IDM Mailing Archive

just for info:- After seeing a posting about Novamute I thought it might be relevant to mention that Mute are, in the light of plummeting record sales (as "drop in the ocean" type of examples both Depeche Mode and the most recent PJ Harvey have sold less than half their 'normal' projected sales and this slump is definitely repeated throughout the UK record industry with another friend at BMG confirming their biggest release of the last few weeks, Republica's latest, selling a measly 5000 units after a huge amount of publicity), undertaking cost saving measures - including letting some staff go and sharing their marketing lady with MoWax (or the other way round or whatever). I don't believe these measures will affect the quality or quantity of current releases in particular but this may certainly affect how ready Mute may be to sign new artists... Iain H.

My initial reading of this would be that this is a mixture of things. Firstly and foremostly these sorts of slumps within the record, and many other, industries do happen - fashions change, pop stars change or, perhaps more relevantly, people find other things to spend their money on. In fact, one of the first consumer markets to suffer when the stock market goes 'belly up' would be entertainment, as represented here by the record industry. I would, however, further postulate that the fragmentation of the music market through tiny labels and (I, at least, certainly believe) the changing and mutating tastes throughout the global market that haven't yet been 'caught up' and capitulated upon by the record industry at large. I think music has changed, there has almost been a 'punk' revolution that hasn't been fully realised by a rejection of the old (not something I personally would want to do but I do recognise the need for metamorphosis that doesn't leave behind an unbearable market spread that is difficult for the record industry to exist under). To centralise record sales again into corporations may take a very long time and may not even happen in the way that we have been used to throughout the eighties and nineties so far. Companies such as Amazon may be on the up and up (e.g. even though I'm in the UK, it's still significantly cheaper for me to buy cds from Amazon), but I think if a global summary of expenditure within the record market (both by the public and therefore also by the industry) were to be undertaken it would show an overall decline. Of the money (the huge amounts which *are* still spent) much which a few years previously would have solely been the domain of the multinational will be split many more ways to smaller labels - this is a recognised trend which mirrors a global phenomenon. Mp3's may well be responsible for some of this, perhaps even a good deal more than many people may think, but I don't think they are any sort of direct cause of the overall decline, perhaps more of a symptom... Iain H. -----Original Message----- From: Brian Behlendorf <brian@hyperreal.org> To: Iain Hinchliffe <Iain.Hinchliffe@scoot.co.uk> Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 9:45 PM Subject: Re: (idm) mute/novamute/...

quoted 4 lines On Thu, 15 Oct 1998, Iain Hinchliffe wrote:

>On Thu, 15 Oct 1998, Iain Hinchliffe wrote: >> both Depeche Mode and the most recent PJ Harvey >> have sold less than half their 'normal' projected sales and this slump is >> definitely repeated throughout the UK record industry with another friend

at

quoted 2 lines BMG confirming their biggest release of the last few weeks, Republica's

>> BMG confirming their biggest release of the last few weeks, Republica's >> latest, selling a measly 5000 units after a huge amount of publicity

quoted 4 lines So, given that all these albums are widely available in mp3 format online,

>So, given that all these albums are widely available in mp3 format online, >are we starting to see evidence that, perhaps, the record industry is >partially right and mp3's ARE starting to cut into record sales? Or are >these just extraordinarily bad examples?

quoted 1 line Brian

> Brian