In 1992, I was listening to Capital Radio, a London station which was based in Euston Square. The DJs were giving away free Compact Discs (CDs) to listeners who answered simple questions such as “In which country was Stevie Wonder born?” Or “Who wrote the song Thriller?” Each listener who answered any of the questions correctly would “win” five CDs. The problem was that they would have no use for these CDs unless they owned CD players. However, giving away five CDs at a time was a good marketing gimmick for this new technology as winning five CDs would force people to buy CD players. Soon, every Londoner would visit shops in Tottenham Court Road and one of London’s most famous streets, Oxford Street to purchase this new technology.
Fred Zindi
The phonograph disc record (or the black vinyl record) was the primary medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century. By the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of the CD, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. It is the CD that most youths of today are familiar with.
My niece came to my house one afternoon and when she saw a vinyl record (platinum disc) which had been given to me by Gramma Records in the 1980s for selling over 100 000 records of my album, stuck on my wall, she asked: “Uncle, what is that on your wall?” I explained that it was a disc that reproduced music just like the CD. She was dumbfounded and wanted me to prove it, but unfortunately although I have a record player in my house, it does not have a stylus which makes it possible to play the record.
But technology moves fast. Very soon, the CD which my niece is familiar with, will be a thing of the past. Today, very few people bother with CDs now. In fact, some manufacturers of sound systems no longer bother with including a port for CDs in their latest stereo equipment. If one does not have a flash stick with music, they are doomed.
This has subsequently affected the sales of CDs. The street CD vendors are beginning to worry and are asking themselves why not many people are buying their pirated CDs as before. The answer is simple. The format has changed and people now listen to music using other formats.
Most drivers now use flash sticks to play recorded music in their cars. Even in households, the CD isn’t as prominent as it once was. Usually after buying a disc many people rip the tracks onto their computers before tossing the physical copy into a box marked with an ominous label: “Dead CDs”.
It’s not every musician who is as lucky as Winky D to sell one CD for $40 000 and another for $30 000 at an auction as evidenced by pledges made at his recent album (Gombwe) launch. If these patrons honour their pledges, Winky D will find reason to celebrate the release of his CD album and may wish to continue doing so. Elsewhere, the sales of the CDs are negligible.
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The CD market, even on the streets is also rapidly dwindling. Talking to music pirates the other day, I was informed that even their business is rather slow these days. They blame it on the economy because they are not aware of the dynamics in the technology industry. But the dwindling of CD sales has been affected by technology and is now found world- wide.
Richard Brunson, who was once the chief executive of Virgin Records must have seen it coming when he chose to close down his music supermarket in Oxford Street, London.
But Brunson did not give up business altogether. After he made money through record shops and decided there was no longer future in that business, he migrated to other ventures. Virgin Records which started off as a tuck shop in Ladbroke Grove, London , then moved on to a record shop and finally a large record mega-market in Oxford Street, London, finally collapsed, but it was through this mega-market record shop that Brunson started Virgin Atlantic Airlines, Virgin Railways, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Gymnasiums and Virgin Banks. Today, he is rated as one of the world’s richest men.
Zimbabwean musicians now know that they are clinging to what many consider an obsolete music format, but to them there’s still plenty to love about compact discs.
However, it’s impossible to deny that CDs took an irreparable punch to the gut in Zimbabwe when most of the existing record shops went bust and left many communities without a music store. Many music store owners were left with no idea on what business to migrate to.
A lot of record bars that used to exist in the City of Harare such as Spinalong, have closed down because there is no viable business in such ventures anymore. During the days of vinyl records big businesses came out of record sales.
The demise of such big businesses is mainly due to technological advancement.
Today, at almost every street corner or shopping centre, there are several vendors marketing illegally acquired CDs, MP3s, DVDs and so forth. I bet in the next year or two, those vendors will be out of business as the CD will have been replaced by other music formats. For now, those shiny little discs still have some life left in them because by nature a lot of music fans are collectors and that means they need a physical thing to hold on to. The CD is something one can collect and keep somewhere whereas getting music through streaming or otherwise might not be the ideal solution for many collectors.
However, many people think that writing the obituary for the CD is premature as the industry looks for ways of bolstering CD sales however they can. It’s also because the music industry is trying to stave off the demise of its golden goose any way it can, but let it be known that CD sales will soon tumble as they represent the declining album sales market.
Musicians, the industrialists and other interested parties have got to start to think out of the box now to see how they can continue to earn from the CD market. lFeedback: [email protected]
