Jul 05 2006
Remember Cassettes?
From NY Times:
Cassette music sales fell a whopping 54 percent in the first half of 2006, peddling only 632,00 units, compared to the 1.3 million tapes sold in the first two quarters of ‘05.
I am surprised 632,000 units were sold.. I wonder what artists – seems to me this might be specific to a genre or two.. You so rarely see cassettes for sale anywhere but Sav-On drugstores and truck stops..
I often wonder if this will happen to CDs in years to come?
just to expand on declining CD sales once again, Johnny Cash’s latest effort which debuted at no1, was the lowest selling chart topping release since Soundscan tracking began in 1991 with 88,000 in its first week.
Tower Records are also in serious financial trouble and Universal, EMI and Warner Music have all stopped sending albums to Tower due to billing disputes. If they continue to do this, I think Tower will be gone within weeks.
So not only are indie record stores closing even the big guys are struggling, what next?
You have to take into consideration that most people with older cars still have tape decks. The last few used cars that I’ve owned all had tape decks, I’d go for months or years without bothering to install a CD player. So a cassette doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea, though I’ll pass on the stuff available at 7-11 if I’m on the road.