Pick any random week on the calendar and you'll probably get at least one questionable business move from the dingbats who fancy themselves the movers and shakers in the music industry, be they artists or execs. But every now and then, as in the last couple of weeks, you get a dumb idea on top of a moronic notion on top of a lame-brained thought and wind up with a veritable perfect storm of stupidity. If you're a music retailer or work for a record company, you're probably tearing your hair out and thinking of going into a more profitable field -- like horse-and-buggy making. But if you're a connoisseur of bad business moves, you're living through a golden age.
Perhaps the biggest news of the week is that for the first time in the history of the human eardrum, the #1 album on the Billboard chart is not available in any store in New York City. Personally, I don't really care, because I hate the Eagles, purveyors of said album, and I hate Wal-Mart, which sells the new CD exclusively. But for fans of leaving the house to purchase music, the Eagles, along with fellow Wal-Mart exclusive Garth Brooks, have set a dangerous precedent by making their album available through only one retailer -- and a retailer whose primary product isn't music, at that.
The first-week sales total of over 700,000 for Long Road Out Of Eden is certainly healthy even by old, pre-Napster standards. And because the Eagles must all be pushing 90 by now, they could care less about the future of music retail, as long as they get the big payday today. But getting in bed with a retailer which doesn't have a real investment in the music business is going to come back to bite the biz on the ass. A music-based behemoth like Virgin or F.Y.E. has a real interest in keeping physical music sales as healthy as possible, and will work with labels and artists to ensure that. On the other hand, when CD sales fall below a certain level at a Wal-Mart, they'll just take the floor space currently devoted to music and put in more lawn mowers or hunting rifles. The Eagles, once again proving they're spawns of Satan, are killing music retail to sell their new CD. Thanks a lot, guys!
Of course, the compact disc and brick-and-mortar music retail were already on their last legs, if not using a motorized wheelchair, before The Eagles made their deal with the Wal-Devil. And New Yorkers can order the CD from the Eagles' website or download it, for a fee. And downloading is the future of the music business, right?
Wrong. Just ask Radiohead, whose noble "pay whatever you think it's worth" experiment with their new, (currently) download-only album, In Rainbows, seems to have backfired. Apparently, over 60 percent of those who downloaded the album paid nothing for it, with just 12 percent volunteering to pony up the traditional $8-12 cost of a CD or an album on iTunes. Which proves what Luddites and over-35s like me have been screaming for years -- music isn't just the sound coming out of your speakers, it's a tangible thing, with packaging and artwork and a booklet and pictures. If I'm paying money for music, I want a physical object, not just a file on my hard drive. And while I may sound old-fashioned, I'm obviously not alone -- people aren't listening to less music than before, but as the compact disc rides off into the sunset, they just aren't paying for it as much anymore.
From the Billboard article on the Radiohead situation:
"This shows pretty conclusively that the majority of music consumers felt that digital recorded music should be free and is not worth paying for," said Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures. "It's time to come up with new business models for the freeloader market."
And while the major labels figure that out, why not fight a rear-guard action at the same time by keeping older music fans who still buy CDs at stores as happy as possible? By, say, making long out-of-print albums by older artists available again? Sounds like a reasonable idea, right?
Wrong again! Major labels like Sony BMG and Universal are mining their catalogs for gold to reissue (everything from old Hank Thompson albums to Lou Reed's '70s records to Janet Jackson's chart-topping Control,), but they're ONLY making them available for download. Way to go! Take music that appeals to people who still like CDs and not make it available on CD, while filling the remaining stores' racks with truckloads of Britney Spears and Soulja Boy CDs for the teenagers and 20-somethings who don't buy CDs anymore!
And so it goes. Stay tuned to find out the latest in music business stupidity -- I can hardly wait to see what they think of next.