September25

The Cost of (Good) Music?

Greed is everywhere, especially in the online music world... let’s take a look at some recent stories – iPod nanos cost about $90 to make, Cingular wants a music download service (with "slightly higher" prices), and then there’s this gem: labels hit back at Apple, now want share of iPod revenue.

What’s that about, you ask? This is the nuts and bolts of it...

• Listeners can buy individual songs for $0.99 at the Apple iTunes Store.
• Most record labels are used to people buying full albums (a.k.a. pushing entire albums onto customers for full price – bad music and all).
• According to Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman, “Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more.”

There’s the dilema – now that songs are a mere buck, record labels think they have a right to get some profit sharing from Apple on iPod sales since listeners aren’t buying full records.

Bogusness.

First off, how in the hell are labels “used to people buying full albums?” That’s total bs. Anyone remember buying cassette and cd singles? I do. And if I remember back far enough, weren’t cassette singles about $2 for two songs and cd singles about $4 for four songs? Quick math problem, what’s two divided by two? Here’s a harder one, what’s four divided by four? Shut up.

Secondly, do you (the record labels) get money from walkman sales, car stereo sales and home stereo sales? No. Shut up.

Third point, if you somehow get Steve Jobs to agree and give you some profit sharing (at which point I’ll host a carnivale in my butt, everyone’s invited), let’s not forget the little people – the podcasters. I’m sure at least ONE person in this world was swayed to buy an iPod so they could listen to podcasts on the go. Cheap plug. Shut up.

Fourther, offer exclusives on iTunes with album releases. Oh wait, you already do. Shut up.

Fifthest, sorry that other music stores have opened (some with different pricing schemes) and failed. Shut up.

Sixerestly, and perhaps the most arguable point, produce better music and you won’t have the problem of people buying one song here and one song there. The past ten (at least) albums that I’ve bought have been because I want the full album... I KNOW the full album will be good. The only things I buy singles of are rap and hip-hop – a genre notorious for creating albums as a vehicle for one, maybe two, good songs. Shut up.

If record labels would produce better music, then I’m willing to bet that while single song sales wouldn’t decrease much, albums sales would increase. People like good music. Why do you want to push bad music on them when they’re not going to listen to it anyway? Giving consumers the option of buying a single song is the optimum option, the crux of customer service, the ultimate scenario. Allow the customer to do what they want and entice them in other ways – exclusive album content, EPs, etc.

It’s a shame that the music industry is just that, an industry. It’s not about sales people, it’s about producing a product that makes listeners happy.

+ original post date: September 25, 2005 10:08 PM
+ categories: Music, WTF