Now That's What I Call Music, Explored

Wow, I didn't even know it was still around.

I am glad to read that someone else in the blogosphere was perplexed by the relatively sunny attitude of the New York Times piece regarding the future of the NOW That's What I Call Music! franchise. It is also interesting that you connect the difficulty that NOW's distributors are experiencing trying to peddle even the biggest radio hits to consumers on a physical CD to the general "decline of the music industry." While the public might have gained an immunity against NOW's aggressively metronomic release schedule and its garishly bright packaging over the past ten years, the doubts surrounding the once-bulletproof series are perhaps emblematic of a sea change in music retailing. I am thinking of the marketing and sale of the single in particular, as a recent Idolator post compares the idea of a quarterly hits-heavy compilation to a sort of hedge fund in which each of the major record labels--Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI, and Universal Music--could all profit (again) from the successes of their competitors. However, a business model such as this is dependent on the health of CD sales in general and is difficult to sustain in an environment where digital music retailers offer the same songs featured on each version of NOW for less than a dollar apiece. I recognize that you touch on this point in noting that it is "not a good sign when labels begin hinting that the entire industry as they know it soon probably won't exist," but I am curious to know whether or not you think that this what the labels want in some sense. Is it possible that the industry, finally being moved by the winds of change, is recognizing that when given the option, consumers simply will not buy an entire album for only a handful of songs they truly desire? At any rate, the decline of NOW might be good for the music business if only to alter the perception that "less killer, more filler" is still the mantra of the major labels.