A few weeks ago, The Ticket ran a cover story about legal music downloads. It advised you to ignore the incessant music industry spin that all downloads are the spawn of Satan and pointed you towards some of the good stuff freely available out there.
Reader response can now be scientifically broken down into four distinct categories.
1) People who wanted to know where they could get their grubby paws on dubious and illegal recordings. We have, of course, passed their details onto the relevant authorities.
2) Furious Mac people complaining that the OD2 software, used by a huge proportion of download stores including the inexplicably dull Eircom Music Club, refuses to even acknowledge Apple computers.
3) People complaining about the lack of an Irish iTunes store, as if this was our fault.
4) A few thought-provoking emails from independent retailers.
Over the last couple of years, record shops have had to deal with more seismic changes than a boy-band with a midlife crisis. The departure of the Virgin Megastore from Dublin in 2002 and the subsequent and ongoing closure of many independents around the country shows that when the music industry sneezes, it's the retail sector which catches a cold.
This, though, is one of those colds you just can't shake off. Every new article on downloads and free music is seen by many indie retailers as another kick in the stomach. They are trying to sell CDs and records, but there's a belief that the consumer wants their music for free.
Yet other evidence suggests that people are quite happy to pay for music. Here's a prediction: when the 2004 music industry statistics are released, expect to see a sizeable growth in music sales compared to 2003 and 2002.
At the moment, CD sales in Ireland are over eight per cent higher compared with this time last year. This is before you add in big ticket releases from U2, Eminem, Destiny's Child and Kylie. There's been a whopping increase in sales of music DVDs too, so, despite Internet buccaneers, free CDs with newspapers and alleged terrorism-linked piracy operations, everyone should be laughing.
But - you've guessed it - not everyone is happy. Event releases from U2 or Robbie Williams may lure in the five-CDs-a-year mob, but they're more likely to buy their music in the local Tesco than at an independent store. It used to be that indie record shops were your lifeline to new music. Now, there are so many different outlets competing to tell you about the latest, greatest and newest that indie shops have been pushed aside.
What will push them aside even further, however, are their own physical limitations. Go to the Wired magazine website (www.wired.com) and read Chris Anderson's fascinating piece in the October issue on "The Long Tail". Indie retailers are advised to pour themselves a stiff drink before clicking onto the article.
Anderson points out that the future for the industry lies in developing niche markets rather than concentrating all their energies on pimping the few megahits that occur every year. Changes in the means of distribution make this new model the one to watch. Once, there just weren't enough shelves or shops for all the CDs and DVDs produced. Now, Anderson says, thanks to online distribution and retail, "we are entering a world of abundance where you can find everything out there on the Long Tail. There are niches by the thousands, genre within genre within genre."
Conventional stores just can't support the economies of scale required to provide this kind of choice so, in order to survive, they need to adjust to new realities. One thing which hasn't changed is that people still want to buy and find out about new music, so it's the record stores that have to come up with new ways of parting them from their cash.
Let's hope this doesn't involve realising that their building is worth more than their inventory.
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