You know what I’m talking about, things like “Biggest hits of 86” and “Best Hair Metal Ballad” CDs. I still see commercials for them, but the biggest draw for them back in the day was always “You’d have to buy 60 CDs to get all the songs on this CD.” Today, that’s a non-issue. So are they still making money?
Just guessing, but given how poorly current hits are doing, I’d like to think the oldies are doing better. It’s an inaccurate guess, but it’s all I have.
OTOH, Vera Lynn, who is aged 92, is kicking Beatle and Arctic Monkey arse on the British charts. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/15/content_12054646.htm
This series of compilation CDs has been running since 1983 in the UK.
This piece from the Daily Mail (please accept my apologies) underlines the economic benefit of buying compilation CDs whereby as many as 40 songs can be bought for £12 ($20), a sum of money that would allow the purchase of a mere 15 downloads from somewhere like iTunes.
The compilation CD market looks pretty healthy in the light of these figures.
And as for illegal downloading, there are plenty of people who either don’t really know how to do it, or find it too much hassle [edit: or consider it unethical. I always forget about those people ;)]. For them, buying a compilation CD makes sense. Perhaps older people being less au fait with torrents and so forth explains Vera Lynn’s success relative to the Arctic Monkeys. Her beating the Beatles is impressive, though.