Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39810 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

3 thoughts on “How Much Has the Price of Music Dropped? This Graphic Explains Everything.

  • I worked at a Music World (on the east coast) for most of the 1990s. New releases and titles that were regularly kept in stock in multiple quantities were generally sold between $14.99 to a more common $19.99, depending on list price. Warner, Sony and MCA generally had list prices around $24.99 and Polygram’s were a whopping $27.99 for many of their titles.

    Catalogue stuff (one copy on hand that was reordered through the register as soon as it was sold) was generally just a few dollars below list price, so many catalogue titles were $22.99-$25.99. Catalogue double CDs were commonly sold above $30.

    Conversely, I just bought CD copies of the new St. Vincent and Beck last week at Sunrise at both CDs sold for $12.99 each.

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  • Problem with the infographic that I noticed right away is that it’s comparing the 1992 sale price of a new/current album to the 2017 price of that same album. So, of course it looks devalued its 25 years old.

    You’d need to compare the selling price of a set of albums, say we compare the price of Fully Completely to Man Machine Poem when it was released last year. Then adjust for inflation. Would probably still see that it’s lower now than before, but its a better comparison.

    I used to work at a music retailer in the early 2000’s and saw sale prices go from $14.99-$19.99 on new releases to $9.99-$14.99 in less than 3 years.

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  • Correction: compare the price of Fully Completely when released in 1992 adjusted to 2016 dollars, to price of Man Machine Poem when released in 2016.

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