Album Sales Fall, Of Course
from the who-didn't-expect-that dept
This will come as no surprise to anyone, of course, but the only significant area of the music business that is struggling is, once again, CD sales. Bloomberg has noted that album sales in the US declined 14% in 2008. Of course, digital sales continued to grow, and, as recently noted, the concert business is booming. Oddly enough, sales of vinyl records continue to rise -- a trend we noted last summer. To be honest, the fact that album sales only dropped by 14% seems rather surprising. If I were in the business of selling mostly obsolete plastic discs, I'd be thrilled they only dropped that much.
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Filed Under: album sales, recording industry
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Re: Re: Re: Re: CD Collection
I read somewhere that record companies deliberately compressed the music to give it more volume and make it easier to hear throughout the songs. I could barely imagine "The 1812 Overture" treated in this way, but that is exactly what is done to rock albums.
While CD's may be better on paper, the quality of the equipment playing the CD is critical, as you are probably aware. Reproducing analog sound has always been cheaper. Trying to convert digital sound to high quality analog is a tougher challenge, and requires better equipment; certainly better than ear buds.
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