Just a few random thoughts. not very cohesive.
yeah, i'd have to agree with Mark about this. especially at a time when
half the kids in your neighborhood have CD burners, i think the average
consumer would be willing to cut music buying out of their tighter
recession-riddled budgets. general entertainment spending seems pretty
recession-proof, though, based on the latest box office figures.
for some strange reason, even though i too have been unemployed for most of
the year, i've been buying music like crazy. it's been a pretty good year
for tunes of all genres. and even though my music spending has been up,
only a few of my purchases have had anything to do with the major american
record companies since most of my faves this year have been imports (zero7,
the avalanches, royksopp, zoot woman, etc), import catalog (pepe bradock,
leftfield, joe meek), and vinyl (most of which are imports, indie, or both).
and let's face it: a lot of the major label stuff is just tired. who needs
another mariah carey album (or movie)? not me. boyband pop music seems to
be surpassing the saturation point and has marketed itself into an
identifiable formula that the kids are hoping to trade in for some nasty
Nu-Metal/Rap-Rock (which is this year's surprising big seller genre). and
is it me, or has most hip hop been a little less exciting this year? i
really liked a few tracks this year ("get ur freak on" is still da bomb),
but i've been bored with a lot.
also, the music industry is just crazy. think about it: the best selling
world music title of the past year was that album with that "Who Let The
Dogs Out" song, and last year's best selling country album was the Coyote
Ugly soundtrack. does that sound sane to you?
Peace,
Ha
p.s. this year's big country album i think is the soundtrack for O Brother,
Where Art Thou? That album is strangely also da bomb.
>Personally I've been unemployed for most of this year. And I *know* that's
>gotta be a significant decrease in sales for GrooveDis. ;-)
>
>But on a wider scale, I do think music is one of the first things MOST
>people (not aj listers, of course) would cut out when tightening their
>budget. This has been a tough year for a lot of folks, and I'm not
>surprised
>to hear that music sales are down as a result.
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