"Apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all..."

[drcuriosity]

This started as an LJ comment but quickly turned into a rant, so I'll post it here in case anyone else feels like commenting/contributing.

I was talking with ledaire and elissa_carey about my "current music" in the last post, and how damned hard to find it is around here. Licensing issue, or availability..?

<rant>
No licensing issues at all, as far as I know. Availability - New Zealand is one of those weird places that either has rare stuff all over the place or mildly uncommon stuff that's as rare as hen's teeth. Ironically with respect to FLA, Delerium CDs are pretty common - the same people making the music, but more "mainstream" appeal (and distribution via EMI rather than Metropolis), so it actually gets here.

As far as the big music publishing companies (or their NZ branches) are concerned, there's no profit margin in stuff that's not going to sell a lot of units, so they only ever get a few and most of those would never leave the Auckland area (where around a third of our population lives - on the other side of the country from me). And of course, since there isn't any available to listen to even casually, there's never much of a market for it. Catch-22. Taking the example above, Delerium only ever got play here because of that one song that had Sarah McLachlan in it.

Music is relatively expensive here, too. The prices ramped up citing our "weak exchange rate", but never lowered again when the exchange rate became a lot more favourable. New releases you can expect to pay around NZ$35 (US$22.62) for; older stuff typically goes for around NZ$25 (US$16.16), while for "specialist" imports - most of the stuff I'd like to be listening to - you're generally looking at NZ$45 (US$29.09) and up for something that'd cost US$10-$15. That's a bit more than just shipping and handling, even to this little backwater country on the far side of the Pacific.
</rant>

So, if anyone can come up with a good explanation for why we pay so much for a relatively limited selection of music here, I'd like to hear it.

I'm glad we've got a bit of decent local talent.

Comments

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

Well that absolutely sucks.

I have no idea if anyone outside the U.S. can sign up for it, but as I was saying earlier, EMusic carries a decent amount of goth-techno-industrial music (especially if it's on Cleopatra Records, for example). It's a music subscription service where you download .mp3's, but you don't have to worry about DRMs or anything. Do what you want with'em once you have them. I pay $15 (US) a month with a max download of 60-70 songs allowed per month, which more than pays for itself considering you tend to find an average of 12 songs/cd. (It used to be unlimited downloads, but once they figured out how popular it was getting, they scaled it back to the current limits. Still a sweet deal, though.)

[sarahdotcom.livejournal.com]

I have to correct you there - cds tend to be more expensive in the States, especially imports which tend to start at $US30. I also spent ages looking around music stores in NY for a Paris Combo CD, and I've now learned that Scott always has it in stock at his store! We get a lot of music from England, the States and other countries. In the States, everywhere you go you get the same thing. I honestly think we have more variety and better prices here.

Try Amazon for music, you can sometimes get excellent prices on uncommon stuff. Once I got the two Baby Fox CDs for $US20, after I couldn't find them in a shop anywhere.

[drcuriosity]

Oh, I know that import prices over there are even more insane than ours are. I was once trying to track down a CD by a German band - US$40(+S&H) or so through amazon.com, where amazon.de had it listed for DM20 (and now has it for EUR16.49).

When looking at U.S. prices, I was going off the catalogues of Metropolis Records which stocks a lot of stuff I'd like to get, and a few local stores/vendors in San Francisco when I visited a couple of years back. Perhaps the market's different there from New York's.

And yes, we do get a lot of music, but almost nothing in the range that I really want - hence this post being a rant, rather than a well-thought-out balanced point of view :-)

As I said though, we either have rare stuff everywhere, or uncommon stuff nowhere to be found. I've wandered in to Echo Records to find a stack of copies (about a dozen) of a fairly rare Swedish Industrial CD marked down to NZ$7 (US$4.55) each because no-one knew who or what the hell they were, and thus no-one had bought them...

[beagl.livejournal.com]

Do you have a Real Groovy in Christchurch? They have a far better selection than anyone else.

I note that Sounds tends to do the "All CDs under NZ$25" thing which is nice.

As for the music industry - it sucks. I think both musicians and listeners would be better off if the current form of the music industry ceased to exist.

Finally, why not just order from Amazon? If you're ordering more than few things (or can get together with friends) it works out cheaper and generally faster than ordering through your local music shop.

[drcuriosity]

No - I wish we did. About the best selection is the Galaxy and Echo Records second-hand bins, which seem to get a few imports once other people have finished with 'em.

Amazon does seem to be the way to go, yes. Even with "people who bought this also like these" things, it's not quite the same as having a selection of stuff to browse through, though. I like the physical act of browsing through music collections, but I guess I'm not in a position to be picky, am I?

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Real Groovy do online shopping (but I don't know the URL offhand). So do Echo, for that matter.

[jexia]

www.realgroovy.co.nz


They also have their second hand stuff online, which is very handy.

Re: This is just gonna degenerate into bragging about Wellington. You have been warned.

[prgrmr.livejournal.com]

(my keyboard does not have a pound sign)

There's a key combination you can use. Hold down the alt key and then on the 10-key pad hit 1 then 5 then 6, all while holding down the alt key. You should get a £.

two words:

[ajkiwi.livejournal.com]

import duties.

Actually, that should be three words. Historical Import duties. Import charges in nz now are designed to take into account current prices in the nz market, taxes, processing costs, etc. The key bit there is "current prices in the nz market".

Until the early 90's, I believe it was, nz had "luxury" import duties on my 3 favourite things: Computer related stuff, Music products, and books(!) (yes, books were listed as luxury items). These meant that market prices for these items became quite high - Nz has MASSIVELY high prices for books, even more so than CDs, even now.

The reason: When the duties were removed, the large corporations in questions took the additional revenue as "cream" profit. And have kept it. CD prices, with inflation, have in fact dropped slightly in real terms in the last decade, due to our competitive retail market, but are still comparatively high on a world scale. Books remain luxury items, even though they are no longer taxed as such, due to the greed and success of the large publishers and profit creaming of whitcoulls, gets the largest margins from publishers, but strangely seems to have some of the highest prices.

So: what import costs still exist are quite high due to high market prices, which perpetuates the problem.

Re: two words:

[caycos.livejournal.com]

I'm in Australia, and I think we pretty much have similar issues.. specially on books. In the US you can get a standard paperback for $6 or $7. To pay $15 and upwards for the same thing in Australia/New Zealand seems insane... And yet I keep buying the damn things.

Addiction is a terrible thing.

Re: two words:

[glissom.livejournal.com]

You forgot games on that list. Anything with dice got hit with a much nastier tax than books.

All this is one reason I but so much of my music online.
And the only reason I buy any music at all ever is KAOS. All the music I really like I first heard at a party on on a disc lent/burnt by a friend. ALL of it. Radio doesn't play enough stuff I like for me to bother sifting the crap. And the friends I get the stuff from usually find it online via file sharing or similar.

[rhiannamator.livejournal.com]

CDNow.com used to be my fave place to get CD's but don't know how far they stray from the mainstream. Still, cheap postage and cheaper than importing a CD through a shop.

If you want to use "connections", go and talk to Steve the manager at Sounds Big Fresh. He says he's always happy to order stuff in for people and he's my little bro so you might get a decent deal.
That's what he tells me anyway. Never needed to test it out, I'm a mainstream whore ;)

[lutramania.livejournal.com]

If there is anything you'd like me to have a look for while I'm over in Norway in January, let me know. I know the music situation in NZ sucks, this is why I have not bought any music here for a year and a half. (With the exception of the odd $5 bargain..) Availability of uncommon/obscure stuff is pretty decent in Oslo, although the prices are pretty much the same as in NZ, which is actually reasonably cheap considering the strength of Norwegian currency.

I've heard so many people complain that they can't find what they want, so I'm doing the rounds to see if anyone would like me to have a look while I'm over in Europe.

[glissom.livejournal.com]

Oops, this appears to havet triggered one of my rants.

I find it infuriating that CD's are ever shipped further than a few k's. When what your buying is information that costs almost nothing to move and a dollar or so to produce even when making only one it is insane to produce then in the US and ship them to other countries.
Most of the CD's sold in NZ and Australia are actually pressed in Aus but really they should be made in the same city they are sold in. Same applies to books frankly although the production costs are higher for small runs the tech is catching up. Send one master manufacture on demand as close to the customer as possible.

And you get to cut out the distribution companies that are where most of the markup goes. They make more than the artists or stores, or record companies. Bastards.

[demented-angel.livejournal.com]

So what are some CD's you are interested in, or should I say want that you don't currently have? I would love to know:) I hope you have a good christmas and Happy New Years!!!Miss you bunches!*Hugs*