CD Stories

My brother walked into a store in town yesterday and was very pleasantly surprised to hear my CD, U'Shmuel B'Korei Sh'mo, playing over the speaker system. He started talking to the proprietor and in the course of the conversation, the proprietor told him two things. First, he liked the CD alot. Second, he didn't buy it; he downloaded it off a computer.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a person who is very involved in the music industry. I had given him a copy of the CD and this was the first chance I'd had to ask him his thoughts. He gave me very good constructive criticism then we started talking about sales.

He has produced many CDs and described first hand the terrible impact on CD sales of projects that he'd produced caused by people downloading music illegally.

In November, I had lunch with Shlomo Katz in Jerusalem. He told me that everyone he talks to has his wonderful new CD, V'Hakohanim. Unfortunately, actual sales do not nearly reflect this (the CD is still doing reasonably well).

I have not yet received a report on how the CD is doing. I should be getting the first 90 day report in the near future. Truthfully, despite the almost unanimous positive reaction to the CD, strong backing from Sameach and a bunch of advertising by me, I don't know what to expect. I knew when I produced the CD that the market for non-Shiny Shoe music was extremely limited but I did not take into account the rampant stealing that goes on among even among this chevrah.

MHW asked me tonight whether I would have done the CD project knowing what I know now. The answer in this case is yes. It was done primarily as a tribute to my dad and I was willing to lose some money on it. However, I would never do another project based on the same model. I would look for independent funding before embarking on any major new production. As long as poeple take the music without paying for it, the economics simply don't work.