Dear Music Industry: Go DiePart I: Cleanup on Aisle 7

I’ve had a general distaste for the corporate music industry for a while now—ever since they started suing music fans, basically—but in the last month or so a handful of different stories have made that distaste coalesce into a full-on loathing. The last I saw was this, from Rolling Stone (via a thread at Last Plane to Jakarta), which paints the industry’s fate in the most dire terms.

Overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent for the year so far—and that’s after seven years of near-constant erosion. In the face of widespread piracy, consumers’ growing preference for low-profit-margin digital singles over albums, and other woes, the record business has plunged into a historic decline.

So the music industry is dying. My reaction? Good fucking riddance. Anything I can do to help it along, let me know. Music has never been better nor more accessible, and the majors’ woes are completely their own fault (which the Rolling Stone article also claims). They haven’t cared about actual music for decades. They’ve cared about converting plastic discs into cash, and people don’t want plastic discs anymore. If they’d done anything to foster creativity in their artists, maybe I’d feel more sympathetic.

For the amount of ink spilled on the subject, you’d think it was all your fault. Heartless music fans have bypassed the saintly corporations in satisfying their sinful needs. I think it’s worth taking another look and who really killed the music industry. (hint: there’s a run on Cheerios on aisle 14.)

One of the common refrains you hear when people disdain downloading is the mp3’s inferiority to the tangible object, the CD. Most recently it came from the mouth of Jesse Harris, songwriter behind Norah Jones’s big hit “Don’t Know Why,” when he was interviewed for the Onion AV Club’s “Random Rules”:

I buy CDs. I do. I still like to have the artwork, and see the credits, and have the CD in my hand, and take it in the car. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get over that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to replace that with mp3s. Besides, I just don’t think mp3s sound that good. They’re definitely of a lower quality.

It’s literally the same old vinyl vs. CD debate, only the CD—once derided for its artwork-unfriendly format and lesser sound quality—has been recast as the virtuous format. Seriously, isn’t this debate corny? Who wants to look at a 4x4” panel of artwork and read the producing credits and thank-you list when you can experience a terrific website, read your favorite band’s blog, and interact directly with the musician? Preferring a tired old CD booklet is for luddites only. CDs have nothing on mp3s—except for the experience of going to a record store, sifting through the aisles looking for some undiscovered gem, interacting with record store employees who can guide you to something better and talk, face to face with actual voices, about music.

That’s no small thing—in fact it’s something I value a great deal—but don’t believe for a second that the powers behind the music industry give two shits about that experience. The industry is concerned about Wal-Mart and its big-box brethren, and that’s it. According to the Rolling Stone article:

About 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003, according to the research group Almighty Institute of Music Retail. Last year the eighty-nine-store Tower Records chain, which represented 2.5 percent of overall retail sales, went out of business, and Musicland, which operated more than 800 stores under the Sam Goody brand, among others, filed for bankruptcy. Around sixty-five percent of all music sales now take place in big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which carry fewer titles than specialty stores and put less effort behind promoting new artists.

Look at that. Tower accounted for 2.5 measly percent of retail sales. Wal-Mart and Best Buy are the top two music retailers in the U.S., with Target and other multi-retailers not far off. The music industry’s lack of distinction between these stores and Tower or Musicland had far more to do with their closing than illegal downloads ever could. Tower couldn’t compete with a store that doesn’t mind taking a loss on Avril Lavigne if it means you’ll buy your groceries while you’re there. Today, the industry still values big boxes over bricks-and-mortar music retailers: witness the Smashing Pumpkins promotional debacle, in which Wal-Mart, Target, and iTunes get copies with unique bonus tracks, while Virgin—never mind mom & pops—are stuck selling an essentially incomplete album. The industry is actively discouraging you from patronizing an actual record store.

Yet when Tower went out of business, the majority of blame was laid at the doorstep of music fans—the dastardly pirates. It was perceived as a harbinger of the death of the music industry. Tower’s demise signified one thing and one thing only—the music industry turned its back on music lovers long ago. They only care about Wal-Mart. But does Wal-Mart care about the music industry? No. They’re not interested in competing with iTunes and mp3s. When the plastic disc dies, it will fill its shelves with more deodorants and foot cream. Wal-Mart will roll on without so much as flinching. Just desserts for the music industry; the people who lose their jobs at Sony can go get work at Proctor & Gamble.

Tomorrow: How Does it Feel to be Sam Walton's Bitch?

[Update: Mike Barthel is guest posting at Idolator and his post on Kelly Clarkson and the "Death of the Tusk Era" is tangentially related to some of what I'm talking about, particularly as it gets on in the comments section.]

Comments

[Richard]

I agree with just about everything here, except this: "Preferring a tired old CD booklet is for luddites only. CDs have nothing on mp3s—except for the experience of going to a record store, sifting through the aisles looking for some undiscovered gem, interacting with record store employees who can guide you to something better and talk, face to face with actual voices, about music."

You're right that the arguments people make in favor of the cd are very similar to those made in favor of vinyl. But that's not the argument I make. I buy cds. I don't download albums, but I do download single songs. I like my iPod just fine--it's great for work and the train. But I listen to cds at home and in the car. It's true my stereo sounds a lot better than my computer (the car stereo sounds like ass). I'm aware I could hook iTunes, or the iPod itself, to the stereo, but it's still true that that would not sound quite as good as the cds do (this is simply a fact). But that's not the reason I don't do it either. It's actually analogous to the record-store experience, but at home. The act of selecting music from my collection is drastically different if it's on the computer or iPod than it is when I can stand before my wall of cds to choose. And this is part of the experience of listening to it. I like the wall of cds. Yes, it's imposing, and people always remark on it and that's fun (if, admittedly, mildly embarrassing at this point), but they can look through it and pick something out, and hold it, like a book. It's not the artwork, per se, which, yes, is much smaller and lamer than it was on old LPs. It's the tactile, physical experience of engaging with the music.

It's not luddism, it's a lost experience, and that experience matters to some people. It matters to me. You're quite right that the music industry doesn't give a fuck about that experience (they do indeed just want to shift plastic units, however they can).

Ironically, I may have to modify that experience significantly and opt for the virtual library for other reasons: 2700 cds takes up a lot of goddamn space, and life is intruding and demanding some of that space. But I don't want to do it.

Incidentally, I just realized that you were on the LPTJ message boards the other day (I'm registered but have never posted)...

[pgwp]

Yeah, I post at lptj and I also post at Readerville pretty regularly. Somehow I still manage to work a full-time job, too.

>>"I buy cds. I don't download albums, but I do download single songs. "

I am the exact same way, though I think you and I are more and more in the minority on this point. I listen pretty religiously to everything through iTunes, personally. Once I've loaded a CD in, I'm pretty much done with the object. Personally I think the sound quality difference is negligable, unless you're a true audiophile. I guess I'm not.

And as far as basking in one's personal collection - I am definitely that way about my books and my vinyl--you've described the experience pretty dead on--but not my CDs. I've always found them to be a fairly tacky object. But that's just me.

And on the other side of that coin, the experience that iTunes or an iPod gives that browsing your own CD collection doesn't is the pleasure of random play. I hear so many songs I wouldn't otherwise put on--whether dub, jazz, pop, folk, whatever. I cherish the experience of listening to one album from beginning to end, but I also like that my own record collection can be easily molded into my personal radio station.

[Richard]

You're right. The random feature the iPod or iTunes offers is great, and in fact was something I'd always wanted, since radio has always been so awful and unreliable.

On the cd being a tacky object, are you referring to the disc itself, or the jewel box, or both? I mean, I think the vinyl LP is a more elegant item than the bland, shiny cd, certainly, but that jewel boxes are the really tacky thing. They make music seem like software, and the plastic is cheap and cracks and breaks and scuffs and generally doesn't add anything to the experience.

In recent years I've noticed that small labels have been working on design, providing interesting packaging, again making the record an objet d'art of sorts. (Perhaps ironically, it's been mostly electronic labels--like Touch or raster-noton, for example--that have really been pushing this, along with post-rock, or whatever, labels like Constellation or Alien8.)

Basically, I'm conflicted. And I don't want my cds to become unplayable, which is what I, perhaps irrationally, think is at the end of this particular slippery slope.

The music industry still sucks, though.

[pgwp]

Yes - the jewel box is the truly tacky thing. That's what I was referring to.

In the 90s I really loved getting those cardboard cases for groups like june of 44 or tortoise, but none of those wore very well. When an LP gets worn, there's still a certain personality to it - it was worn with love. But my Millions Now Living cd case just looks like shit. Scrunched spine, dirty case, scratched CD. There's no elegance or nostalgia to it, compared to my worn-to-shit copy of Pink Moon.

>>Basically, I'm conflicted. And I don't want my cds to become unplayable, which is what I, perhaps irrationally, think is at the end of this particular slippery slope.

This the really dangerous thing, regardless of what format we're talking about. The mp3 is just as likely to go the way of the dodo, if the history of computers is any indication. I'm a little wary of trusting Apple with my entire media-consuming lifestyle.

[jesse_wiedinmyer]

>The act of selecting music from my collection is drastically different if it's on the computer or iPod than it is when I can stand before my wall of cds to choose. And this is part of the experience of listening to it. I like the wall of cds. Yes, it's imposing, and people always remark on it and that's fun (if, admittedly, mildly embarrassing at this point), but they can look through it and pick something out, and hold it, like a book. It's not the artwork, per se, which, yes, is much smaller and lamer than it was on old LPs. It's the tactile, physical experience of engaging with the music.

This was actually my argument for going to the computer. But I'm notoriously disorganised when it comes to storing music. When I was in High School, I used to keep a 40 gallon garbage bag full of tapes in my car. And the act of trying to find specific albums was painful. Then again, there was always the pleasant surprise when one showed up randomly.

But I love the drag and drop ease of my computer's music selection. At my peak, before I culled a bit, I had a bit over 30,000 songs on my computer. And when I used to listen to those tracks when they were all on cd, it could take me forever to locate the cd. Now it's just point and click.

Funnily enough, I'm against the random play on my computer, though. That might just be because I still have too much chaff in the collection. Or it may be because doing that tends to lead to some very jarring mixes. I'll only do the random thing when I specifically want to force myself to listen to tracks that I might not like and will be willing to skip over them.

And I, too, will be very upset if my mp3's become obsolete. Don't you think that could very well happen to cd's before it happens to mp3's, though?

[pgwp]

>And I, too, will be very upset if my mp3's become obsolete. Don't you think that could very well happen to cd's before it happens to mp3's, though?

Yes, I do think CDs will go first. But it's definitely a little scary to leave things in the hand of one or a few computer companies (Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc.). I stress computer companies, not music companies. Mark my words: we will get screwed eventually. So long as people who don't care about music first and foremost are in charge of selling music, the fan will be screwed.

[Gregory Schaffer]

PGWP,

Dude you listen to music on your iMac! I don't think you're going to hear much of a difference between an mp3 and the original CD on those little speakers.

For most purposes the loss in sound quality is negligible to the big gain in convenience.

On a slightly different note I wonder if this convenience turns us into accumulators of music rather than real fans. Some guy I know has 300GB of illegally downloaded music. Who has time to LISTEN to all that? I lived in China for two years with the same 30GB and it was more than enough to keep me happy.

Give me more and give it to me now!

Your audiophile friend,

tangledeye