BLOG.RALPHKENDRICK.COM: Is the CD DOA?

Is the CD DOA?

It's a very exciting time for my professional composing career, as a few weeks ago, I received copies of a new CD featuring a professionally recorded performance of my solo clarinet work, Three Turns of the Wind. Clarence Padilla, a clarinetist with the Des Moines Symphony and a Professor of Music at Drake College, recorded the work and included it on his CD titled With the Wind.

As I removed the first CD from its wrapper, I enjoyed looking at how professionally it was packaged, with fancy printing on a green insert, and a picture of a clarinet sort of oozing sideways, as though it was dust in the wind. I turned the CD over to ensure my name was listed prominently on the back along with the other 'superstar' composers. Yessirree!!!

But as I was about to place the CD in the player for the first time, I asked myself a simple, and yet revealing question... When was the last time you purchased a CD, Kendrick?

It occurred to me, then, that it had been nearly a year and a half since I purchased a few CDs. Like many others, I now enjoy the convenience, ease, and cost savings of downloading tracks from iTunes.

So as we progress to an era, where kids are growing up with iPods and mp3 players, and haven't the foggiest idea about CD players, we must ask the question - is the CD dead?

A 2010 Washington Post article highlighted the fact that the top 25 classical music CDs on Billboard Magazine's weekly listings averaged sales of only 189 copies per week. For one week in January, only the top two classical CDs sold over 1,000 copies in the U.S. while the 25th placed CD sold a mere 75 copies.

By way of comparison, in the eighties the average recording of Sir Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra would sell between 60,000 and 100,000 records within three years after it was issued. Today, it would be considered a victory if a classical CD sold 20,000 copies within its first three years.

But, it's not all bad news for the classical recording industry. While CDs in the classical category account for only 2-3% of all CD sales, downloads of classical tunes represent a healthy 12% of the total iTunes market.

So it appears not to be a question on the value of classical music recordings, per se, but more of a question as to the value of the CD as the medium to distribute those recordings over another distribution channel like downloadable files available from a service like iTunes.

So is the CD dead? What do you think?

I'd have to say, no, not in the foreseeable future at least. Even with the download industry picking up steam each and every week, pop stars like Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle were still able to sell more than 3 million CDs each in 2009. Those sorts of sales figures will keep the CD (yes, even the classical CD) around for years to come.

As artists in this day and age, we need to exploit as many distributive channels as we can, including the CD. By making musical excerpts available on our websites, producing and marketing CDs, selling single tracks on iTunes, and by posting high quality video performances on YouTube we'll be able to appeal to different age groups and segments of the population in different ways. After all, we don't care how they listen, we simply care that they do listen.

And one final thought. A professionally recorded and packaged CD gives a composer a leg up on their competition for things like grant applications, job searches, promotions, and commissioning and performance opportunities. A shiny CD, fresh out of the wrapper indicates that some performer somewhere thought enough of a composer's work to spend considerable time and money recording it. And subconsciously, that will start working in that composer's favor, even before the CD is plopped into the player.

Guard your mailboxes granting agencies and clarinetists everywhere, here I come!