We here at Idolator poke enough fun at the major labels’ and retailers’ ham-handed approach to selling music in the digital age (and deservedly). But it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for them sometimes. Case in point: the 2007 edition of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention–i.e., the annual confab of music-store operators, and the companies that love, service, and cling to them for dear life.
As you can imagine, the reports coming back from this year’s NARM in Chicago are a bit like a wake where everybody’s cheering each other up talking about what a full life the deceased had. According to HITS, NARM President Jim Donio tried to buck up the troops by “touting the fact that the convention had managed to maintain the same attendance from last year, posting some 1,200 people [despite] the loss of Tower, Musicland and Capitol Records.” The kind interpretation: it is impressive that so many people in the industry are still standing. The cynical interpretation: where else are these folks gonna go?
What really makes our hearts bleed–well, a little–for these guys is, they really have no idea how to fix the business model, and for once, they’re desperate enough to actually try. (We also feel naturally more sympathetic to the guys who sell the shiny discs, than the guys who make and manufacture the shiny discs–and still think they should cost nearly 20 bucks.) Then again, these are the people who brought you that campaign encouraging you to buy Paranoid again–and they’re proud of it:
[NARM Board Chairman] Sue Peterson…spoke of the value of the Definitive 200 list that NARM promoted this year in an alliance with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and congratulated UMGD’s Jim Urie for coming up with the idea. She called it the most compelling NARM-backed campaign since the “Give the Gift of Music” campaign of the ’80s.
Today’s program consisted of the findings from a consumer survey about music that was, reportedly, about as enlightening as the Krusty the Klown Show‘s focus group on Itchy and Scratchy. HITS aptly summed up the results with, “The folks from [industry consultants] NPD still insist people like music, though they can’t tell us why they’re not buying more of it.” According to the study, people still, y’know, like music. They–still–prefer CDs to digital downloads. They still learn about music from the radio. They tend to buy new discs when they’re easy to find in the store.
Also, this just in: they perceive water as “wet” and “drinkable,” and when they leave a record store, they prefer to carry their purchases in bags, rather than a pouch made from skinned goat udder.
NARM Day One [HITS]
NARM Special: NPD Survey Claims Music Still Desirable [HITS]
Dammit Bob! I’m drinking coffeee here. I know you couldn’t forsee the danger when you wrote this last night, but you can’t just drop funny bombs like that, all willy-nilly.
You know things aren’t going well when they are referencing the last time they were successful – the 80s.