CD or Download?
It looks like this days, where ever you turn, there is always someone with a portable player glued to their ears and nodding their head as if nothing else existed. I guess that's to be expected in the digital age. Not so long ago the music was on vinyl and then on Cd. Now Cds are always a thing of the past and vinyl has become an exclusive collector item.
The new trend is the portable player. For music producers and artists alike, the question now is which format to publish to. CD? Online Download?
The answer to that question depends on your location. If you live in the US, CANADA, the EU and other technologically advanced country, it's definitely a must to do both. Almost everybody has some sort of Mp3 player. Because of that, the online music download is growing faster than ever.
If you are an artist, you want to tap into that market. Not only will you make more money from your creative efforts but you will also be bypassing the traditional distribution structure that places the record label in the middle of it all. Even better, networking websites like myspace, face book, hi5 make it even easier to get your music heard. Distribution operations like Cdbaby and Tunecore are changing the face of the game.
On the other hand, Africa and it's musicians are still lagging behind. It's a common place to still publish albums in K7 because in the back country of almost every country in Africa, consumers cannot afford the price of CD players let alone buy Cds on a regular basis. Cds are now standard in big cities but still out of price for the average consumer and because of that pirates have the easy buck by slashing the prices so everyone can afford a sonically bad quality CD.
Because of the delay in technology and broadband availability, making music available online is not yet main stream. But I am convinced it's just a matter of time before we get to that point where all the music buying is done at the click of a mouse. Until then, pirates still have some shinning days in front of them.
Alain K. SESSI
Africagrooves.com