Music sales fall, but digital downloads climbed in 2008

If the record labels didn't like the decline of CDs in 2008, I wonder how scared they are to see what 2009 brings!

What killed the "music industry" (as the article says) was the one two punch of MP3 and the a la carte or cherry picking of tunes that they provided from ripped Cds. This is why they sued the heck out of downloaders. It had little to do with piracy, it had to do with losing their precious rip off paradigm. The ultimate horror was to lose the lock they had on the customer with the crappily produced CD. Just crank the volume and man the presses!

The biggest moneymaker they had was the half empty, pressed CD that held one hot track and maybe 11 fillers. You HAD to buy the fillers to get the one track.

Once you could download the track you wanted, instead of gettting screwed by a watered down CD- the bottom fell out.Only one CD was needed and then once a digital copy was on the net, it was all over. The thousandth generation download was as good as the original rip.

Then, with legal music services, even 128kbps DRM loaded 99 cent track, was more attractive than the alternative.

Had the music industry continued to put mostly good tracks on CDs, they would still be selling. They mismanaged the talent, they stifled new talent and went with pop clones, then they had no real talent that could write or produce and they lost it.

They even drop the DRM now as piracy was never the problem. The CD is finished.

It could come back though, if the industry could find new talent and find great producers that could "fill" a CD with great music. Used to be an album had a thread of coherency through it, a message or a feel. Now, I don't know what the heck they even try to slap together. I have not bought a music CD in years and when I do, it is from CD Baby or some independant musician that I heard somewhere. But, I think they can't do it any more, (the labels) they are too far gone.

I guess the record companies could cash in by releasing the stuff that has been out of print for years. They may not sell as much as a new release, but could certainly make some money on selling stuff that has been sitting on the shelves for years.

Besides an overall lull in the talent department, I think the 'industry' got swallowed up in a sea of options. Most people still have finite amounts of disposable income. What's the best use? Music? Dvds? Console games? Not to mention sporting events, concerts, dish, cable and movies. I have satellite radio in my vehicle, more songs than I could ever want... They predicted that GTA 4 would sell 6 million copies it's first week.. when's the last time a CD did that?

Back in the day, music and musicians were helping to define the culture, now they're part of the background noise...

Nicely said Crabby..

Absolutely!! The music companies thought they had us consumers "by the Balls" They shit on us with a "crap" product and arrogrant attitude! Now the table is turned..F#@k em if the can't take a joke! F@#k em if they can..It's Karma

I agree Crabby. The mix of the music industry no longer putting out quality "albums" and focusing on singles was a one-two punch when online sales started, because now people only have to buy the one or two good songs on album, which means they spend 2 dollars instead of 12-14 (I wonder how they count that in their album sales).

The record companies shot themselves in the foot, they'd already gone down the path of one hit wonders when downloading caught on, and have never recovered. Never signing bands that have the ability to make a whole album. The pretty much design their own bands/music and it shows.

Quote Clark_Kent: "Back in the day, music and musicians were helping to define the culture, now they're part of the background noise..."

Truer words were never spoken...perhaps this is something that we should wonder why about?

Well CD's are still handy - for putting your P2P downloads on.... just in case all this hi-tech PC stuff decides to crash one day coz someone switches a kettle on 3 doors away!! And the kind of stuff i like is mostly unavailable after 3 months on the 'shelves' anyway!! you know the old winter chill, cafe del mar stuff - i aint paying 18 quid for a cd on greedbay thank you! Oh by the way i am old enough to remember the 45's you got at the sweet shop for 20P!!!!
Carol...