When I first had visions of starting my own band, I had no idea what the band would be called. I just knew I didn't want it to be my name. A band's sound reflects the contributions of all its members. Calling us "Susan Wenger and the Disturbed Unicorns" (or whatever) would deny those contributions.
The decision has served Cinder Bridge well. It only becomes inconvenient at events like the Tucson Folk Festival Songwriting Contest, where the songwriters enter under their own names. My hope is that audience members who have never heard of us will like the two songs I play and buy our CD at the festival's Kitchen Store. But our CD will be filed under Cinder Bridge. Oops.
My plan had been to ask the people running the Kitchen Store to file half of our CDs under "Cinder Bridge" and the other half under my name. I'd slap labels on the "Susan" CDs so searchers wouldn't get confused. The Kitchen Store people had a better idea: They'd have a "Susan Wenger" card in the Ws, and on it they'd write "See Cinder Bridge." If they filed our CDs under both the band name and my name, one group might sell out, and people who looked for us under one name wouldn't know to check the other.
Works for me. I'm for anything that tells people to see Cinder Bridge.
Showing posts with label CDs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CDs. Show all posts
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
CDinosaur
I knew it had been a while since I'd set foot in a brick-and-mortar music store, but wow. Here's what I ended up taking home from Zia Records tonight:
At the checkout counter I asked, "Is it me, or have prices gone way down?
The guy ringing me up confirmed that they had. Especially for used CDs.
"The digital download crisis has been going on for so long," I said, "that I figured it would never happen. That the music industry would be in denial forever."
The guy said, "There's a rumor going around that by the end of this year, nobody will even make CDs anymore. Of course, it's only a rumor."
Googling around later, I found an article from Side-Line Music Magazine claiming that except for special limited editions, the CD format will be abandoned by major labels by the end of 2012. They say they can't get official confirmation, but they seem pretty sure it's going to happen.
I dunno. While the demise of the CD is bound to happen eventually, it seems like someone would have announced it if "eventually" were less than a year away.
On the other hand, the timing seems right. CDs at reasonable prices? Can't have that.
- Awolnation, Megalithic Symphony: new, $9.99
- The Lumineers: new, $12.99
- Beatles, Rubber Soul: used, $3.99
- Beatles, The White Album: used, $16.99
- Shawn Colvin, Fat City: used, $2.99
- Shawn Colvin, A Few Small Repairs: used, $2.99
At the checkout counter I asked, "Is it me, or have prices gone way down?
The guy ringing me up confirmed that they had. Especially for used CDs.
"The digital download crisis has been going on for so long," I said, "that I figured it would never happen. That the music industry would be in denial forever."
The guy said, "There's a rumor going around that by the end of this year, nobody will even make CDs anymore. Of course, it's only a rumor."
Googling around later, I found an article from Side-Line Music Magazine claiming that except for special limited editions, the CD format will be abandoned by major labels by the end of 2012. They say they can't get official confirmation, but they seem pretty sure it's going to happen.
I dunno. While the demise of the CD is bound to happen eventually, it seems like someone would have announced it if "eventually" were less than a year away.
On the other hand, the timing seems right. CDs at reasonable prices? Can't have that.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The ABCs of music sales
A few months ago I decided to buy a certain album. It never happened. Either the CD skipped my mind when I was within range of a place to obtain it, or I didn't have time to stop in.
But I've been jonesing for new music after a long stretch of listening to the same tunes on the iPod. So this evening, as I walked past a hip little independent CD store on my way to grocery shopping, I decided to take the plunge.
I made my way to the Ms. Started scanning. And scanning. And scanning.
Ah yes. I'd forgotten.
The hip little independent CD store, like so many other CD stores, doesn't alphabetize its CDs. Or, rather, it does only to a point. All the Ma bands and artists are together, but within Ma it's a total free-for-all.
The result: It took much longer than it should have to discover that this store does not, in fact, carry anything by Barry Manilow.
I have a theory about why filing is so sloppy in these places. The longer customers have to flip through CDs to find what they're looking for, the more likely they'll be to stumble across something else they wanted, but hadn't been thinking about. While looking for Manilow, for instance, I saw the Dave Matthews Band and combed through their stuff for a song I liked.
It's a clever strategy, but one that ought to be retired. Music retailers, please take note ...
#1: There has been a tremendous drop in CD sales over the past 10 years. I don't need to tell you this. If you're managing to survive now, it's largely because so much of your competition has died.
#2: Gen-Xers (and people older than Gen-Xers) like CDs. We like digital downloads too, but we're more likely than Millennials to crave a product we can hold in our hands.
#3: One of the draws of digital music is that it takes no time at all to find what we're looking for. Enter your search term, hit return, and there it is.
#4: Traveling to a brick-and-mortar store, poking around to locate our selections, and then walking back to checkout is already a greater time commitment than we absolutely have to invest. It annoys customers to spend many minutes on top of that, attempting to dig through your inventory, simply because no one could bother to shelve it properly.
#5: Gen-Xers are grown-ups. Have been for quite a while. We've got obligations, responsibilities, places to be. We're going to be even more annoyed than your average high school student (who probably doesn't want your CDs anyway) if we're delayed for no good reason.
The above rant is mostly pointless. In 10 or 20 years, I'll reread this and get all nostalgic about how people were still actually buying CDs. But just for grins and giggles, give my words some thought. Maybe with enhanced alphabetization, you'll be one of the few retailers that survive long enough to occupy the coveted collector's-item niche.
But I've been jonesing for new music after a long stretch of listening to the same tunes on the iPod. So this evening, as I walked past a hip little independent CD store on my way to grocery shopping, I decided to take the plunge.
I made my way to the Ms. Started scanning. And scanning. And scanning.
Ah yes. I'd forgotten.
The hip little independent CD store, like so many other CD stores, doesn't alphabetize its CDs. Or, rather, it does only to a point. All the Ma bands and artists are together, but within Ma it's a total free-for-all.
The result: It took much longer than it should have to discover that this store does not, in fact, carry anything by Barry Manilow.
* * *
I have a theory about why filing is so sloppy in these places. The longer customers have to flip through CDs to find what they're looking for, the more likely they'll be to stumble across something else they wanted, but hadn't been thinking about. While looking for Manilow, for instance, I saw the Dave Matthews Band and combed through their stuff for a song I liked.
It's a clever strategy, but one that ought to be retired. Music retailers, please take note ...
#1: There has been a tremendous drop in CD sales over the past 10 years. I don't need to tell you this. If you're managing to survive now, it's largely because so much of your competition has died.
#2: Gen-Xers (and people older than Gen-Xers) like CDs. We like digital downloads too, but we're more likely than Millennials to crave a product we can hold in our hands.
#3: One of the draws of digital music is that it takes no time at all to find what we're looking for. Enter your search term, hit return, and there it is.
#4: Traveling to a brick-and-mortar store, poking around to locate our selections, and then walking back to checkout is already a greater time commitment than we absolutely have to invest. It annoys customers to spend many minutes on top of that, attempting to dig through your inventory, simply because no one could bother to shelve it properly.
#5: Gen-Xers are grown-ups. Have been for quite a while. We've got obligations, responsibilities, places to be. We're going to be even more annoyed than your average high school student (who probably doesn't want your CDs anyway) if we're delayed for no good reason.
* * *
The above rant is mostly pointless. In 10 or 20 years, I'll reread this and get all nostalgic about how people were still actually buying CDs. But just for grins and giggles, give my words some thought. Maybe with enhanced alphabetization, you'll be one of the few retailers that survive long enough to occupy the coveted collector's-item niche.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Once an album, always an album
Commenting on my last post about whether our music is happy or sad, Leigh said of two of her favorite Cinder Bridge songs:
Second, Leigh is showing her age (mine too), but not for the reasons she thinks.
A friend of mine once told me that half of people under 16 have never bought a CD. A lot of those people will probably never buy a CD. They get all their music online.
So if you insist on associating the word "album" with vinyl, then you may have to call recent releases "MP3s." Except that MP3s are individual songs. You can download them separately, or you can buy a bunch of them together as the collection known as ... wait for it ... the album.
ALBUM ALBUM ALBUM! S'there. Also, get off my lawn!
And yet both are not on the cd (which I initially typed as "album", showing my age :) ). *grumble*OK, first, Leigh should be unashamed of her verbiage. Highways and Hiking Shoes IS an album. An album is simply a collection of musical tracks, released together in a certain order. The White Album by the Beatles is still The White Album. It is not, as one DJ rather appallingly called it, The White CD.
Second, Leigh is showing her age (mine too), but not for the reasons she thinks.
A friend of mine once told me that half of people under 16 have never bought a CD. A lot of those people will probably never buy a CD. They get all their music online.
So if you insist on associating the word "album" with vinyl, then you may have to call recent releases "MP3s." Except that MP3s are individual songs. You can download them separately, or you can buy a bunch of them together as the collection known as ... wait for it ... the album.
ALBUM ALBUM ALBUM! S'there. Also, get off my lawn!
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