrow minded about it all. There's definitely a time and place for things...take the Smashing Pumpkins, for instance. Siamese Dream was a great albumin. Their follow up was a collection of B-sides called Pisces Iscariot. Just knowing that, caused me to let it "B" on the shelf. Mellon Collie, etc. was also a good albumin (most selling double albumin of all time, at least at that time), but I thought personally that they had slipped a little from Siamese Dream, and the newer balder Billy Corgan did little for me. The lyrics of Zero (although maybe light and uplifting to some) really turned me off to the newer darker pumpkins. Typically darker pumpkins are going bad, and should be thrown out. The next two albumins were off the radar for me, as what once was, would never be. I just found out (via internets) that they released a "Greatest Hits" albumin in 2001 (long after that train left the station). Then they broke up (to little fanfare).
So I heard a rumor that they might be coming back together, etc and I was like, "who cares...their sound is played." Maybe if Corgan wants to grow his hair back and rewind time to the early to mid 1990s, everything will be good again. Now I think of the Pumpkins like I think of Kansas. Kansas, as I heard a few years ago (like 2003) tried to make a comeback and book small non-stadium venues...like 90% of the dates had to be cancelled because of low ticket sales. It should be "back to the flour mill, Pappy!" for the Smashing Pumpkins.
So my point is, just cause they put out some new junk, I'm not going to buy it. I used to be a really big White Stripes fan, yet I didn't run out and get their latest album (whatever it's titled). I'm sure if I got it as a gift I'd jam to it but I don't think I'll buy it myself. Don't get me wrong, I still jam out to the first 4 albums, but the desire does not exist to add a 5th to my collection.
I think the least played album in my collection is a Greatest Hits album by Kiss. More on that on my blog...
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