RIAA... take note and increase your sales...
I received a cd for Christmas and lo' and behold I felt that it was well worth the money. Here is why I enjoyed it and would gladly pay for it again.
First it was offered at $14.99, not the cheapest but not too bad.
The cd was Shania Twain's "Up."
(Please don't ignore the topic and get into which artists are cool/suck)
Her cd featured 19 songs, all written by the artist and husband. Additionally it featured 2 full cd's. The cd's were color coded featured the same songs on both. One was mixed more country and the other cd was mixed more pop/rock'ish.
The cd is enjoyable but the real point is value. Most record companies would try to package this in a manner as to try to get me to buy two seperate cd's. The country one and then the pop/rock one would be two seperate albums by their measurements.
Additionally they would likely try to copy-protect them and make them crash my computer. Instead my Mac gladly imported these into iTunes.
So adding value and not treating me like a criminal got them... my money. (or my wife's as she bought it for me)
My nephew also got the latest No Doubt cd and while I don't know about the copy-protection on it, it featured a second cd that had their videos encoded in a manner that would playback on the computer. (Don't know if it would on Mac though)
The point is value added=money. No value added and treating me like a criminal= no cash for you.
Thoughts?
Nick
First it was offered at $14.99, not the cheapest but not too bad.
The cd was Shania Twain's "Up."
(Please don't ignore the topic and get into which artists are cool/suck)
Her cd featured 19 songs, all written by the artist and husband. Additionally it featured 2 full cd's. The cd's were color coded featured the same songs on both. One was mixed more country and the other cd was mixed more pop/rock'ish.
The cd is enjoyable but the real point is value. Most record companies would try to package this in a manner as to try to get me to buy two seperate cd's. The country one and then the pop/rock one would be two seperate albums by their measurements.
Additionally they would likely try to copy-protect them and make them crash my computer. Instead my Mac gladly imported these into iTunes.
So adding value and not treating me like a criminal got them... my money. (or my wife's as she bought it for me)
My nephew also got the latest No Doubt cd and while I don't know about the copy-protection on it, it featured a second cd that had their videos encoded in a manner that would playback on the computer. (Don't know if it would on Mac though)
The point is value added=money. No value added and treating me like a criminal= no cash for you.
Thoughts?
Nick
Comments
Look at DVD's: They are collectable and durable, and the better ones come with genuinely intriguing special content. I just got FotR special extended edition and it's quite nice, a lot of work went into the appendices and commentary, and it's actually interesting for a fan. I think DVD's sell well precisely because they represent value. CD's are also durable, but many are largely forgettable, even for fans.
You buy a music CD and it's pretty certain that, out of 12 songs, 8-10 will suck. Granted, that's mostly the artist's fault (and the record company suits), but there's just nothing compelling.
I don't think people are shady, criminally-inclined little Jolly Rogers by nature. People don't mind paying when it's obviously worth paying for and there's a true, appreciated value to something.
Whatever you may think about Ms. Twain, fact is I think the way she did her latest album is very cool. Yeah, maybe kinda a marketing gimmick angle to it, but so what? You get A LOT of music, some interesting versions and you can tell some work and thought went into it.
That's something you don't mind plopping $14-18 down for.
The RIAA needs to seriously get with it and re-think how it goes about things. It's simply not 1973 anymore and they can't continue to carry on as though it were.
Embrace technology (and new and BETTER ways of doing things, distributing music, purchasing music, LISTENING to music, etc.) or become completely useless and irrelevant.
That's my take.
Also a prime example of DVD excellence is where they will offer entire series or movie trilogies on a DVD pack for less cost than you would pay for them individually. The music business again is just the opposite. They will give you a "box set" but they want to charge you an arm and a leg for it. Additionally then think doing things like digitally remastering an album is reason to charge even more.
Could you imagine buying a box set of say Pink Floyd for like 50 dollars that had all their music digitally remastered with all their videos and commentary, history etc.
It would sell like gang busters. There would be no piracy of it because you would miss out on some of the extras and of course finally it would be a good value.
Instead we see Pink Floyd - The Wall, just the album alone digitally remastered and available at Amazon for $28.
I mean that is just outragious, even for a proven good album.
I pray that someday soon the exception that allows these record companies to sign artists to these slave contracts gets overturned. Then maybe things will start to balance right again.
Nick
<strong>You buy a music CD and it's pretty certain that, out of 12 songs, 8-10 will suck. Granted, that's mostly the artist's fault (and the record company suits), but there's just nothing compelling.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
One thing you may be amazed to know is that artists actually get paid a lower royalty when recording their own music. Additionally the record companies try to get them to initially sign away all future royalties and publishing rights. Even if they don't do this initially, they can have it happen later when they have to payback the money their albums didn't recoup through the arcane and likely illegal accounting procedures the record companies use.
This is why even the Beatles don't own the rights to their own music.
It really doesn't encourage 10 good songs per album (yes a lot of them are putting as few as 10 songs on a cd now) when 1) you get paid less for recording them (royalties) 2) You aren't going to own it in the future if it does start banking big money anyway.
Nick
Hey, I've driven through Beaumont a bunch, on the way to Joshua Tree and Palm Springs!
OK, the overall sales are down around 10% this past year or something like that. But, in that same time period the major labels have released 25% less product.
So, per album sales are actually up something like 20% even though the volume is lower. Had they released maybe only 80% of the previous year's volume (instead of 75%), their sales would have been roughly equal (slightly more actually) on 20% less product.
That's amazing to me.