Subject: OFF The Year in Music

[BREVARD Adrian R.]

Subject: OFFThe Year in Music

>On Thu, 9 Jan 1997, John A Swartz quoted:
> Record sales totaled 616.6 million an increase of less than 1% over
> 1995.  Revenue was flat at $12 billion, same as last year.  <-----No
> growth for this market is a bad sign. Compare to 1994 when the market
> tripled from $4 billion in annual sales to $12 billion.

A thousand pardons Damon but that wasn't John it was me, lil ab.

And then he wrote:
> I've heard a big reason for this has to do with in the past, people were
> buying alot more CDs to replace their old vinyl/cassettes/8-tracks, but
> now alot of people's collections are filled, so they aren't buying as
> many CDs now.  Of course (with my "old fart" hat firmly in place) another
> big reason is that alot of the music out there today sucks ;-)

This was John S. but he's not nearly the old fart he calims to be. 8^).

Damon>"I go with the latter.  I would think that about 90% of CD sales
have
always been new releases, as opposed to replacement of vinyl/8tracks.
Just looking at the Billboard charts will reveal that much.
Of course, I've been wrong before."

You may be righter than you think.  1994 was the year that a lot of
classic stuff was re-issued on cd.  The industry exploded from $4
billion a year to the $12 billion it is now.  Ever since it has been
relatively flat.  The article was full of observations about how no
single group dominated the market, ie, Hootie & the Blowfish selling 13
million copies of their debut.  The Beatles took in the most with over
20 million units of their anthology.  More damnation on the industry,
over 20,000 new releases came out in 1996, less than one half of one
percent sold more than 250,000 copies.  Record moguls are searching for
the next great trend/artist or 1997 could be real down year for them.
Industry seems to be leaning towards instant gratification and is no
longer concerned with developing an artists/groups over time.  Are there
20,000 artist out there worth talking about?

Concerts were no better.  HORDE and Lolapooloza took in less than $20
million each and thats many shows catering to the younger market.
Promoters found out the hard way that it is the older crowd who go to
concerts.  Best of the year were Kiss, Garth Brooks and the Three
Tenors.  Kiss is even considering continuing the reunion this summer at
outdoor venues.

These sad number lends some credence as to why it has been so many years
for a new BOC album.  If they don't sell a million plus in a heartbeat,
or have the potential to do so, no major label wants you.

Hey the net may open up a whole new era that will kill the record
industry period.  Imagine a band like Queensryche opneing up a website
and allowing you to download their latest cd on to your own.  No middle
man, record company or anything.  Scan your credit card and begin the
download.  Any techies out there no how close or far away we are from
recordable cd's in the home?  Not talking those little mini-things.   We
could even go to concerts over WEB TV.  "Live from Buck's basement Blue
Oyster Cult"

lil ab
************************************************************************
**********************
Sailing on the ocean stewed, fell asleep while steering....Kaptain
Krude!
Had a bit too much of the brew, there+s a rock approaching ...Kaptain
Krude!
Into the crystal water spewed, a liquid devastation...Kaptain Krude!
Spilling black into blue, why have the fish stopped swimming...Kaptain
Krude!
Take a slide on the slick, take a swim and you+ll stick
Take a ride with Kaptain Krude!
************************************************************************
***************************