So a few days ago, I read an article on punknews.org about how the Bouncing Souls are kicking around the idea of releasing a digital release instead of doing an album. The Gold Record, which was one of my favorite albums of 2006, didn't do as well as they must have hoped. I read that it sold 37,000 copies, which I would look at as a very good sale. Especially from a band that isn't in the media, on TRL or have a regular rotating music video on Fuse or MTV. So it looks like they want to digitally release something, which has Souls fans steamed.
So the last few days, I have been stirring up my feelings towards this phenomenon that is file swapping and music leaking on the web. The future is that CDs are slowly getting obsolete, and everyone will have to jump on the bandwagon, that is downloading music. The majority of the population is already embracing the change of purchasing or stealing music. Unfortunately, this will leave quite a few people out of jobs. First of all, CD duplication will not be needed anymore, they won't require album art, and record stores will be pretty damn empty. It's amazing to think about how things have changed over the last few years. Bands and artists are getting signed to labels because of a few hundred thousand downloads of a single from their myspace. Here is a small list of bands that are millionaires or at least on their way to becoming one because of Myspace
Fall Out Boy
Colbie Callet
Sean Kingston
Arctic Monkeys
Derek Grant, drummer of Alkaline Trio blogged about the file swapping and digitialization of music. He looks at it, from a career perspective. Everyone picks up songs and albums that get leaked online, which hurts record sales. The majority of the younger generations just want some songs and extra material. Hardly do you see a 15 year old looking for any vinyl or records at a store.
This rant has come to some sort of conclusion even though it went in all sorts of directions. Like life, music is ever-changing and I as fan of it am preparing myself for whatever is thrown at me.
1 comment:
I'm all for digital-only releases.
For one: Most releases are sold for $9.99 which keeps the ridiculous markups of record stores out of my life.
Two: Most releases come with art work. Check out Ben Weasel's latest release, which is digital-only. You can download the art work so that if/when you burn the music to CD, you just print and have a regular CD with art and everything to add to your collection.
I'd be wholeheartedly for digital-only music across the board, except for the fact that one cannot buy used digital-only CDs.
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