How many times have I read that a CD costs $20? Way, way, way too many.

Let's take a look at data offered by NPD Music, a provider of sales and marketing data on the music industry. The average price for a CD in 2003's fourth quarter was $13.47, which was 2% less than the same period in 2002 and 4% less than 2001. According to 2003 SoundScan data, 51.6% of all albums purchased in 2003 were new releases. (The others were catalog titles, which have a lower list price.) In 2002, new releases accounted for 50.0% of all purchases. Since catalog titles are cheaper than new releases, and because new release sales accounted for a greater percentage of 2003 sales than 2002 sales, that 2% drop in average CD price may actually understate the recent price drop of new release CDs.

The fact is that nearly every CD (excluding multiple CD sets) costs $18.98 or less, and the vast majority of CDs cost far less. Many new rock bands have a "developing artist price" that is $11.98 or $12.98, which is offered to gain sales and exposure for the new band. (I bought BRMC's latest CD a few days after its release, at a Virgin Megastore, for $9.99 plus tax.) Universal Music Group, which represents roughly 30% of the new CD market, charges, at most, $13.98 for a new CD. (Which was recently raised after consumers didn't respond well to the price cuts. Goes to show that music is not as price-driven a product as most would think.)

(By the way, I'm not going to include sales tax in this discussion for two reasons. Not every state has sales tax, and tax rates vary.)

NPD uses OutKast's Speakerboxx/The Love Below as an example of the pricing of new release CDs. This is a two-CD title with a suggested list price of $21.98. The average record store sold it for $17.46 in the fourth quarter. The same album was sold for an average of $15.19 at electronics specialty stores. Neither of those prices is within $2.50 of the magic $20 barrier--or within 12.5% of $20. And again, keep in mind that's for a two-CD set.

Even the biggest title of 2004, Usher's Confessions, can be found for less than $20. At Amazon.com, Confessions can be purchased for $13.49,. Yes, shipping will raise that price, but unless you live in Bhutan the total bill isn't going to be $20.

Coolfer checked the RIAA's numbers. Average suggested list price of CDs shipped are as follows: $15.05 in 2003, $14.99 in 2002, $14.69 in 2001, $14.02 in 2000, $13.75 in 1999 and $13.47 in 1998. (Dollar value of net full length CDs shipped divided by net full length CD units shipped.) It's interesting to compare NPD's data to the average suggested list price according to the RIAA's statistics. Because consumers are usually able to purchase a CD below the suggested list price, the average price actually paid is less than the average suggested list price. In 2003, consumers paid an average of $13.47 (that's the fourth quarter price, but close enough) for a CD with an average suggested list price of $15.05.

Whether or not a person is paying $20, there is a popular sentiment that music is overpriced (which is a different ballgame...I'm talking only about facts, not opinion). When talking of overpriced music, both journalists and consumers (but especially journalists and their editors) should differentiate between the new Janet Jackson CD (suggested list price: $18.98) and the new album by Franz Ferdinand (suggested list price: $13.98). They should separate major labels from indies like Dischord, who insists upon low lists prices at retail and actually offers all full length titles for $10 each at its website. They need to keep in mind the many Miles Davis CDs--remastered and repackaged--that have a suggested list price of $11.98. (Even better, Sony offers three Miles Davis CDs--In A Silent Way, Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue--as a three-CD package for only $29.98.)

The $20 CD? Yeah, it exists...in the world of imports and box sets. But for the most part it's a myth.

Posted by Glenn at 1:32 AM | Link | Comment (3)

Coolfer got a tip from FOC Ben about a band called Babsonicos. The Argentian band has a new album out in the States via EMI Latin, but Ben pointed me toward their 2002 album Jessico. He said it was the more psychedelic and adventurous of the two.

If I may borrow from the first line of AllMusic's four-star review: "If there was any further proof needed that Latin American rock could teach most American bands a lesson, Babasonicos' amazingly entertaining Jessico is it." It's a fun album filled with diverse styles and quality songs. If only the average Brit pop band could pull off so many different styles with such confidence. Jessicos recalls the Super Furry Animals and Ween in its diversity and sense of humor, and the band has obviously spent time listening to Britain's best output in recent years, but the band proudly shows its Latin roots as well. And yes, all the lyrics are in Spanish. Coolfer doesn't mind. I stopped listening to most lyrics years ago.

Naturally, when I checked the band's website I saw they just passed through NYC less than a month ago. They're obviously not marketed toward the gringo crowd and it's a shame. I would have loved to have seen them.

Posted by Glenn at 8:17 PM | Link
|Music|

The Sunday Herald bestows a tepid three-star review upon PJ Harvey's soon-to-be-released album, Uh-Huh Her. "You could view Uh Huh Her as an attempt by Harvey to return to her roots ... The problem is, she hasn't quite dug deep enough."

The NY Post previews My Morning Jacket's visit to Irving Plaza. "When My Morning Jacket played Brownie's four years ago, only four people showed up ... Three albums and about 800 shows later, the band's now headlining two nights at Irving Plaza, where it expects to cram in nearly 1,000 people a night Tuesday and Wednesday."

The Financial Times reviews two music industry-related books: Where Have All the Good Times Gone? The Rise and Fall of the Record Industry, and Bootleg! The Rise and Fall of the Secret Recording Industry.

Billy Childish. John Lydon's love for Van der Graaf Generator. Bo Diddey. The Guardian's Will Hodgkinson chats with producer/DJ Andrew Weatherall.

From down under, there's news on Vines singer Craig Nicholls. He recently kicked a photographer in the face and broke her equipment during a concert. He verbally abused fans at the concert as well, and a national radio network has instituted a ban on all Vines songs. EMI blames his erratic behavior on "illness." Friends says its a sign of stress and exhaustion. Frankly, it would all be much more acceptable if his music actually approached greatness. Even coming remotely close to great would help him out a lot. Great musicians receive more leniency. All other musicians get less.

The San Francisco Chronicle is fascinated with Prince's comeback. Writes David Rubien: "What's most curious about the current resurrection is that it doesn't seem to have anything driving it other than Prince's singular charm. There's been a lot of gush over how the new Prince CD, Musicology, is a grand return to form, but that's hype. When the dust settles in a few months, the disc will be recognized for what it is: a midpack Prince album that's about evenly divided between good and bad tracks. "Musicology" is fascinating in the way that most Prince albums are, weak ones included, because even his failed tunes have ideas."

This has been in the news quite a bit lately. Forbes carried a Reuters article on Clear Channel's attempt to corner the post-concert live CD market. Clear Channel claims they own a patent on the technology to offer the service. Smaller competitors claim the patent does not grant Clear Channel the exclusive right to product concert CDs. Coolfer thinks the little guy is going to get over on the class bully in this case.

Posted by Glenn at 12:16 PM | Link

More thoughts from a total Rhapsody groupie...

Coolfer has found a lot of pleasant surprises (+) on RealRhapsody, and a few drawbacks (-) as well.

+ There's an exclusive version of the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots with commentary by Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd. The comments that precede each song offer both insight and comedy. One of my favorite lines is when Wayne gives his description of the song "One More Robot": "It's a Lionel Richie song about a robot with a bunch of synthesizers on top of it."

+ Unbelievably, Rhapsody has the Flaming Lips' 4-CD Zaireeka. The problem is that you'd need four computers to properly enjoy it. Still, it was nice to see Zaireeka on Rhapsody.

+ I've enjoyed a lot of expanded editions that I've never shelled out money to add to the collection. I'm still listening to my old version of Love's Forever Changes, for example. Rhapsody has the remastered, expanded version.

+ Box sets rule. Phil Spector's Back To Mono. Sam Cooke's excellent Portrait of a Legend. The Velvet Underground's Bootleg Series Vol. 1 - The Quine Tapes (which may not be a box set, but it's got three CDs and I never bought it because of the poor reviews I read.) Miles Davis' The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings. Guided By Voices' Hardcore UFOs. Yeah, they're all here.

+ There was never a chance that I was going to buy Avril Lavigne's new album, so I listened to most of it via Rhapsody last night. Conclusion: I wouldn't have liked this when I was 12, so there's no chance I'm going to like it now. Not that is sucks, but it's certainly not my cup of mate.

- No Beatles catalog. Not a surprise, since Apple is notoriously stingy about the Beatles' library of music.

- Not a single Radiohead song.

- No Husker Du songs. A canned explanation is given: "Although we are working very hard to provide the world's biggest and best catalog of legally available digital music, some labels and artists simply have not made their music available to us at this time. This means that there is some music that we just can't legally offer. It's not our place to judge whether this is right or wrong, only to comply with the wishes of the artists who created the music and the labels and publishing companies that generally own the rights to it." There are a few Bob Mould albums, though no albums by his power trio, Sugar.

- Too many indies are not taking part. For ever Sub Pop or Barsuk album that is available, there's an Arts & Crafts or Domino album that's not available. And all the great world and dance music that is available predominantly through indies. For those genres to be well represented on Internet music services, indies need to be more particpative.

- Album reviews, which have some content provided in part by Muze, are pretty meager. As soon as Rhapsody creates or licenses better commentary, the service will become even better.

Posted by Glenn at 11:21 PM | Link | Comment (3)
|Digital Music|

Mario Monti, often called Super Mario for his penchant to take on huge corporations and win, will soon retire as the antitrust enforcer of the European Commission. His last act, reports the NY Times, will probably be either an approval or a rejection of the propsed merger between the music divisions of Bertelsmann and Sony.

Sony, says writer Andrew Ross Sorkin, is privately confident they can win approval. Why does Sony think it's in the bag, especially after Super Mario has killed so many planned mergers? "The companies contend that the merger is necessary, what with the music industry being pummeled by piracy and peer-to-peer file sharing."

Coolfer will be one of the first to say the global music market is still in the midst of tough times. But is a merger like this necessary for survival? I'm skeptical. First of all, the industry is rebounding (good in the UK, good in the States, but terrible in France). If sales were still sharply declining the duo's argument would hold more water. Second, the resulting loss of employees and artists may be the wrong approach. A better option could be to recognize the fractuous nature of the music market and use a larger roster to capitalize on it. Cutting the artist roster and narrowing the focus--i.e. putting the same amount of eggs in fewer baskets--doesn't make sense when sales are increasing. Further, this is a perfect time for labels to embrace new technologies and new ideas. Digital music represents a great deal of potential, enough to ease any pressures to merge.

Besides, the major labels' history of apparant collusion may be enough to induce rejection. Monti may point to the FTC's 2001 decision on the majors' Minimum Advertised Price policies as an undesireable byproduct of market power. In light of that, he may not want to allow two major players to combine powers.

Posted by Glenn at 9:04 PM | Link
|Music Industry|

I noticed AllMusic already has a four-star rating posted for the Fiery Furnaces' upcoming album, Blueberry Boat. It's not out until July 13th.

Hey, readers in Seattle (because I know there are so many of you), the Furnaces play the Croc tomorrow night. Get there.

Posted by Glenn at 1:35 PM | Link
|Music|

Since Whatevs.org is down for the count, I've taken it upon myself to post a picture of the crush-worthy Jem. Somebody's gotta help fill the need for pictures of good looking women, right?

Jem's new album, Finally Woken, sounds really good. You can listen to streams at the music page at her website.

Quotes on her album:

USA Today: "Breezily folding hip-hop and electronic textures into spare, sinuous arrangements ... They and Wish I suggest why Jem's admirers already include the likes of Madonna and Dave Matthews."

Urb: "Jem's lilting harmonized vocals shine their way into breathless pop bliss. The perfect companion to a lazy summer sipping mojitos on the bay."

The NY Times: "...surrounded by myriad beats, hooks and grooves songs like the effervescent 'Just a Ride' and the pleading 'Save Me' bounce along with a pop sensibility that could just make Jem's full-length album Finally Woken the surprise of the year."

Posted by Glenn at 12:07 PM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music|

I've been spinning some old albums for the first time in a long, long while; the final bits of my music collection is being mailed to me after over three years spent boxed up in a closet in California.

Revisiting these albums has brought two realizations:

(1) A lot of albums have aged well. I'm listening to Pavement's Wowee Zowee right now. Sounds better than ever. Earlier today I was floored by how well Orbital's debut album has held up over the years. So many dance albums come off as dated as new technologies appear and trends change. Orbital stills sounds fresh. A few days ago I threw on Ministry's The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste. Amazing!

(2) CDs mastered in the late '80s and early '90s sound like garbage. I had to crank the volume knob when I put on the Pretenders' The Singles CD. Same goes for the Ministry CD. The output levels are really low and the albums sound just plain dull. A lot of albums are being remastered these days (Weezer's debut, for example) so I guess that means I'll end up replacing some of these old CDs with the newer, slicker versions. It's especially a problem in this era of the mix CD and playlist. Have you noticed how annoying it is when one song has a certain output level and the following song has an output level that's much higher or much lower?

Posted by Glenn at 11:30 AM | Link | Comment (10)
|Music|

Portable Media Center has too many syllables, but what else does one call something that plays both audio and video files, has an interchangeable lithium battery and a microphone input? iRiver calls it the PMP-120, though Coolfer thinks they should come up with something more clever, like the PiMP.

Will this be an iPod killer? Probably not, but it looks like a great player. It supports MP3, WMA and WAV files. And Coolfer likes the microphone input which which will record straight to MP3 or WMA. I used to have a Sony MiniDisc player/recorder that I used for recording found sounds...but dealing with Sony's software when uploading to my PC was the world's biggest hassle. Going straight to MP3 would be an improvement.

And, incredibly enough, the PiMP isn't horrifically ugly like most music players. As long as the competition is as attractive as the supporting cast in a John Waters movie, the sexy and sleek iPod can get by with battery issues and a lack of a color display. But the PiMP has style, and that goes a long way.

(Link via Engadget)

Posted by Glenn at 10:54 AM | Link | Comment (1)
|Digital Music|

Aging hippie and celebrity sperm donor David Crosby told the New York Daily News that "the people who run record companies now wouldn't know a song if it flew up their nose and died." (And this coming from a guy who's had a lot of things go up his nose.) I love it when the older generation tells the younger generation that music today is nothing but vacuous one-hit wonders. Yeah? Then explain the Starland Vocal Band.

An FMQB article on Avril Lavigne referred to her as a "punk princess." I guess it's now official: "Punk" has been watered down to a totally worthless and empty term. Everything is punk. My keyboard is punk. This ball-point pen next to me is so punk. The bagel I had for breakfast was so punk. My office building's super is punk. This paper cup is so very punk. The water inside the paper cup is incredibly punk.

Hits reports that Third Eye Blind has not been dropped from Elektra, contrary to what the LA Times reported. Can you believe Third Eye Blind has been mentioned twice at Coolfer? What a waste of bandwidth, huh?

Billboard.biz reports that Sony Music is getting in bed with Audible Magic. "Sony will electronically register its new music with Audible Magic's CopySense, a technology that can recognize and block unauthorized downloads of copyrighted songs on P2P networks." Whatever.

I was thinking the other day, as I read yet another gushing Loretta Lynn album review in a publication that would have never, ever printed a Loretta Lynn review had Jack White not been involved...how the heck does the participation of Jack White get so many people listening to Loretta Lynn? If Jack White told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? Not to equate Loretta and a nosedive off the Golden Gate, but what gives with the power White commands over so many people? I could probably walk through any college campus and hear, "Yeah, but it's not as good as Don't Come Home a Drinkin'" as if they're longtime hardcore or something, but it's all because of White.

Posted by Glenn at 8:14 AM | Link | Comment (7)

There's a new Icon Magazine, this one, according to the website, "an online publication as well as a music community and search engine/directory that helps to network, promote, and educate unsigned/independent artists/bands."

Doesn't look like this particular Icon is up and running yet. We'll have to revisit in the future.

Years ago Coolfer subscribed to Icon, which was a bi-monthly magazine that covered interesting subjects and topics with lengthy, often fascinating articles. It went belly up just as FHM-styled, four-paragraph articles took over the magazine scene. Without doubt, Icon was the best magazine I've ever read.

(Link via mi2n.com)

Posted by Glenn at 5:30 PM | Link
|Music Industry|

FOC Steven tipped me off to a PJ Harvey show at the Knitting Factory in NYC this coming Wednesday. Tickets went on sale at noon today. By 1:50pm, when I got the email...all gone. If you're going, please let me know how it was.

Nothing on Ebay. Craigs List's ticket section already has three pleas for tickets.

Posted by Glenn at 2:05 PM | Link | Comment (3)
|Music Industry|

Koch Entertainment, not satisfied with releasing a William Hung album, and not content with letting the majors grab all the really cheesy projects, is going to release the soundtrack for the WB's latest reality show, Superstar USA.

Though probably stated with a forced smile, Koch GM and executive VP Alan Grunblatt had this to say: "This show is incredibly funny. The reality format is what's happening in TV, and it's a logical next step for us to focus on this genre. It's real people singing real music."

And it just gets better: the Superstar USA soundtrack will be a two-CD package, a.k.a. more crap for your buck.

Read the press release at mi2n.com.

Posted by Glenn at 10:48 AM | Link | Comment (4)
|Music Industry|

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Michele Ballantyne, ex-general counsel to Senator Tom Daschle and a fomer special counselor to the Clinton White House cheif of staff John Podesta (from 2000 to 2001), is the RIAA's new senior vice president for government and industry regulations.

Mitch Bainwol, current head of the RIAA, is a former staffer to Senate majority leader Bill Frist.

Bainwol is a Republican (judging from his tenure with Frist as well as his $2,000 donation to George Bush) and Ballantyne, I'm guessing, is a Democrat. So the RIAA is really covering all the bases. If they can fill a remaining SVP slot with a former Nader campaign staffer, they'll have hit for the cycle.

Posted by Glenn at 10:27 AM | Link
|Music Industry|

Coolfer missed it the other night, but WPS1.org has archived its preview of Sonic Youth's upcoming album, Sonic Nurse. The show airs at 10pm and will run each night through Monday. To listen, go the the WPS1 website, click on "Today's Schedule" and then click on the show that airs at 10pm, The Larry Rivers Memorial Music Hour #1.

My opinion? I haven't been able to sit through the entire stream, but what I've heard sounds great.

Posted by Glenn at 9:56 PM | Link
|Music|

In case you care, here's some statistical nerdery on Coolfer visitors:

- 71.8% are running Windows, 19.8% are on Mac, 0.4% are running on Linux and 7.8% is unknown.

- 65.2% use MS Internet Explorer, 10.8% use Safari, 10.8% use Mozilla (which is what Coolfer uses at home), 1.8% use Netscape, 1% use Firebird and I'll skip those that don't even account for 1%.

- Popular search phrases include "riff random photos" (2.4%), "ipod market share" (1.3%) and the crush-worthy "eleanor friedberger" (1.0%).

Posted by Glenn at 9:08 PM | Link | Comment (5)
|Coolfer|

Coolfer was off. Way off. Last week I predicted Morrissey's You Are The Quarry would scan 34,000 units in its first week out. The grand total? 56,000 and change, which puts him at #11 on the album chart. The aging, sideburned hipster crowd impressed Coolfer with their purchasing power and punctuality. Now I'll make another prediction and we'll see how I fare: You Are The Quarry will see a 45% drop in sales, which will put it at roughly 31,000 next week. I'd like to say he'll have a larger drop, but there's a lot of press just hitting now and I think it'll have an impact.

Morrissey got rocked, though, by another Mori-something, Alanis Morissette. Her new album, So-Called Chaos, came in at #4 with 114,000 in sales. And there were a lot of other debuts on the charts. Method Man came in at #2, New Found Glory at #3, Montgomery Gentry at #10, Lenny Kravitz at #14 and George Michael at #29 (not very impressive, frankly).

Continuing the trend of greatest hits albums by really old people, George Thorogood's Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock comp debuted at #55. Coolfer flipped by him performing on Bob Costas' HBO show. It goes to show you, never underestimate the power of Bob Costas. I hear Bob is planning on booking Johnny Winter, David Lee Roth and Lita Ford in the coming months.

Posted by Glenn at 10:50 AM | Link | Comment (5)
|Music Industry|

Frontline will air a documentary on the music industry called "The Way Music Died" on Thursday. Reuters has a review of the show. Should be interesting, but the reviewer felt it doesn't live up to Frontline standards. Producer-director-writer Michael Kirk reports on the music industry's issues in part by following the debut albums of Sarah Hudson and Velvet Revolver. The result is that "the anecdotes he gleans from their stories don't begin to compensate for the overall lack of perspective and analysis, usually the hallmarks of 'Frontline' documentaries."

Upon seeing that the NY Times had a review of a Madonna concert, I had a bad feeling that it was going to over-analyze in the kind of way that upper division English courses tend to give to much credit to often banal writing. But Kalefa Sanneh wrote a great piece. Unlike his glorification of Courtney Love's most recent NYC show, the Madonna review doesn't romanticize when it should criticize.

Who's next? Who will gain thousands of new jam-loving gypsies, that deadicated cottage industry of muffin bakers, henna artists and tie-dye T-shirt creators? Who's next now that Phish has announced that it's breaking up? String Cheese Incidnet? (Now, Phish, don't quit and then decide you really miss it and start up with the reunion tours. Make it final.)

Pixies overload continues. I'd guess it's because the song was featured in the movie Fight Club--NME readers' favorite Pixies song is "Where Is My Mind?"

Hits Magazine gives some A&R dirt on a band from New Orleans called World Leader Pretend. Seems that some label and publishing folks have made the flight down south to catch the band. What do they sound like? Wish I could find a website. One album review compared the band to Mission of Burma and Flaming Lips, and believe it or not pulled the ol' "ethereal" description out of the bag of overused review words. Another album review compared them to Pearl Jam, a band that sounds nothing like Mission of Burma or Flaming Lips. (Come to think of it, Mission of Burma and Flaming Lips have next to nothing in common, not even in 1988.)

Posted by Glenn at 10:53 PM | Link

Coolfer headed over the Summerstage.org to check out the schedule of events for Central Park's Summerstage. Lots of good things on tap. Among the free concerts are:

June 18th: Newport Jazz Festival
July 1st: Women of Africa featuring Souad Massi and Maria de Barros
July 31st: Iceland Naturally
August 4th: Omar Faruk Tekbelik & Ensemble
August 1st: Papo Lucca y La Sonora Poncena w/Bio Ritmo

To donate, go to Summerstage's Become a Member page. Donations are tax-deductable and will help support free performances at Central Park.

If you'd like to be a Summerstage volunteer, go to the Volunteer! page at the Summerstage website. They're always in need of people to solicit donations, distribute brochures and do crowd control.

Posted by Glenn at 10:14 AM | Link | Comment (2)
|New York City|

For the Clear Channel-weary, Internet radio is an oasis of freestyle programming and unheard voices. Today's NY Times has an article on WPS1.org, the new Internet radio station of New York's PS1 Contemporary Arts Center. (According to the article, Bloomberg L.P. gave the station a three-year grant of just under $1 million.) Producer Elliot Sharp is the Curator of Contemporary Music.

Said program director Linda Yablonsky, "It's like a bunch of artists and musicians and writers took over a media outlet."

Listen in at 5pm today for "Collector's Forum," in which host Althea Viafora-Kress talks to Ben Heller about "what's it like to live with a Pollock and a Rothko or two." Then at 7pm, "Sonorama" features the music of the Indonesia island of Roti.

Better yet, tune in at 10pm for "The Larry Rivers Memorial Music Hour" and an exclusive preview of Sonic Youth's upcoming album, Sonic Nurse.

Posted by Glenn at 9:41 AM | Link
|New York City|