From the recent issue of Rolling Stone:

“In 2000, U.S. consumers bought 785.1 million albums; last year, they bought 588.2 million (a figure that includes both CDs and downloaded albums), according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2000, the ten top-selling albums in the U.S. sold a combined 60 million copies; in 2006, the top ten sold just 25 million. Digital sales are growing — fans bought 582 million digital singles last year, up sixty-five percent from 2005, and purchased $600 million worth of ringtones — but the new revenue sources aren’t making up for the shortfall.

More than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000. The number of major labels dropped from five to four when Sony Music Entertainment and BMG Entertainment merged in 2004 — and two of the remaining companies, EMI and Warner, have flirted with their own merger for years.

. . . and then . . .

“How is it that the people that make the product of music are going bankrupt, while the use of the product is skyrocketing?” asks the Firm’s Kwatinetz. “The model is wrong.”

Record companies don’t make the product, artists do and I’m not so sure they’re any worse off now than they were before 2001. I’d be really interested to hold those statistics against some reliable numbers about the change in the number of musicians that are making a living playing music or at least able to afford to make music. Meaning, some record company employees are out of jobs, what relationship does their unemployment have with the number of musicians in the world. Any? Some? None? It may be naivety on my part but I see record companies to be similar to real estate agents in that they’re middlemen who–before the internet–served some purpose, but now largely exist simply to skim profit off of the inefficiencies they create in the marketplace.

I’ve launched my own little investigation into NJ produce today to try to determine why, at the height of strawberry season, I was unable to buy anything but California strawberries at all of the major local grocery stores (Shop Rite, Foodtown, etc.). I can not comprehend how I could have literally driven past a field of strawberries one mile from the Middletown Shop Rite and yet that Shop Rite chose to get its berries from three thousand miles away. Unbelievable, right? So, but anyway, before unleashing the fury of a CitizenSpeak campaign on the NJDA, (update: see comments below. It’s the grocery store produce buyers who are better targets of an email campaign) I sent an email this AM looking for an explanation:

Hello.

Thanks so much for your time!

I feel a bit curmudgeon-like writing emails like that but I mean I really, really like food. So if I don’t care about where my berries come from, who will? Anyway, I’ll post any responses here.

WBB readers following along at home on their NJ Produce Calendars already know that today marks the start of broccoli and blueberry seasons. And that’s a good thing, too. My body is screaming for fruits and veg ever since Sunday’s Festival of Smoked Meats. I did ribs, a picnic shoulder and a tri tip. The shoulder was the best but I don’t think the human body was made to eat that much meat at one time. I tried to keep things a bit healthy by putting some slaw on my pulled pork sandwich. But anyway.

Combine the poor diet with the stress of having to rebuild my development environment on my laptop (SuperDuper just didn’t come through for me on the backups for some reason) in the middle of delivering two apps to clients and that makes for a pretty crappy week and not much time to post. But here are a few snippits to get you over your midweek need for inspirado:

Technorati Tags: New Jersey, placemaking

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