For those of us who remember, in the early 80s the music industry claimed that recordable cassettes were going to lead to its downfall. In fact, the new wave band Bow Wow Wow even wrote a song about it. Yet, within the same decade, the music industry unleashed CD technology on us, and it became a booming business. And things were great for a while, but then the music industry noted a drop in Billboard chart action for singles, because everyone was buying full length CDs instead of 45 RPM records since CD sound quality was better and had a longer shelf life. So, the music industry did something that seemed like a great idea—it created the CD single (after the short lived ‘cassingle’, meaning, cassette single). The CD single thrived in the 90s, most often existing as a maxi-single with multiple remixes of a song or the hit song bundled with a load of tracks by the artist unavailable on the full length album or anywhere else.
Soon, the record industry decided that the CD single format was now killing the sales of full length CD s as the full length CDs had done away with 45 RPMs! So as the 90s progressed, the U.S. labels began releasing fewer CD singles, which was a big problem for, in particular, collectors of dance music who wanted their remixes in digital quality instead of on vinyl. However, we collectors quickly realized that import CD singles from overseas were still being released. The sales of these import singles increased as we gobbled them up rather than putting money into our own U.S. labels.
But then the overseas labels began putting restrictions on CD singles, and would not allow a CD single to have the same duration of music as a full length album! So instead of getting one CD single with 60 minutes worth of remixes, the overseas industry played a new money making game with dedicated music buyers. They began releasing ‘maxi singles’ as multiple singles with durations usually under 20 minutes. So in order to get ALL the mixes of a song, you would have to buy two or sometimes even three CD singles at full price!!! And yet, dedicated music collectors shelled out the extra money.
Then, as the 90s ended and the new millennium began, the record labels made another big mistake, particularly in the U.S. It didn’t take consumers long to figure out that if you waited a few months after an album’s release, an import version from overseas would be released with MORE TRACKS than the U.S. pressing, often of American artists!!! So, rather than being ripped off and forced to repurchase a CD, collectors began waiting, passing on the U.S. releases and then buying the imports, thereby decreasing the sales of U.S. CDs.
As if in an effort to reclaim lost sales, the new millennium found U.S. record labels making exclusive deals with EVERYONE: Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, etc. So you might, being a dedicated music collector, run to Best Buy to pick up the new CD by your favorite artist on the day of its release, only to find out a few weeks later (if you were lucky) that the label had struck a deal with, say, Target, to include extra tracks or even a bonus disc of music if you bought the CD at Target! Now you have an open disc from Best Buy that you can’t return, but you are such a fan that you are forced to REBUY the CD at Target.
And soon after followed ANOTHER ‘buy it twice if you’re a true fan’ scam that still exists to this day, even with so few people buying CDs as it is. It’s the “Deluxed Edition” ripoff. Unsuspecting music lovers will, once again, run out day one to buy their favorite artist’s new CD. Then, anywhere from six months to a year later, the same CD will be reissued (usually around the holidays) with several new, previously unreleased tracks on it, implying that a dedicated fan needs to, once again, buy a SECOND copy of the same CD to prove loyalty.
Well guess what, music industry. Enough was enough. As we all know, this decade became tough financially as corporations became more and more greedy, paying their employees shit money to begin with, then laying people off and heaping more work on the remaining employees with the message that they should be ‘happy you have a job.’ Something had to give for consumers, including consumers of music. And that’s why it was such perfect timing when this little program called Napster found its way into the music world and onto the World Wide Web. Although music collectors would so much rather have the real deal—a physical product with liner notes, album cover art and more—it was clear that the music industry had been robbing them for all that they had. Desperate times called for desperate measures. So avid (and extremely jaded) fans began sharing music files, even though doing so meant significantly sacrificing the quality of fidelity necessary to make this music sound the way it is meant to sound.
So, as CD sales plummeted, what did the music industry do? It SUED all the already broke fans it had been stealing from for years, and now makes fans pay for the same inferior sound files of music, minus liner notes, album art, and any physical product. And, at the SAME time, the industry continues to release CDs followed months later by DELUXE EDITIONS.
The buying public did not cause the death of the music industry. The music industry did. It has gotten to the point where even some Top 10 Billboard Hits are not available in hard format, only inferior downloadable files. And at the same time, the music industry seems to think that reissuing classic albums on VINYL is going to inject some excitement and interest back into hard format music.
The file download industry has made music an entirely disposable industry. We the consumers get nothing but an intangible cyber sound bite that can easily be wiped away if our hard drive dies (and they do, often). These files we PAY for are not even really ours, because they come to us with numerous restrictions on what hardware we can play them on.
For the collector—who is, inherently, an historian of popular music—these files mean nothing. There is no solid collection to flip through and cherish, to peruse with an overwhelming sense of pride, now obscure pieces to find with exhilarated joy in a dusty store bin after years of fruitless searching, because inferior file versions can be downloaded by anyone at anytime. The new generation of music fans will never understand what it means to be a music collector. A file will be downloaded on a whim because it is the track of the moment, but once exhausted of its immediate value, replaced, deleted to make space for newer songs or accidentally lost in a computer crash, the loss accepted with an uncaring shrug since the song could easily be redownloaded if ever wanted again. And it is that very feeling of it always being available if needed that will ensure that it is never re-examined, making classic tracks truly a thing of the past.
I could be wrong, but that is my fear. And that is why I still, as much as possible, hunt down a physical copy of any new music that either means something to me personally or makes a temporary but significant impact on pop culture as a whole.
