Comments on: Banging Our Heads Against The Wall http://theomniscientmussel.com/2010/02/banging-our-heads-against-the-wall/ Classical Music & Culture Thu, 10 May 2012 22:12:44 +0000 hourly 1 By: <img class="monsterid" src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=1d5b3b8e71d13af0e9aa9a752cced411&&;size=65&default=http://theomniscientmussel.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-monsterid/monsterid/bcc8cd63408c384.png" alt="Miss Mussel MonsterID Icon" height="65" width="65"/> Miss Mussel http://theomniscientmussel.com/2010/02/banging-our-heads-against-the-wall/comment-page-1/#comment-4164 Miss Mussel MonsterID Icon Miss Mussel Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:00:09 +0000 http://theomniscientmussel.com/?p=5373#comment-4164 Hi - I do still intend to respond to this! Time is tight at the moment. In short, I agree in part. Thanks for taking the time to write. Hi – I do still intend to respond to this! Time is tight at the moment. In short, I agree in part. Thanks for taking the time to write.

]]> By: <img class="monsterid" src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=e76c81b06c74cb6f493743b00e0c81c1&&;size=65&default=http://theomniscientmussel.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-monsterid/monsterid/cadf05535448383.png" alt="Sean Hickey MonsterID Icon" height="65" width="65"/> Sean Hickey http://theomniscientmussel.com/2010/02/banging-our-heads-against-the-wall/comment-page-1/#comment-4134 Sean Hickey MonsterID Icon Sean Hickey Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:54:07 +0000 http://theomniscientmussel.com/?p=5373#comment-4134 Wow, this is a particularly poetic paean to the death of an industry that hasn't yet happened. Great to see Anne's article got so much attention but she clearly left out quite a lot of positive things in classical music sales, and got others to jump in as well. First and most importantly, plenty of outlets don't report to Soundscan. Never have. Never will. We at Naxos ship tens of thousands of units annually to concert halls and presenters around North America to cover programmed repertoire and facilitate post-concert signings with hundreds of artists on dozens of labels. Easily 99% of these venues do not report to SS and are often staffed by volunteers. Furthermore, SS doesn't even track sales at at least three of our biggest customers. When tracking sales on Amazon, b&m chain retail and select indies, SS does fine. But don't paint a picture that classical sales are dead based on the Soundscan classical chart. Most of us in this industry stopped paying attention to that quite a while ago. Why not cover the fact that much of what makes up that chart would not be considered "classical" by anyone in this business, including bloggers and critics? See the Proper Discord blog as he can say it a lot more eloquently than I. Lastly, SS doesn't account for library and institution sales throughout the US. Every day we ship to public, research and music libraries plenty of compact discs, in addition to our Naxos Music Library product, which now has thousands of subscribers. As for everything being said that needs to be said, I reject that outright as a musician and as a music lover. In fact, I think there's never been a better time to be a fan of classical music or to discover this rich and evolving legacy for the first time. Epitaphs for its death are nearly as old as the tradition itself, and boring and overused. Perhaps the major labels are suffering in old models, but not everyone is. Wow, this is a particularly poetic paean to the death of an industry that hasn’t yet happened. Great to see Anne’s article got so much attention but she clearly left out quite a lot of positive things in classical music sales, and got others to jump in as well. First and most importantly, plenty of outlets don’t report to Soundscan. Never have. Never will. We at Naxos ship tens of thousands of units annually to concert halls and presenters around North America to cover programmed repertoire and facilitate post-concert signings with hundreds of artists on dozens of labels. Easily 99% of these venues do not report to SS and are often staffed by volunteers. Furthermore, SS doesn’t even track sales at at least three of our biggest customers. When tracking sales on Amazon, b&m chain retail and select indies, SS does fine. But don’t paint a picture that classical sales are dead based on the Soundscan classical chart. Most of us in this industry stopped paying attention to that quite a while ago. Why not cover the fact that much of what makes up that chart would not be considered “classical” by anyone in this business, including bloggers and critics? See the Proper Discord blog as he can say it a lot more eloquently than I.

Lastly, SS doesn’t account for library and institution sales throughout the US. Every day we ship to public, research and music libraries plenty of compact discs, in addition to our Naxos Music Library product, which now has thousands of subscribers.

As for everything being said that needs to be said, I reject that outright as a musician and as a music lover. In fact, I think there’s never been a better time to be a fan of classical music or to discover this rich and evolving legacy for the first time. Epitaphs for its death are nearly as old as the tradition itself, and boring and overused. Perhaps the major labels are suffering in old models, but not everyone is.

]]>