Is music too expensive?

Personally, i prefer to buy the CD's, but i tend to shop around or wait until the price has fallen. Not keen on illegal download's myself but point blank refuse to even watch a pirate film. Illegal copies can often sound a bit poor, and i like the sound generally of a properly mastered original, IMO.

I seen an interview on BBC last week with one of the blokes from Radiohead, can't remember which one it's not my thing! He was basically being asked what you've asked in this post. He said he could understand people doing illegal downloads and file sharing and didn't mind it being done unless it was done to make profit. He went on to compare file sharing to himself taping the top 40 off radio ones charts! Thought that was just me as a kid!

Anyway music is too expensive. Same with DVD's, although they do seem to have dropped a bit recently. How much do these CD's and DVD's cost to make? pennies I'm guessing? I think if the people releasing these things charge way over the odds they deserve it to lose a few quid until they start pricing them more reasonably. Their own greed will lead to their own downfall if they don't sort themselves out.

Its too easy to find expensive music and too hard to find cheap music.

I am very lucky as not far from me are some cracking second hand record shops and the cheap retailer Fopp. The best bargain by far is Spotify. I spent £99 on a years subscription. I now have 19 albums in my best of list, which I would have bought otherwise. That is just over £5 an album. I still have another 9 months to go, so by then I am sure I will be down to only £2-3 an album. Then there are the 200 odd tracks on my various playlists. But Spotify has gone back to invite only.

The likes of HMV and itunes have lost me as a customer, but that is only because I have access to cheap music that I know others do not.

Spotify makes music cheap for the consumer, and is a work of art. If there were a Nobel Prize for services to the music consumer, Daniel Ek would be first up in my book. But when Steve Vai was asked recently what he thought about it, he said "sounds like a way of paying artists nothing", so don't know if it'll ever be universally accepted by musicians. What is it Spotify pay - a penny a play or something?

However, to answer the question - yes, music is too expensive. Having worked in the industry, I've seen how the money gets spread around, and if the artists all took it upon themselves to make it themselves, publish it themselves, and sell it themselves - all of which are perfectly feasible nowadays - it could be cheaper for us and more lucrative for them.

I say 'could' because the advantage of a record or publishing company is that they have Exploitation Managers (yes, really) whose job it is to make as much money from their material (for themselves and the artist) as humanly possible. Whether that would happen if the artists took back control is doubtful (and Now That's What I call Music 97 would probably never happen).

agree lots of people exploit it but surely a lot of music is priceless

like beethonevs violin concerto or g&rs welcome to the jungle for example 

I feel cds are too expensive and here's why:

-cds have been around for decades, still the prices stay roughly the same for new releases

-the cds recording quality is variable

-usually I find that only a small part of the cds content is worth playing more than once

The solution? I for one would buy more cds if there would be a reliable quality standard (like THX for dvds) and the price would be around 10 euros per cd.Furthermore, I would really like to see some higher quality files 24 bit 96 khz becoming available at reasonable prices.

Summarising, I really feel the high asking price is a major obstacle. Paying per song and freedom to choose the bitrate quality is the way forward IMO.

JohnDuncan:

...... But when Steve Vai was asked recently what he thought about it, he said "sounds like a way of paying artists nothing"............... What is it Spotify pay - a penny a play or something?

Hummmm. Spotified Steve Vai and he has a lot of albums there, with a reasonable hit rate going by the bars by each track. Maybe for him Spotify will never be a major income stream. I suspect for other less well known, but now accessible artists it could well become their main income stream. I assume that Spotify have a record of what is played and income is derived from that.

Oh they have to, yeah.

I never thought to look for him on there actually. Most artists have no control over what happens to their music - that's what publishing and record deals are all about (generalising) - so I was surprised to see his first album Flex-Able on there (which he said he released himself), if he doesn't know what it is. Steve?

Regardless of how much bigger the US's consumer base is compared to the UK, I can't understand why CD's can't be the same price over here. The artists still get a cut. The record companies still get a cut. And the consumer gets what he wants. Everyone wins. If people can't afford CD's, they're going to get copies from friends or download it for free from some file sharing site, then everyone loses out, except the consumer!

I'll happily pay £5-7 for a CD I really want, and £3-4 for a CD based on hearing one track, but what I'm not going to do is pay £15-20 for a CD when I've only heard one track. I now have Sonos, so hopefully my life will be made a little easier, and cheaper. Just a year or so ago, I was looking in HMV (even though I buy most of my music online as it's cheaper than in store) to see how much a particular Jane's Addiction CD was, purely based on hearing one track (Just Because). I found it in HMV in Birmingham. £16.99!! Am I going to shell out almost £20 on the merit of one track? No I'm bloody not!

Record companies need to realise they're not in the driving seat any more. Then again, while muppets are still buying top whack from the likes of HMV, it validates their reasoning.

FrankHarveyHiFi:

Am I going to shell out almost £20 on the merit of one track? No I'm bloody not!

I've got 17 spotify invites if anyone needs one.

I've used spotify / pitchfork / metacritic / guardian / last.fm and friends etc to decide what to buy on CD, but I've noticed two things.

spotify and lastfm mean I'm listening to much more variety than ever before

I'm buying more music, but tend to spend less than a tenner a CD, with the odd exception.

 I wish this had existed in the 80s when I had days to listen to music... happily my boys seem to like my taste in music,

JohnDuncan:

FrankHarveyHiFi:

Am I going to shell out almost £20 on the merit of one track? No I'm bloody not!

Do you need me to send you a Spotify invite, Frank?

Just waiting for Spotify to come to some agreement with Spotify (I don't use my PC to access music).....I'm finding many albums I like not accessable via Napster! No great hassle because I've already got them, but it just goes a little further to justifying the cost of the Sonos!

FrankHarveyHiFi:

JohnDuncan:

FrankHarveyHiFi:

Am I going to shell out almost £20 on the merit of one track? No I'm bloody not!

Do you need me to send you a Spotify invite, Frank?

It;s David actually

Just waiting for Spotify to come to some agreement with Spotify (I don't use my PC to access music).....I'm finding many albums I like not accessable via Napster! No great hassle because I've already got them, but it just goes a little further to justifying the cost of the Sonos!

Sme here I have a dear friend who insists on bombarding me with "stolen" music and inferior to boot as well as the odd film.

As much as I realise the cost of software in UK being in general higher I send the pirated stuff straight to the bin. Waiting a few months always pays dividends as you rightly say.  I use MP3 to cut out noise on public transport and noisy eaters, but NEVER take it at all seriously...