>>>Madonna's album is expected to have a huge sales drop this week...early projections only have her pulling in 85-90k (down from her nearly 300k this past week). Man, the music industry really is in the pits!
The music industry has only themselves to blame for their current predicament.
Back in the mid to late 90s, it cost about $3 to make a cassette (complete with artwork and case). It took about 25 cents to make a CD. But CDs cost about $5 more than a cassette at the store. Why? Profit. They knew people would pay more for it, so they charged more for it. Over the next several years, they nudged the list price of new CDs up to $19. Most of that just went into the label's pocket. Now, with the advent of mp3 players, CDs aren't as in high demand anymore. But the prices aren't exactly plummeting at the shops.
In addition, labels over the past twenty years have shifted the way they do business. Before, albums would be released as a campaign revolved around it to push it. As such, albums tended to enter the charts somewhere in the middle, and begin to climb. Now, they start the campaign long before the album is available. Most of the energy and resources go into first week sales. After the first week, most of the budget and attention go to the "next big thing", and sales plummet. This was fine back in the 1990s, when tons of people would bounce in their seats waiting for the new N'Sync album to come out. But now, these things get leaked online immediately. They not only can hear the song anytime they want, they can even watch the video (on youtube, or the label's website) anytime they want. There's no longer any motivating reason to rush out and grab the CD. And as such, sales are dying.
Lex
