Mozart wrote only one , but in recent years, music journalists have written about 80 requiems for the compact disc, mostly in the key of boo-hoo major. from the show that between 2000 and 2005, the number of CDs shipped fell 25 percent to 705.4 million, while their value slipped 20 percent, from $13.
2 billion to $10.5 billion. During , CD sales dropped 14 percent more.
And as Ethan Smith in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) last week, CD sales are down another 20 percent in the first quarter of 2007. On Monday, Jeff Leeds, writing in the New York Times, for the CD, which has been driven into oblivion by consumers' preference for digital singles over albums. Last year, hundreds of music stores closed, among them the of the (subscription required) Tower Records.
Conclusion: The CD is dead!
Except, it's not. Last Sunday, Paul de Barros of the Seattle Times the growth of , a local chain of CD stores that just took over an old Tower Records space.
Meanwhile, savvy new-era businesses are jumping into the CD business. The same day Smith's piece appeared in the Journal, Starbucks its record label would issue its first CD this summer, from Paul McCartney. Earlier this month, Amazon a classical music retail outlet, capitalizing on , which was driven by massive CD sales from the unholy trinity of cheesy, nonclassical classical artists: , , and .
Clearly, it's trickier than ever to make, market, and sell CDs. It's an industry in crisis. But CDs are still a significant business.
All the kids, and many adults, have iPods. But plenty of baby boomers still buy the shiny discs; CDs account for three-quarters of all music sold.
What we are witnessing is not so much the imminent death of CDs but the death of the old methods of selling CDs.
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