New Albums To Be Released on Fridays

Not sure why this interested me but it does for some reason...

Following consultation with artists, musicians unions, record companies and retailers, it was confirmed today that the release day for new music will be aligned internationally on a Friday.

Release days currently vary from one country to another, causing frustration for consumers when music fans in other parts of the world can access new releases before them. As well as helping music fans, the move will benefit artists who want to harness social media to promote their new music. It also creates the opportunity to re-ignite excitement and a sense of occasion around the release of new music.

The move to an aligned global release day will also reduce the risk of piracy by narrowing the gap between release days in different countries.

Retailers internationally are committed to working with the labels and artist communities to ensure the successful implementation of the move to Friday.

From summer 2015, new albums and singles will be released at 00:01 local time on Fridays. Music consumers everywhere will know to look for new releases on Fridays regardless of where they are.

Consumer research by TNS across seven markets shows Friday and Saturday as the most preferred days for new music release among consumers who expressed an opinion. More than two thirds of those with a preference (68%) chose Friday or Saturday.

The move to a global release day follows several months of discussions between group representing retailers, record companies, artists and musicians unions.

The global release day consultation has included:

* IFPI, representing some 1300 record labels worldwide;
* FIM, representing musicians’ unions and associations globally
* Featured Artists Coalition representing UK performers;
* Leading retailers and representative organisations, including Australian Music Retailers Association (AMRA), E.Leclerc, El Corte Inglés, Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) (UK), HMV, Italian Association of Specialist Consumer Electronics Retailers (AIRES), Media-Saturn, Music Business Association (Music Biz US), Mondadori Retail, the Orchard, Rdio, Spotify, Napster.

I'm totally in favor of this. Never understood why they staggered this stuff to begin with.

That said, when I'm not ordering online, the brick and mortar places I shop tend to sneak stuff out a little early anyway, so this probably won't affect me too much.

Runicen wrote:

That said, when I'm not ordering online, the brick and mortar places I shop tend to sneak stuff out a little early anyway, so this probably won't affect me too much.  

That's what happened to me with Overkill's White Devil Armory. I picked it up on a Saturday, 3 days before the official release.

The cool thing about it is, I don't expect it, but it's a pleasant surprise when I can score something I was looking for a little early.

Talk about something that makes you feel like a kid who woke up before everyone else in the family on Christmas.

Most recent example of this was the Physical Graffiti reissue.

I'm sure they're also hoping that this practice will put an end to new albums winding up shared all over the internet before they've even been released in some parts of the world.

I guess my question is whether the staggered releases are the issue or if there's someone in the "supply chain" typically uploading it as it's going out for release.

Weren't there stories in the '90s and '00s about studio assistants leaking tapes and masters and so forth?

Does this even matter anymore in the world of downloads? This smacks of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Witchfinder wrote:

Does this even matter anymore in the world of downloads?  This smacks of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

The man's got a point there.

Witchfinder wrote:

Does this even matter anymore in the world of downloads?  This smacks of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

What are you talking about, man?! God himself couldn't sink... My, that's a big ice cube...

This really makes no difference whatsoever. Now they have to align manufacturing and distribution across all markets worldwide, that isn't going to be as easy as they think.

Well, it doesn't make much of a difference; record sales have been declining for quite some time, and are going to continue to decline, from the looks of things, unfortunately.

Well labels have no idea what to do, and this is a desperate attempt to hold on.

There is now a generation of music listeners who have never purchased a CD, even if they wanted to buy CD's, where would they go buy them? Walmart has reduced their stock, as Best Buy has also done, most brick and mortar stores are closed, out of business and talk about being kicked when you are down, Starbucks will no longer be selling CD's.

I work with several people in their 20s, none of them buy CDs, they all use Spotify, Pandora or Youtube. To them, spending $10 for an hour of music is kinda silly when you can have access to millions of songs via streaming services. It's just the way it is and will continue to be.

Music fans today don't care about owning album art or things that you can keep in a collection. They're just not as passionate about it the way older generations were... with the exception of the small vinyl crowd.

I only partially agree with that, I think young people are as passionate about music as ever, what they don't give a shit about is collecting.  You have to remember; the physical, tangible, artwork and lyric sheet thing we always talk about that's stuff Gen Y and earlier cares about but for many younger people it's superfluous and unnecessary.

I think this is great news. long time coming. Now if only we can move past the "import" thing and make the product with the same availability across the board. To quote six million dollar man: "we have the technology...."

S.D. wrote:

I only partially agree with that, I think young people are as passionate about music as ever, what they don't give a shit about is collecting.  You have to remember; the physical, tangible, artwork and lyric sheet thing we always talk about that's stuff Gen Y and earlier cares about but for many younger people it's superfluous and unnecessary.

You got a point there. I think they are interested in seeing how many files they can collect on the biggest, best-est hard drives. The artwork and all the rest means nothing to them.

Yeah it always bums me out when you see a headline that says "Favorite Band is releasing their new album March 3, 2015!", then  you click the link and it says March 3, 2015 in Europe and April 17, 2034 for the rest of the world." (2034 being an exaggeration, but that's what it feels like. Ha).

If the US, European, Japan, etc., all get the same release date, I'm into that (regardless of the day of the week, that doesn't matter to me at all).

S.D. wrote:

I only partially agree with that, I think young people are as passionate about music as ever, what they don't give a shit about is collecting.  You have to remember; the physical, tangible, artwork and lyric sheet thing we always talk about that's stuff Gen Y and earlier cares about but for many younger people it's superfluous and unnecessary.

I agree, but the younger generation didn't grow up with record stores, so no, they don't understand it the same way we do. Much of the resurgence of vinyl isn't just because we need replacement disks. Many are turning to vinyl because it is a choice and not because that's what they grew up on. We live in a world changed by technology and there isn't any going back, we just need to figure out how to make it work in the music world. Music is very important regardless of age.

In the early 20th century sales of sheet music and player pianos was a huge industry.  I would be willing to bet many of them saw the Victrola as this evil technological device whose sole purpose was to put them out of business.  I'm sure they also condemned people who bought one saying "they don't love music the way we do".  

Quote :

You got a point there. I think they are interested in seeing how many files they can collect on the biggest, best-est hard drives. The artwork and all the rest means nothing to them.

I think a lot of young people aren't even downloading at this point, as having to save a file to your computer is starting to seem like something "people did back in the 2000s". Why buy external hard drives when you can just stream everything?

manny wrote:

Well labels have no idea what to do, and this is a desperate attempt to hold on.

There is now a generation of music listeners who have never purchased a CD, even if they wanted to buy CD's, where would they go buy them? Walmart has reduced their stock, as Best Buy has also done, most brick and mortar stores are closed, out of business and talk about being kicked when you are down, Starbucks will no longer be selling CD's.

Worse than that, you can still buy CDs if you're willing to shop around; but what the hell are you going to play them on? Computers are shipping without optical drives and you wouldn't BELIEVE the look I got when I naively walked into a Best Buy a year ago looking for a replacement CD player (ended up getting a banging Sony at a thrift store ultimately). You'd think I'd have asked the clerk to direct me to his establishment's finest player of Edison Cylinders...

The stuff is out there, but I also wonder how much what we see as "the downfall of music" is just symptomatically being driven by the inability of brick and mortar retailers across the board to remain competitive in light of Amazon.com, Crutchfield, TigerDirect, etc. Are sales dropping and driving out the retailers or are enough people just not driven enough to shop online that, in light of the retailers downsizing, people who would have casually purchased just can't be bothered now?

I throw these theories out all over the "declining CD sales" threads all the time, but when you really unpack it, there's a lot of change going on and most people aren't clocking it because it's background noise. Nobody is standing on a hill screaming, "And lo, the big box stores will bugger off and no music shall be purchased for 1,000 years of purgatory," or whatever. It's just kind of all happening at once. We see music sales declining and listening habits changing becuase that's our area of interest, but there are economic forces moving and all manner of other stuff too. It's a lot of moving parts.

I don;t even own a CD player at this point - I just play them through my Blu Ray player

thejokeriv wrote:

I don;t even own a CD player at this point - I just play them through my Blu Ray player

Me too, my last CD player died 5 years ago.

Yes, yes... All part of the plan. Soon, I will own every CD player on the planet as all these fools dispose of theirs via thrift stores and Craigslist. M'yes...

Mine! All Mine!

thejokeriv wrote:

I don;t even own a CD player at this point - I just play them through my Blu Ray player

Hmmm, I still have 3 of them. A 300 disc and 200 disc Sony player and a 6 disc cartridge style Pioneer down in the game room . Plus a Playstation 3 in the living room that I can use.