Well, I'll be a son of a bitch! Wal-Mart is at it again! Rattling the cages like Batman!!! And ladies and gentlemen, they're out to single-handedly save the doomed CD!
Billboard recently published a report about Wal-Mart's push for lower CD prices in all of their stores, as well as a new, tiered pricing plan that would price "hits" (like Travis Trit Records or something) $12 and different levels of an artist's catalog at $9 (like Take of Your Pants and Jacket), $7 (like Enema of the State), and $5 (like Dude Ranch).
A proposed promotional program would put the top 10 or 15 titles (like The Jonas Brothers) at $10... a.k.a. one cent higher than the typical download price, you know, minus the extra several dollars in taxes. Hmmm...
But despite the obvious (right??) fact that these CDs would still be more expensive and less convenient than digital downloads, Wal-Mart, again, just like Batman, just won't give up the good fight! In fact, they've been harping on this lower-priced CDs thing for quite some time now. If we all recall, Rolling Stone had an article about Wal-Mart's push for $10 CDs way back in 2004. The situation was described as tense... and this was three-and-a-half years ago.
But what good will the decision to finally lower CD prices do now? Well, maybe this convoluted series of buzz-words will explain things for us:
"When you look at sales declines with physical product," a Wal-Mart sales manager says, "and you have a category declining like it is, you have to make decisions about what the future looks like. If you have a business that is declining and you want to turn it around, it really takes looking at it from all angles." See??? ALL ANGLES, people! Think outside the box for once! Fling wide the doors of perception and lose the watch! Wal-Mart has, and they ain't never seen the sky so clear!
...ah, good stuff, good stuff. This story's going straight to the top of the queue, I can feel it. I deserve a beer... Oh, yeah, but like I was saying, CDs are fucked.