People buy and listen to their music where they buy and listen to their music. I, as a content provider, can’t influence that. There are many people in this business that say, ‘I wish people still bought vinyl. I wish people still bought CDs.’ But you can’t base your business on that.
Scott Ambrose Reilly, X5’s CEO of North America (How Tiny X5 Music Group Is Slaying Label Goliaths On The Billboard Charts - Forbes)
X5’s Stockholm-based staff of 10 producers has churned out more than 5,000 classical compilations, creating as many as 400 in a week. The producers often rely on sales data to determine, for instance, what should go into compilations like “The 99 Most Essential Chopin Masterpieces,” which was ranked No. 1 Tuesday on Amazon MP3’s classical best-sellers chart. Priced at $1.29, the collection has ranked among the site’s 100 top-selling classical albums for 20 months.
The Internet’s $10 Million [Classical] Mix Tapes (WSJ)
Most of me is strongly to opposed to all of this, as I’m so firmly rooted in the tradition that certain elite artistic directors, musicians, and musicologists should be determining what the “most essential Chopin masterpieces” are.
On the other hand, it works, and it’s getting this music into people’s ears. I’m not surprised that Naxos is the first US record label to licence their catalog to them, as their missions are not dissimilar, with focus on a low price.
Relevant article cut out and left for me by a cute husband.
