Kevin Sutton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Steven Martin wrote:
>
>>In conclusion, Universal has jacked up their prices. ....
>
>Yes, indeed they have, and thank you for not blaming Tower.  As a Tower
>employee, I can tell you that we were not pleased at having to mark up
>the stuff...

That is because I am a former Tower employee myself.  I occasionally rap
with some people that still work for Tower and they like you, hate having
to do it.

>Well, Steve, you are both right and wrong.  From my vantage point behind
>the counter, most consumers have not said a word in complaint about prices
>and they are buying cds by the armload.  And not just budget titles.  I
>concur that I would not buy front line product sans my employee discount,
>but everyone seems to have lots of money these days and so until they
>stopspending it, the labels are pricing in accordance with what the market
>will bear.

I will be the first to admit that if I could, I probably would blow a
hundred dollars a paycheck on music.  However, I have to budget myself.
Usually it comes down to paying a lot for something on one of the major
labels for what is usually core repetoire or paying less for a Naxos
recording of something that I have yet to hear.  Usually I try to be
adventurous and not fall into the temptation of buying more Mahler and
Beethoven recordings.  But that is just my buying pattern.  Naxos - 1,
Majors - 0.

The problem that I see with gouging the customer to the maximum that the
market will support is that prices never come down.  Once Nineteen dollars
becomes the going rate, you will never see the price come back to Eighteen
again.  Right now the economy is good and you are seeing customers being
very generous, however, when the next recession rolls along, people will
not be able to afford those Nineteen dollar disks and the majors will
complain that their product isn't selling anymore.

Of course this is common behavior in the current marketplace.  The majors
have decided to focus on maximum short term profit but will hang themselves
in the long run.  Maybe one day, Naxos will own all of the recordings in
their vaults and will behave better than the majors have (hopefully).

Steve M. (Northern Virginia)