The music business is experiencing a recession where record sales are reaching all-time lows. All record companies have in the last few years experienced a considerable decrease in sales. Finding the cause or causes of this has naturally become a major concern for all of them. Some blame the recession in the West in general, but that can hardly explain why one industry is losing out so much more than others. Music today is less from the heart than it used to be only ten years ago. It is mostly a purely commercial product to be used up and thrown away. A lot of modern music has a short but intense life span. People are not prepared to pay as much for a 'disposable' product as they are for a 'reusable'. The hit song of the week is fed to us all through radio and TV so intensely that we need not buy the record. And when it is no longer broadcasted no one remembers it.
Attempts to change this and promote more quality, depth and originality in music have not been very successful. The whole entertainment business is ruled by trends and, quality seems to have gone out of style To simply lower the price of a CD is a commonly suggested solution, naturally advocated by the buyers. But no business favors such a remedy. Not only since it reduces their income but also because it sends out the wrong signals to people. It gives the impression that the product is worth less and that the customers have been charged too much before. And if the price can drop by ten per cent this year people might expect it to drop another ten per cent next year.
A better settlement could be enhancing the product and giving people more for their money. Thanks to modern technology there can be so much more included on a CD than just music. A computer with a CD-ROM drive, which is becoming quite common, allows us to read several different kinds of information off a CD. A short interview with the artist or 'behind the scenes' features can be included as so called...