h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Point being that despite our heartfelt efforts to evangelize our preferred musical genres, both on the jazz and punk and blues sides, pop music appears to be increasingly smooth and simple, much to the dissappointment of the punk and blues and jazz fans, who like it rough, emotional, or complex, respectively. So there you are. None of us are happy.

I wouldn't say I wasn't happy.
The blues may be in bad shape, but there are other compensations.
These days i can buy things like Rachid taha (Algerian rock) and Oojami (Turkish breakbeat) in my local HMV.
That's waaay ahead of what I could get when i worked in one of the places...

I bet the music company big-wigs are happy enough!!



Bassman

Yes, the big wigs are certainly making money. I have one up on them, though--I make my own entertainment (not only do I enjoy the music better, but I don't buy their CDs)!

Will be playing at my sister's party this weekend.

Or buy an audio CD burner, borrow your friends albums, join a library, etc. The average CD that you buy from the shops cost the record companys 34p to make!! If the buying public went on strike for a month, the price would be soooooooo much less!

Interesting that three musicians should be sio keen on the idea of stealing money form other musicians that are lucky enough to have contracts.
I'm not going to 'steal' Rachid Taha's album because I suspect that he isn't rich enough for me to able to justify that.
Similarly, for example, I'd consider it wrong to burn copies of the Buena Vista Social Club albums, for the same reason.
I've used Napster, sure, but only to find out what something sounds like or to replace old favourites that haven't been released on cd yet...

Music is my drug - at least I'm not mugging people to feed my addiction.Having no disposable income at the moment, I've got to have my fix somehow! 3 years ago, the D.T.I. recommended that CD prices should come down by at least £5.00 - £7.00, but funnily enough, no-one has taken them up on this. Looking at the amount of stuff I've brought, I think I'm owed a couple of copys.

Smaller labels charge a smaller price and these I buy. And yes, i know that making a copy is denying the artist revenue but when the average dividend is for every £15.00 CD sold, the record company gets about £8.50 and the band get £0.75p (broadly speaking of course) I feel I'm hurting the record execs at EMI more!

You're hurting both, and as EMI's response to the crisis has been to bin every artist on their roster who isn't guaranteed a certain level of sales, then those that are really suffering are the small artists, who can't get signed at all.
I've found napater useful as a way of hearing things that normally I couldn't afford, to find out whether I *wanted* to afford them, but I'd stop at the wholesale downloading of an album I could get on the market today.

Ok, I'll take some of the blame but not all of it.

Surely the fact that the big boys will gladly spend One Million £ on advertising (I remember the figures) for Tasmin Archer and Babylon Zoo who have now disappered, and the untold money pumped into keeping up with the latest trend (R & B, Pop idol type stuff) who will chart once or twice before being binned and then throw money at the next manufactured band, therefore taking money away from the smaller bands: this must be a bigger factor than me???

Not in *their* eyes, and thats the problem.
The totally disproportionate response of the lunatics in charge of the big record companies to the 'alleged' threat of napster shows that they had no understanding of how and why people buy and listen to music.

As I say, I don't think it's all bad. If I go into my local HMV, I can still get a bigger range of (for example) Blues, 'World' (I *hate* that term)and reggae than at any other point in my life. This is in no small part due to the proliferation of small, independant labels that can sustain a lesser level of sales to a select audience.

The best thing to do is buy direct from the band. When I go to a coffee shop or bar and hear a decent band, I have no problem paying $10 (US) for a CD that might only be so-so, because I know exactly who the money is going to.

Big labels must make music available to the public to listen to before they buy. One of my favorite features in the local record store is that they have most albums sampled and stored on a computer. I can scan the CD at a listening station, put on headphones, and try to album before I buy. I am much more likely to buy something if I hear it beforehand.

If labels were more reasonable about their prices, and offered samples online, I think a lot of older consumers (mid-20s and up) would buy a lot more records. And I think this also benefits lesser-known artists who might not get radio play.

The 'business' of the music business is ruining the 'music' part. Labels must evolve, or people really will stop buying. Last year record sales were down %15 or so, I don't think that's due to Napster.

Hammers, nails.
If the record industry had realized the potential of napster before they effectively killed it, then likely they would have seen an increase in sales, not a drop.
It was an ideal source for free samples of music.

I hate to admit it but some of the big stores have really improved the stock. 5 years ago the only reggae would be Bob Marleys early demo songs repacked in about 4 different albums and I had to trek out to a little Indie. shop to get anything.

Mind you, I still enjoy those excursions!