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ch-scene - Re: rockcrit takes Beirut CD to thrift store; [our old friend] Ben Goldberg spazzes out

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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: rockcrit takes Beirut CD to thrift store; [our old friend] Ben Goldberg spazzes out
  • Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:13:14 -0400

Hmm. I know there are reasons to want to have the reviews in the magazines on the same day that the CD hits the shelves (shelves? Do people buy CDs anymore?), but around here lately, especially this year, the paradigm seems to have shifted to "release the CD, then wait around a few months before servicing college radio & etc."

So maybe the "answer" such as it is, is to abandon the idea that some privileged subset of tastemakers get advance copies so that they can write about the thing at their leisure. Just release the thing & then anybody who wants to can procure it & write about it in whatever medium they want.

And/or rip it & post it to filesharing networks, but then I assume that happened with the first one, and it still sold X copies.

I mean, is the "rockcrit" any less dead than the "record industry?"

rchrdlln AT gmail.com wrote:
I mean, it sucks to have to watermark your CDs and act like a
corporate record titan, but I'm guessing that the 25K-50K sales
bracket is where it really hurts to put out physical CDs these days -
you have to invest a lot of money to get it out there because your
artist is popular, but if the album leaks you could just have wasted a
ton of money on promotion and manufacturing for physical CDs that
won't sell. It's also likely that Beirut is right in that sales
bracket, exactly in the area of the market where filesharing tanks
record sales - just popular enough to have the torrent get around
everywhere, and primarily popular with college kids who want to have
the album 2 months before release for bragging rights and will be over
it when it actually comes out.

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