No Amazon, but "Spring Sale now on at the Serein shop - save up to 40%. All our physical releases have been reduced. Sales are on a first come first served basis - very few copies left."
Amazon is getting cocky or at is at least choosing albums I can live without.
Yeah, I think what those picks tell you is who their customers are. A little older, whiter, interested in 'buzzworthy' alternative/indie bands...Hey wait a minute, those are eMusic's customers!
I've been disappointed they don't offer more jazz picks, which I guess just shows that not all that many people buy it. They do have the new Bill Frisell and a Coltrane this month. (Oh, and a couple of older Robt Glaspers...OK, that's not a terrible selection....)
LOL@ Doofy. I'm 34, but otherwise fit the bill for former eMusic users.
Thanks GP for the $5 suggestions. I liked the samples of the Gotan Project and ISAM is interesting, but might be a little much for my ears today.
I used my $2 credit over the weekend to get Laura Gibson's La Grande that is I think $5 for April. Fine singer song writing and compared to her earlier albums, shes add more back up musicians.
I finally found a record of Amazon deals, and as I suspected, the cost of the daily deal went up in July 2009, when Sony came to eMu. Before that, most were $1.99 with some .99 and some 2.99. For a few months thereafter there were some $1.99 albums, but they were mostly $2.99 and 3.99.
Seen in another place on the Amazon MP3 page: "Get it for $9.99 for a limited time." Doesn't seem long since 7.99-8.99 was generally full price for an Amazon MP3 album. Is it just me and time passing faster with age, or is the cost of MP3 albums rising faster than the cost of living? What's happening here? Have the majors figured out how to get enough leverage with a big enough cross-section of the vendors to jack up the prices? Or have MP3 album sales become so standard that doorbuster price-cutting has no rationale any more? Have the vendors figured out that the population is mainly divided into folk who don't pay for music and folk who were accustomed to paying CD prices and won't mind paying near that level?
I have nothing against incremental price increases over time in principle (at one point I wished that emusic had just charged me a dollar extra per month instead of all that messing around with more credits then less credits etc.), but it does seem to have been rather volatile over the last 12-24 months. And I'm mildly surprised that Google Play does not seem to have made a very concerted effort to be cheap, outside the occasional few sale items. I've seen little there that would compel me to move over to them on price grounds.
I don't think the prices could be related to general price inflation. It does seem that data providers have become less shy about asking for more, and the decreasing number of vendors for physical product (the CD stores) makes it difficult to compare a CD to a download.
I'm curious, GP (and everyone else): how do you feel about artists on Bandcamp who sell average length albums for $9 or more? I recognize that in some cases, the price is a formality: they may expect consumers to go elsewhere to purchase and download the album. However, I tend to find this pricing brazen, since the artists will be getting significantly more from the transaction than they would with any other vendor.
Yeah, the fluctuations and sales and cheaper by the subscription models are just to make it look like it's not price fixing. CDs never should have cost more than $10, and a lossy sound format with no physical component should be cheaper.
The music business has always been like this. Remember when CDs were going to get cheaper? And now with mp3s, the supply issue is completely taken out of the equation. Not that artists and even labels shouldn't get paid, but it is self-evident that there is at least a de facto agreement among labels and retailers to keep prices generally up. They're getting nailed on ebooks, though given the long history of collusion in the music biz, I doubt it will happen there.
@BT, I do think some albums are significantly overpriced on bandcamp and it's not uncommon for me to just navigate away from them on that basis; sometimes it puts me off even streaming them - why would I want to get myself attached to music that I have already decided is beyond what I'm willing to pay? So if I am any guide I am not sure it's a wise strategy on their part.
It tends to get worse as well when things are priced in Euro or GBP - some of those are very expensive for dollar buyers. I have some modicum of sympathy with the artist in that I think in some ways it must be very hard to guess what a proper price should be these days given the volatility of the wider market and given the different meanings of price points in different markets (USD5 and GBP5 might sound about the same in their respective markets, but they are very much not the same for those in the other country); and in the end it's their own storefront and they can charge what they choose. Maybe there are folk who figure if they sell 20 copies at $10 that's as good as selling 40 at $5 - though that would imply a rather mercenary relationship to their art.
In terms of me as a potential customer, it does sometimes leave me feeling that if one has applied some goodwill by seeking out a purchase point through which the artist gets a better share, maximizing the price there too is not playing along.
Glad I'm not the only one wondering about the price hike in these daily deals. I thought bestselling albums on Amazon hovered around $5.99. $9.99 seems very iTunes, even they though will go with $7.99 for a sale or new release.
I bought a few new releases the physical copy was $1 cheaper than the digital version and came with a a $1 MP3 credit. I don't mind getting CDs if it's something I think I might want to keep. I also listen to physical CDs more in my car, but not much elsewhere.
BT I doubt I would buy an album for $9 on Bandcamp. I think it should be $5 or maybe $7. It seems like if you charge too much few will buy the album and rec it to their friends etc.
There are some interesting figures in this article (pertaining to iTunes and spotify). If the market is indeed growing fast, then maybe the current thinking is grab a piece of the pie rather than invest discounts in growing it faster. And maybe what we are seeing on Amazon is the (beginning of the) end of their usual initial practice of grabbing market share by selling at a loss for a while.
ETA, I do think there's a typo in this sentence: "Gracenote, owned by Sony Corp., has a database with descriptions for over 130 songs and album art, plus filmmaker and cast biographies for movies and TV listings." - either that or we should set up as a rival. Or, given that it's Sony, maybe that's the total number of songs they'd like to see in circulation.
There's a bunch of '90's stuff - I'm guessing that matches the google sale - for $3.99. I've seen Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, ummmm Bush...
This whole time of high priced deals they still have had a lot of unlisted deals...
This whole time of high priced deals they still have had a lot of unlisted deals...
All the $3.99 albums are response to Google Play's sales. Amazon seem to have something of a "Most Favored Nation" clause with all the labels and distributors, allowing them to match all sales. However, I think there are limits to how much Amazon can put on sale.
I've been going to Amazon when they price match Google, because the downloader is so freakin' superior, but yesterday I changed that up. Amazon needs to lose some market share to Google so they stop with the ridiculous "deals". Honestly, $5.99 is a deal?
Craig, do you know, can you use the Google downloader just to download? I installed it (I think), but it looked like if I pressed one more button, it was going to start uploading my whole "music collection." (Or maybe you have uploaded your whole music collection...)
amclark2 - I could get behind The Magnetic Fields, but otherwise I also have no interest in the last few. I'm dreading when it is an album I actually want and it's at this price point, though.
Doofy - No idea. I've just been doing the single track download from my library.
Comments
Craig
ISAM is $5 too.
Yeah, I think what those picks tell you is who their customers are. A little older, whiter, interested in 'buzzworthy' alternative/indie bands...Hey wait a minute, those are eMusic's customers!
I've been disappointed they don't offer more jazz picks, which I guess just shows that not all that many people buy it. They do have the new Bill Frisell and a Coltrane this month. (Oh, and a couple of older Robt Glaspers...OK, that's not a terrible selection....)
Thanks GP for the $5 suggestions. I liked the samples of the Gotan Project and ISAM is interesting, but might be a little much for my ears today.
I used my $2 credit over the weekend to get Laura Gibson's La Grande that is I think $5 for April. Fine singer song writing and compared to her earlier albums, shes add more back up musicians.
Today's it Damien Jurado's Maraqopa for $4.99.
6.99
4.99
Remember when the daily deals were usually $1.99?
I have nothing against incremental price increases over time in principle (at one point I wished that emusic had just charged me a dollar extra per month instead of all that messing around with more credits then less credits etc.), but it does seem to have been rather volatile over the last 12-24 months. And I'm mildly surprised that Google Play does not seem to have made a very concerted effort to be cheap, outside the occasional few sale items. I've seen little there that would compel me to move over to them on price grounds.
It tends to get worse as well when things are priced in Euro or GBP - some of those are very expensive for dollar buyers. I have some modicum of sympathy with the artist in that I think in some ways it must be very hard to guess what a proper price should be these days given the volatility of the wider market and given the different meanings of price points in different markets (USD5 and GBP5 might sound about the same in their respective markets, but they are very much not the same for those in the other country); and in the end it's their own storefront and they can charge what they choose. Maybe there are folk who figure if they sell 20 copies at $10 that's as good as selling 40 at $5 - though that would imply a rather mercenary relationship to their art.
In terms of me as a potential customer, it does sometimes leave me feeling that if one has applied some goodwill by seeking out a purchase point through which the artist gets a better share, maximizing the price there too is not playing along.
I bought a few new releases the physical copy was $1 cheaper than the digital version and came with a a $1 MP3 credit. I don't mind getting CDs if it's something I think I might want to keep. I also listen to physical CDs more in my car, but not much elsewhere.
BT I doubt I would buy an album for $9 on Bandcamp. I think it should be $5 or maybe $7. It seems like if you charge too much few will buy the album and rec it to their friends etc.
ETA, I do think there's a typo in this sentence: "Gracenote, owned by Sony Corp., has a database with descriptions for over 130 songs and album art, plus filmmaker and cast biographies for movies and TV listings." - either that or we should set up as a rival. Or, given that it's Sony, maybe that's the total number of songs they'd like to see in circulation.
This whole time of high priced deals they still have had a lot of unlisted deals...
Craig
Doofy - No idea. I've just been doing the single track download from my library.
Craig