heystoopid used our news submit to tell us: "A short article appeared in "The Beeb"s" online newspaper, showing the continued decline in sales of the Audio CD album format as we know it. Interestingly, I like the comment about the lacklustre nature of the new releases, and the dearth of popular big multi-national hits that appeal to the masses, is thought to be a major contributor to the overall continuing sales decline of the audio CD album. Further, the following comment sums up the feeling of all music lovers: "Although digital sales are growing, music fans are eschewing the more profitable full-album downloads in favour of cherry-picking a few songs."
In other words, legally purchased downloads of the various recording artists, allows one to avoid the unwanted padded extra dross that normally come with the Audio CD album. Or, is it a comment that some modern new releases are sadly lacking in either talent, imagination or grabbing lyrics, to stir one"s mind? After listening for several hours to a recent MTV top 40 set up background music, sadly, only 1 track in 40 showed any imagination or attention grabbing lyrics, some were very unimaginative formula remixes of old songs!
Oh well, back to listening to "Lale Anderson"s Lili Marlene" or Billy Holiday"s richer releases , I suppose, as the modern releases seem to be locked into a vicious never-ending cycle of uniform sameness!"
At the time when millions were using Napster to illegally download MP3s, before the advent of iTunes and other legal download services, many justified their actions by declaring they were not about to shell out for an entire CD as they were not worth the money. One of the common arguments against purchasing the CD, was only one or at best two decent tracks were on the disc, whilst the rest of the songs were just filler. So, many downloaders were in effect, fighting back for years of a feeling of being ripped off, or at least it probably made it easier on the conscience at the time.
Even though I refuse to this day to purchase tracks from
online services, due to the DRM and the lossy compression, at least it's a huge benefit to the consumer, to be able to purchase just those tracks they want- to "cherry pick". Surely, this is one reason that people have turned to download services. In addition, since a lot of this music is used on portable players, perhaps it can almost be looked upon as ad free, time shifting radio. Not a bad deal really! Plus, in todays society, we want to carry our music around and we want to carry a lot. Downloaded tracks are certainly convenient!
Source: BBC
