Cecil wrote:
> In case you’re wondering, vinyl singles are > still issued, although in greatly reduced > quantities, mainly
> for the benefit of jukebox operators, > record collectors, and indie music fans.
Actually, I understand that vinyl singles are still quite common in Britain. Am I right?
No.
Being from the ‘Vynal’ years myself, I fondly recall the 45’s when they sold for 95 cents each at the local music store – when one could buy an album for $5 or $6 dollars. Having looked a bit into the CD industry, I figure that it would be easy for them to produce singles, but they currently choose not to. I found that the current CD’s are produced at pennies apiece and are DELIBERATELY sold at a price as high as the market will tolerate. The current opinion of the recording industry to this practice is ‘why not’ and it was alluded to that until the public wised up and refused to pay such high prices, the practice would continue. Selling CD singles at $1.00 each MIGHT undermine the industries current massive profit base as people discover they do not need to pay $14 to $20 for the ONE song they like.
Mark
Mark, me ould mucker, EVERYTHING is deliberately sold at as high a price as the market will tolerate. That’s Capitalism.
ben
That “pennies apiece” is the cost of mass-producing the CD after it’s been mastered.
Compusers, lyricists, arrangers, musicians, producers, cover artists, etc., have this weird idea that they should be paid.
So, oddly enough, do the truckers who deliver to the warehouses, the other truckers who deliver to the stores, the loading-dock workers, and the store clerks.
I guess, like the song says, “We’re living in Strange Times.”
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Especially the dock workers. Cheap bastards.
Sorry. Pet peeve.
Being behind the times (I didn’t get a CD until 2 years ago), did CDs ever come down in price? Seems to me they have been pretty stable over the years. Most things like VCRs etc fall dramatically.
Granted, the CD industry has all of those other people to pay, but the various articles I read pointed out that the manufacturers still make an enormous profit for every one they sell. They COULD make singles, but choose not to because then their profit a slightly less. Even at $8.00 a CD, their profit picture is still quite good, considering the mount of CD’s which are sold. The recording industry initially used the ploy that since CD’s were new technology, that it cost so much more to make them and that they had to be more costly at the consumer level to recoup the expense. That turned out to be bunk.
Mark