From the discussion we had in class last week regarding Borders closing all of it’s locations, which can be attributed not only to their competitors’ leg-up but also the turn being made towards personal readers such as the Kindle, I was reminded of yet another genre taking a hit in the “digital age”: Music.
Not long ago as I walked through a local mall in Braintree, MA, I noticed that FYE, short for “For Your Entertainment”, was closing. Though not all locations are closing/have closed, it was certainly an eerie reminder of just how much the landscape of the music industry has changed since Napster took to brave new territory in the late 1990’s. Not only were digital downloads the hottest topic at the time (so much so that if Twitter had existed, it no doubt would be trending), but still today the same stipulations that made Napster so frightening for artists exists in a different sense: If people download music online, they’ll no longer buy CD’s.
In a recent article from the Washington Post via the Daily Herald, it is said that just because a band attains the #1 spot atop the Billboard 200 chart does not mean they are necessarily the most popular or successful. Rock band the Decemberists’ album “The King is Dead” reached that spot by selling 94,000 copies in its’ opening week; a strong number for the millions relegated to posting their music on YouTube to gain popularity, but not for what was once considered a somewhat sacred achievement for musicians. It is fair to say that if one were to look back at the iTunes Top 10 digital albums for that week, the Decemberists would most likely not be in the number one spot, perhaps not even in the top 10 at all. With rappers like Jay-Z and Kanye West making their long-anticipated “Watch the Throne” LP available for purchase through iTunes before it is released in stores, millions of copies could be sold, yet they would fail to even break the Billboard 200 list at all.
So then, with Kindles replacing books and online newspapers rapidly trouncing sales of print newspapers, how long is the shelf life (no pun intended) for compact discs? Not long, it seems, especially if people take the same stance as my friend Ryan that CD’s are worthless once they’ve been copied onto your iPod. But hey, someday maybe that limited edition, Best Buy exclusive version of your favorite artists’ newest work will sell for list price on eBay…you hope.
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