CD sales are down alright, The music industry isn't in trouble, but the "big four" of EMI/Sony/Warner/Universal who make up the bulk of it and make the most noise about "killing music" are. The indies have probably never had it better. I see a couple of reasons for the whole drop in CD sales and Big fours financial woes
1. The utter ineptitude of the "big four" mentioned already. Fire the next A&R muppet who hands a load of cash to a commercial and artistic deadweight like Robbie Williams or Mariah Carey just as their career slides into oblivion.
2. A lack of anything much interesting or generation defining coming out of the big four, is the likes of Amy Winehouse really the best a generation can muster? I mean Valerie is a grand tune, but meh.... it's a bit too tasteful and MOR, it's all so staid in pop music now, we're all too damn cool for top of the pops, it's all faux indie, tired hip hop, reality TV show winners and carefully determined careerism. Nothing is allowed to just "happen". Lots interesting stuff at the edge of the mainstream but even the mainstream isn't the mainstream anymore due to a general apathy towards popular music meaning you don't have to actually sell that many singles to get a number one so it's not really that big a deal anymore.
3. Shelf space - I know, this is a really dull, humdrum retail thing, but I'm surprised no-one mentions it more. Just look at the average soulless high street record store chain nowadays, HMV, Zaavi (what an utterly stupidly corporate sounding name), Golden Discs etc. and look at what percentage of the shelf space is CDs and what percentage is DVDs, videogames, T-Shirts, Posters, books and random fanboy tat. Less CD space = less cds that can be stocked and displayed = less sales. Simple. That applies to anything in retail. Now obviously the retailers feel this is the way to go (though personally I think they're shooting themselves in the foot in the long run) but if the the record companies want to sell more music via record stores, maybe they should be trying to reclaim the shelf space. Is it just me or has browsing the average high street record store become less and less interesting? There just seems to be a smaller selection and a less interesting one, they don't even seem to rotate the stock on a regular basis, there just doesn't seem to be a reason to go there every saturday anymore.
4. Going to war with consumer - anyone that goes to war with their customer never wins, any win is ultimately a loss. The RIAA and their european counterparts needs to stop suing the pants off everyone for sharing music and treating the people that do pay for their music like criminals by imposing restrictions on their use of that music. Instead, focus on getting paid-for downloads distributed in a fair, fairly priced, convenient, DRM free format. People want more convenience and value, not less. Fair use is fair use.
Anyway, what were we talking about again? Oh yeah, radiohead...
