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BESIDES Luddites and hipsters? (I’m borrowing here from the stage patter of the young folk duo the Milk Carton Kids.) Turns out, Japanese people still buy CDs. A country famous for loving technology and novelty are moving into the future by acting like it’s the past. From a New York Times story:
Japan may be one of the world’s perennial early adopters of new technologies, but its continuing attachment to the CD puts it sharply at odds with the rest of the global music industry. While CD sales are falling worldwide, including in Japan, they still account for about 85 percent of sales here, compared with as little as 20 percent in some countries, like Sweden, where online streaming is dominant.
And amazingly, as a tribute to the collector/High Fidelity culture that still exists in Japan:
Tower Records closed its 89 American outlets in 2006, but the Japanese branch of the chain — controlled by NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest phone carrier — still has 85 outlets, doing $500 million in business a year.
For musicians — who make substantially more money from CD and vinyl sales of their work than downloads or streams — this is good news. But the larger trends continue to be worrisome.
In the United States, digital sales have long since overtaken physical ones. But CDs still account for 41 percent of the $15 billion recorded music market worldwide, and, in addition to Japan, some big markets like Germany remain reliant on CD sales. That attachment worries some analysts, who contend that if those countries do not embrace online music, an inevitable decline in CD sales will further damage the industry.
Update: Some data just came out — I don’t know how to link to it — showing that people over 35 buy a lot of CDs and downloads, despite the music industry gearing itself as it has for decades, to teenagers.
Keigo Oyamada and Ryuichi Sakamoto
I don’t have numbers, but I gather that classical listeners still buy CDs at a higher rate than the general public.
I expect that’s true, but even at that higher rate, the numbers are negligible, hence the press/media’s decision to mostly ignore this stuff. Some researchers I know think the numbers are better than we hear, since many classical CDs sold at concerts, churches and other places that don’t report their sales.
It’s not just classical music, folk music and foreign language music often benefit from the liner notes that come with CDs.
I love liner notes!
I still buy about 12 CD’s each month. I hate vinyl & cassettes, mp3 & iTunes. I use streaming to listen what to expect on CD. SACD & DVD-A sounds great too, Vinyl sucks it’s a jar of audio technical compromises a priori vinyl junkies never talk about let alone hear.
I still have some cd’s and my biggest problem is that they get scratched from putting them in players that have collected dust over time and this seems to be the culprit for the scratches. I don’t buy many because of this, Any suggestions would be helpful. Ted