ABOUT a year ago, this column gave the Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma) a good kicking. The association, which promotes the interests of Irish record labels, had just announced a 20 per cent slump in music sales for 2003 compared to the previous year and the excuses were coming thick and fast.
Illegal downloading of music from the internet, greater price competition from online stores in other countries, and pirated CDs were given as reasons for the record industry's predicament.
It was, said Irma (and we're paraphrasing here), the end of the world as they knew it and they didn't feel very well at all.
Nonsense, we said. Give the public decent, fairly- priced music and the public will buy it. Give the public access to proper download stores and they'll go digital. Give the public new albums by the likes of U2 and fresh Irish talent and they'll happily hand over cash for them. We even predicted that there would be an increase in sales in 2004. Most people in the industry simply thought we were madder than usual.
A year later and the figures for 2004 have just been published. In 2004, the number of CDs sold in Ireland increased by 5.2 per cent, while the value of music sales was up 2.7 per cent. It's not often that we feel the urge to point out where you read it first, but, well, you read it here first last year.
There has been very little hoo-hah from Irma about these increases. After predicting consternation and catastrophe, they now have a situation where people purchased more CDs in 2004 than in the previous year. The worst-case scenario did not arise after all.
True enough, the association probably sees a 2.7 per cent increase in revenue as not hugely significant (particularly given the previous 20 per cent tumble and the annual rate of inflation). But those statistics don't take the bigger picture into account. And naturally, the bigger picture is the one which really matters.
According to Irma, there is no way to calculate how many CDs are purchased from online retail stores by Irish consumers. This is understandable when you realise that most people buy their CDs from stores based in other countries, such as Play and CD Wow. They do so because these stores are cheaper and far more customer-friendly than their Irish High Street equivalents. Irma also has no system in place at present to keep a tally on sales to Irish customers by iTunes, Napster and other legal download outlets.
Given that all things digital have changed the consumption and purchasing patterns of Irish music fans, we can assume that the total value of online physical CD and download sales is not insignificant. Because these sales cannot be included in the final tallies, however, it makes the published statistics seem conservative and skewed. In short, there's a hell of a lot more music being bought by Irish punters than Irma can account for.
While Irish music fans are happily changing their music habits, the signs are that the record industry continues to be slow to respond. Change always produces opportunity, and the industry does not like opportunity because it disturbs the existing equilibrium. Mergers and acquisitions are fine because that has always been the way of the walk; real change is something which takes years to have an impact.
The hows and whys of music consumption have changed dramatically in the past 10 years, but the people charged with making money from this have not changed how they work. The use of music to push and promote new technology means there has never been a better time for the industry, yet it continues to operate like it's 1973 and Genesis are limbering up on the sidelines to release Selling England by the Pound. Instead of seizing the day, they're simply seizing up.
Meanwhile, despite all the chat about doom and gloom, people are buying and listening to music like never before. Something just doesn't make sense about that. Maybe it really is time for the record industry to go back to square one and start all over again.
