TALK TO ME!!!!!!!

That’s just too many numbers for me to digest, but this is how I feel about album sales. First off, I could give less than a damn about a CD for the most part. Whats the point? I listen to everything on my ipod, and therefore I plan on buying pretty much everything on itunes, or downloading from blogs, ect. If I buy the CD I just wanna look at it, but its all getting dumped to the ipod. This is a new age, if you can’t reach me digitally then dont waste your time even trying. When I say reach me digitally, I want to feel apart of what led up to your album, its about a total experience now. I want to see you in the studio, hit you on twitter, be the first to have new tracks, cause I follow your blog. If nothing else, then at least market hard online leading to your release.

One person who does this well besides yourself (you got it locked JD) is Ryan Leslie. I have bought physical and digital copies of his albums bc I feel like I’m a apart of it, I’ve watched him build it almost, listened to him talk about tracks as he creates it. I want to tell people about it, and bc he has managed to catch me up in his experience I actually want to hold the product in my hand….Create a digital experience, you will sell records. I will be buying Johnta’s album, Dondria’s and B Hines for this same reason.

As far as CD sales picking up, its bc better music has come out. Times are hard, I’m not trying to spend my cash on bullshit. There has been a resurgence of good music lately simply bc people are not willing to buy bullshit. If I’ve been anticipating your album, and your the shit, then I may scoop your album if its placed correctly marketing-wise (places I shop, not a record store). Albums I’ve actually bought this year (Corrinne Bailey Rae, Raheem DeVaughn, Trey Songz) I will buy the new Erykah Badu prompltly. I wont buy Usher’s album bc I feel like he’s made no attempt to reach his fans (sorry I know thats your boy). Not in the way we want to be reached. He can’t ride off his past success. In this new model, you have to reprove yourself every album, I your music just has to be the best. Thats just how I feel.

I will definitely buy usher’s album. im 20 and my first Cd ever was the My Way CD…. I think people are loyal to certain artists after following for such a long time. Usher is the best and i dont understand why you are not promoting his album on here. Is he still in Oceans????

I always buy CDs, I have only downloaded 1 song from itunes, just to see how it works. I buy CDs because I own it outright and I can put it on a shelf and play it in 10 years if I want to. When you download songs your access to the media can be restricted or limited if your digital copy is damaged or lost. What do you do if your online store goes out of business and your hard disk crashes? You have to purchase all of your music again. But I can always import those songs from my CD back into itunes at any time I may need to.

I am old school when it comes to spending my money, I want to control the things I pay for. with a CD I can put my music on any device I own, but you can’t do that with many types of files downloaded. Downloaded files with DRM can limit the number or type of device you upload your music onto, and that is not what I pay for.

Also its not illegal for you to loan someone a CD, but it is illegal to send someone a digital file online. Speaking of illegal… you have the right to create a backup copy of a CD for your own personal use, but you do not have that right for digital files downloaded. Copying electronic files without permission is illegal, even if you purchased it and you are copying the file for your own use.

There are numerous advantages to owning a CD, plus you get to collect the CD artwork and lyrics sheets, instead of just seeing it on your screen.

i like to go to store and buy cd for one reason… i like to open it up and read who wrote and produce the song… i just the love the feeling of going to the store and gettin’ the lastest cd… i also love the fact that i can sit there a grab some old stuff as well… AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON… computers mess up… and there goes all you music anyways…

people stealing tracks at an all time high

*BOUGHT

digital shits stink …we should even go back to records and shits. i dig old-school like the oceans not some lakes from the Mars. Enough said.

I agree w/ SPOCK to an extent about Dr. Dre, but I don’t believe he’s the only one left. Oftentimes, albums lack cohesiveness because the writing/production is all over the place. It seems like people just want whoever’s hot that they can get to on their project (label mates, Lil Wayne, Gucci, T-Pain, etc.). With regard to Usher, his most notable project had production from JD/B. Cox, Just Blaze, Dre and Vidal, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Lil Jon, among others, yet it was still focused. I hope his new album does well. When you’re established, you don’t need current artists to validate you. So many well known people do this in attempt to seem relevant, or perhaps to attract a larger audience. To the true fan that can be discouraging. You don’t see Nike making coffee trying to fuck with Starbucks! They’ve both respectively stayed in their lanes.

One thing that hurts black music is the market for piracy. Not saying that other people don’t share cds or itunes libraries, but in the words of Ed Lover, “C’mon SON!!!”. When was the last time you were in the barbershop or in the hood and someone said, “yo, I got that new Miley Cyrus”. I haven’t seen it….but a nigga did approach and say he had the Usher. Needless to say, I didn’t grab the bootleg. JD always says that the impact of social networking as it relates to music is incredible. People feel apart of Dondria’s project because they get to see her tracking vocals, photo/video shoots, and promoting her shit. When artists keep fans involved….they remain involved when it comes to purchasing.

The drop is a sign of the times. Just as tides rush to and from the beach, record sales in all forms are doing the same. I think the presence of the variety of good music is playing a part in this. We, the consumer, have been begging for good music. Now, at once, we have it. Melonie Fiona, Eryah Badu, Usher, Trey Songs, ….. The variety and amount of choices are overwhelming and paralyzing. Although, the tide of good music is rising, it has yet to rush a shore.

hey jd
I am pro CD. I want to show my support with buying a record/ album and hold something in my hands.
I like johnta as an artist and love his voice. I didnt know about him before watchin ltl. so thank u jd for introducing j sinatra! I will buy his album and cant wait for it to come out. But i wouldnt buy it on itunes! I like to look at the cover, read the booklet and the lyrics(so please put the lyrics in there).
To usher: usher is one of the biggest stars on this planet. Usher has a lot of ppl in his back and doin everything. They promote him and tell him what to do! Thats how it goes. even you jd tell dondria how to act right and follow here all the time. If you would not support here i dont know if i would have heard about her. So usher cant walk around and to what he wants to do(remember the ltl with usher when you guys were talkin about chris brown and after negative response for ush the video was taken out?)
But usher did a good album. I already bought the cd and it might be a lil bit too much mainstream, but thats ok. Foolin around is a really good classical rnb song. Thanks for that one!
I will always show my support for usher and buy his cd, because i like him and following his evolution and journey. But i dont understand one thing jd: why are u not giving him a shout out? You guys are friends and u work together with him since over a decade….! And u are not makin an entry in your blog about his album comin out. PLEASE EXPLAIN THAT!

i dont like downloads and hope ppl will start buying cds again! Johnta hurry up with lsr.

P.s. I heard that ush will sell 350k cds first week,… that means no1 =)

I use to purchase CD all the time. Now I check out the CD on Rhapsody and if I like all the song I will go buy the CD. If I only like one or two song I just down load the tracks and save myself a few dollars.
Just in the last couple of months I actually purchased two CD’s Monica’s Newest and Janet Jackson’s Number Ones CD.

Maybe I am reading this article wrongly, but I don’t think it is saying that people are going back to buying actual CDs.

What I interpret from this article is that, there is a decline in both digital and CD sales.

Let me use numbers to illustrate what I am thinking.

Eg. Whereas before, digital sales were 100 million a first quarter, and CD sales were at 20 million, now, digital sales are at 50 million and CD sales are at 19 million.
Both mediums experience a percentage decrease, but it is the digital that suffers a greater loss, as compared to the CD sales.

My personal opinion to why people are starting to purchase cd’s again is due to the fact that people are starting to see that the digital wave is taking away from the essence and simplicity of the music we once took pride in. For example, before everything went digital, the singles from a new coming album would set the tone to get people to want to purchase the album when it drops. Now when a single is dropped all it does is sale that single which you can purchase it digitally by itself or just download it for free. No one actually purchases the whole album off of itunes, they purchase the singles. Plus as far as hip hop is concerned, the streets dont consider music to be a hot commodity like it used to be. I believe that is because of two things, first of all todays hip hop cannot compare at all to the hip hop of the 80’s up to mid 90’s,( and some late 90’s), the second reason i belive music isnt a hot commodity in the streets anymore is because its so easily accessible due to this digital era. I remember back when i was in school it was fly to have a walkman portable CD player jammin the hottest new CD. Plus back ib those days the fans where the ones who made the artist go big and get major deals, The streets used to only jam the hottest underground at the time and that local fanbase would give the artist attention from major labels, that was when real good music was being made because the fans would only support the real music that came from underground. Now that the labels are creating artificial hip hop prototypes, the true soul and essence of hip hop is rapidly depleating. We as the fans and the people in the hood need to take hip hop back from these major labels and get back our joy and pride in the genre we created.