Legion of Boom and the Music Industry

In the February 2004 issue of The Official US Playstation Magazine there is an interview with Scott Kirkland of The Crystal Method. When asked "What needs to happen for the big [record] labels to recover [from angry fans and lose in sales]?" he is quoted as saying, "They need to embrace things like iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, etc., and they need to bring the price of albums down in order to make it affordable for that 12-year-old girl [who was sued by the RIAA] to by the album instead of downloading it." Right on, Scott. A lot of people have been saying this for the longest time -- including myself. I think that Scott missed one thing though: Quality. If the music industry wants to get out of their rut and stop people from downloading music, they got to make their music cheaper and they have to make better music. I am tired of most of the shit that plays now, it is all rather generic and derivative. There are only special stuff that I will go out of my way to pick up on CD. Other stuff I'll listen to online (MusicMatch or Launch) and if I like one of the songs I will pick up the single from the iTunes Music Store. Most of the stuff out now though is noise. People will pay for music if it is good and if it is priced right -- like I have posted before, water is free out of the tap, but somehow people are spending a lot of money purchasing it anyways! Looks like The Crystal Method is practicing what they preach. At the iTunes Music Store, The Crystal Method's new CD "Legion of Boom" sells for $9.99. In stores it sells for $13.98. At Amazon it sells for $10.99. I picked it up on sale for $10.99. Not bad considering that if I bought it online at the iTunes Music Store, I would still have to pay a few cents for burning the download on an audio CD if I wanted to play it in my car -- and I don't get the case and artwork, not to mention the better audio quality of the audio CD versus compressed audio. I think $10 is the sweet point for selling CDs. The CD is not that bad. It is better than The Crystal Method's last CD "Tweekend" but not as good as good as their debut CD "Vegas". Still very listenable and very mainstream.