Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

The sad fact is that more and more people don't want to pay for music anymore. They undervalue it because it is easy to steal. Blaming the record companies is just wrong. There are so many different record companies. Some are mega huge, and have massive amounts of money available. Some are tiny and just barely scraping by. Some people are really trying to offer quality product, but in the current environment, they are having one hell of a time connecting with people who really care about music and value it and the artists who create it, and are actually willing to pay for it. If your attitude when you look over a vast array of cd's at a shop is that there will be two good songs and the rest will be crap, why bother? How is it that so many people have such a hard time finding a cd that is actually good all the way through? They exist you know. Many cd's. Sometimes it takes some patience and repeated listening. Sometimes it takes real listening, not just having music in the background while your talking or cleaning the house or driving. While it's definitely true that there is a lot of rubbish out there, there is still a lot of interesting and different music to be found. You just have to look. People have it made today. You can go to a site like CD Baby and spend the whole day listening to full samples of every song on an album and choose whatever does it for you. Most sites also include user commentary as well as related music and recommendations to check out. Barnes and Noble enables the customer to listen to any song that is on any album that they sell. Now that is amazing. Many other sellers have listening stations. A site like Amazon offers pre listening and offers a huge selection including easy access to used sellers. I mean, how much better could it be? Add to this the growing number of internet radio sites that allow the listener easy access to the artist and song title for later purchase if you find yourself liking it. The argument that all this is shit because cd's cost a lot is ridiculous. The cost of a cd today is roughly about the same ratio of average income per hour X 2 as it was years ago. You can easily find cd's at a price point of $12 or $13 today. Most are discounted heavy. If you wish to go back to a time when records were $2.98, bear in mind that the average music buyer was probably making $1.65 an hour or so. (This being in the 60's as an example.) So how bad is it? Comparing the manufacturing costs of a cd versus its retail price and getting all pissed off is a little weird. There are a lot of people splitting up that pie before any of it reaches the actual creators. Record companies cannot count on an identical margin off every cd they release. Some do well, but the majority sell somewhere around 5000 copies. That ain't exactly a lot. An overwhelming amount of people in the music business, including small labels are barely making it at that. So lighten up everyone. Music is a great value. Better than a DVD you might watch 5 times at the most in its lifetime. A great cd will be played for years, off and on. The investment in music is a far better investment than beer or going out to an expensive restaurant. No one seems to complain with the same bitterness about those kinds of things. All that is consumed fast and is gone. But not music. It's still there to give you another ride. It has value and it's worth it.