The music industry likes to commit suicide

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«Vinyl has stagnated at figures similar to those of CDs»


The omens and the bad decisions of the industry augur a fatal (and very close) future for vinyl; very similar to the history and decline the cede witnessed years ago. Today, Julio Valdeón, regarding the study by Ted Gioia on the market figures in the United States, delves into it.

A section of JULIO VALDEÓN.

Is it possible to split your skull twice with the same stone? In the world of music, yes. Not two, but half a dozen. With all of you, a business specialized in conspiring against itself. Similar to a poker player winking at his rivals or a shipwrecked man delighted to slap his life jacket out of the way. After the piracy crisis and the debacle of the CD, largely self-generated, comes the (second) destruction of vinyl… while the devastation of the CD continues.

Read the latest article by Ted Gioia: In the United States, the sale of vinyl has gone from a growth of 95% in 2021, to a miserable 4% in 2022. A catastrophe that would be even more devastating if Taylor Swift, whom I am going to start listening to even out of gratitude as a physical format addict, does not get to publish midnights.

To take in the magnitude of the clumsiness, the industry’s long-standing facility for blowing its brains out, the caliber of its greed, and its zero interest in the future, think of its reluctance to invest in pressing plants, from which the strangulation stems. unavoidable from the offer. Add in some obscene prices, up to forty euros for a record!, when, to top it all off, on many occasions the cost of the product is negligible, as they are works conceived and recorded, paid for and amortized decades ago. Add the zero interest in investing in technological advances and, finally, the fact that a decade after the start of the boom On vinyl, many titles have not yet been reissued, with the catalog devoted to reissues of the most obvious works. Result? Well, the vinyl has stagnated in figures similar to those of the cedé.

This from Gioia: «The music industry took its fastest growing segment and killed it through greed and laziness. If they had followed the standard playbook, they could have brought vinyl back as a mass market option. They could have easily convinced forty or fifty million consumers to buy a dozen vinyl albums a year, creating a total market more than ten times the size of today’s. In that kind of world, musicians would benefit. Record stores would thrive. Fan loyalty would increase. And the record labels would have more money for themselves and a legitimate way to make money that wasn’t dependent on Silicon Valley technocrats and hostile platforms.” Of course, they didn’t do anything remotely similar.

And I, who have defended the record companies so much, convinced that they will be sons of bitches, but they are our sons of bitches, that a petty record company is better than a rustler in front of a platform of streamingthe truth, I have drained the catalog of disappointments and the reserves of insults to the bottom.

Previous delivery of combustions: The Beach Boys say goodbye to you.

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The music industry likes to commit suicide