Last week, Rob Dickins (former head of Warner Music) radically advised that in order for the music industry to survive in its current model, CD album prices should be slashed to £1 per unit as soon as possible. Speaking at the In The City music conference in Manchester on Thursday 14th October 2010, Dickins claimed that the erosion of unit prices over the past ten years will continue as the record industry dwindles, and that drastic action must be taken. He argues that radically dropping the purchase price of CDs will encourage consumers to buy music much more frequently than at present, and that people will think less about the commitment of purchasing an album and just do it. Dickens additionally claimed that by creating a micro-economy within the album market, the problem of piracy could be at least partially be solved. This micro-economy could keep the record industry quietly ticking over, and artists could make their major profits through live tickets and merchandise, (indeed there is usually a direct correlation between an increase in album sales and an increase in live ticket purchases).
As a music lover, I can categorically say that I would buy many, many more albums if the universal cost price was reduced to £1. Instead of buying one or two albums a month, I would buy ten. If I wanted an album, I would just purchase it, instead of ruminating over whether it was actually worth purchasing. And I think most consumers of music are like this – Rob clearly knows his market, and understands how consumers of music think these days.
Unsurprising though, this clearly intelligent, proactive advice was not well received the vast majority of industry representatives at last week’s conference, and will almost certainly not be heeded. Clearly there will be a huge amount of hostility and resistance to a specific and purposeful drop in the price of albums, mostly because record companies are so embarrassingly stuck in the archaic culture of making millions from album sales, and are continuing to feel very sore from their current situation. As an example of this démodé frame of mind, Jonathan Shalit (an artist manager) stated at In The City that "A piece of music is a valuable form of art. If you want the person to respect it and value it, it's got to cost them…a significant sum of money”. This comment is to me a frustratingly small minded, hypocritical, unworkable and arrogant frame of reference, for the following reasons:
Firstly, a CD is simply a material object containing what is a metaphorical piece of work. The music is entirely autonomous to the CD; it can be replicated by the artist to a live audience or by a fan, by an i-pod or by a car stereo. The CD copy of this music is just a captured example of the organic, base track. Therefore, attempting to value a piece of music in itself is a theoretical quagmire that cannot be easily argued within this context.
Secondly, the price of CDs still does not reflect the amount an artist actually receives for their creative work. When broken down, artists themselves typically get less than 5% of the money acuminated through album sales. Most of the money goes to retailers and the artist’s record label. This monetary arrangement clearly does not respect the true value of the artist, or their work.
Thirdly, if you are going to parallel albums with art, surely the cost price of each CD should be determined by the albums importance and quality in terms of overall artistry and creativity? Should we therefore be finding albums like Sergeant Pepper and Led Zeppelin IV being sold of £20, and Blue’s Greatest Hits for 50p?
Clearly, Shalit’s argument is uninformed, short-sited, and ultimately rather greedy. But it is also, unfortunately still the prevailing attitude from within the record industry. Many artists are now beginning to align with the changing music market, and from Dickins’ speech, some industry bods are finally beginning to wake up too. Unfortunately though, most of the industry continues to refuse to deal proactively with the changing market. Lets just hope they wake up soon to positive, market friendly suggestions like that of Rob Dickins, before the record industry implodes entirely through ineffective market strategy.
See this article at Yoomoot: http://yoomoot.com/articles/could-the-price-of-an-album-really-drop-to-1/
