[ASTRO] Re: Help, Lookin' for M.F.T./1000x import

[Michael Kepler <kepler@metro1.com>]

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Umm... These are _Canadian_ dollars you're talking about, right?
I don't know what the current rate of exchange is these days, but
somebody ought to check and make an adjusted comparison.  I'm guessing
US and Canadian pricing, after adjusting for rate of exchange, is
closer than you think.

As long as we're whining about CD prices, I'm totally disgusted that
Tower made a big across-the-board price increase this year.  There
is absolutely NO excuse for this.  I'm hoping their sales will slip
enough that they will eventually rethink their pricing.  I'm certainly
not shopping there unless I absolutely have to.  Instead I'm supporting
my local independant stores and buying more vynil (sp?).  CDs were
expensive when they first came out because volumes were low and everybody
was still absorbing their capital expenditures on the manufacturing
equipment.  We were told that prices would go down over time, they should
have, and it didn't happen.  The musicians themselves can tell you how
little of this wealth trickles down to them.  Big-label music is an
ugly dirty business.  Don't scorn "sell out" bands who join big labels,
pity them the loss of their freedom and ownership in their own works.

Just to put this whole indy/biggie pricing thing in perspective.
A local band is selling professionally manufactured CDs for five
bucks apeice, in small production volumes, and they are NOT losing
money.  NOT losing money, in SMALL volume, at $5 per disk!  Just
think of all of the massive volume, and corresponding savings in
cost of production per unit, manufactured by the big labels, and
yet they charge us over twice as much!  Ok, to be fair, the local
band doesn't factor in any warehousing or shipping costs, but these
are pretty tiny numbers of cents per unit in high volumes anyway.

Ooops.  Rant mode off.

Mookie

On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Rob wrote:

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> 
> >Music Boulevard has the CD, but at a pricey $27.43, not including the 3 bucks
> >or so U.S. for shipping and handling.
> 
> You Americans whining about high prices like that...  I could quote some
> prices I've paid for CDs up here in Canada that'd make you cringe...  I
> paid I think 24 or 25 bucks for Frank Black's Teenager of the Year...
> Bought Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Orange for $24...  Unless you want
> mainstram music or you get the stuff right when it's released you pay some
> high prices...  I got Acme, the new Jon Spencer yesterday for 19.99 or
> 18.99 and that was considered cheap...  Big releases can go for 14.99 the
> first week but most stuff is around 18.99 or 19.99...  Then for the good
> music that we Astro-listees go for you pay between 21.99 to 25.99...  I've
> been pretty lucky that the only big CD store in town has had some good
> deals on some old stuff I wanted...
> 
> Rob
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
>  
> 


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