April 27, 2007

For his part, Best Buy's Mr. Arnold says the blame for waning consumer interest in CDs lies with the record labels, not with stores like his. "Music has become a commoditized item," he says. "The CD is perceived by the consumer to be a $10 item, and the manufacturers continue to release new titles at $15 to $18.98." To remedy that situation, he says he has urged labels to move to a "paperback-book model," with no-frills packages priced cheaply for most customers, and more deluxe presentations for die-hard fans.

Chain retailers are unlikely to eliminate music altogether. Big-box chains often set CD prices so low the retailer loses a dollar or two on the most aggressively priced titles. If nothing else, Mr. Arnold readily acknowledges, music remains cheap bait to lure customers who may end up purchasing, say, a brushed-steel refrigerator. "I couldn't imagine Best Buy without music," he says.

...CDBaby's "long tail" business has expanded from selling physical CDs (including mine) to supplying digitised versions to the subscription download services. CDBaby supplies 1.5m songs, or about a third of the iTunes catalogue.

Beyond the odd and cheap laugh, many a celebrity song foray puts up a fascinating and in some cases deeply unsettling window into the psyche of a given star. And believe it or not, some of them actually offer genuine musical pleasure independent of the circumstances of their creation. But each one of them offers a form of what we'll call, for lack of a better word, entertainment.