Record store day. Russian edition.

As you might now, a "Record Store Day" was celebrated 3 days ago (18 April). And if you don't know, it's just a day to support your favorite local independent record stores, and for those record stores to pay you some love and respect back, with discounts and live performances aboard.

The stories about how the actual Record Store Day worked out may be found at the home site of the event, or in oh-so-famous, google-reader-promoted and actually very interesting to read blogs Idolator (there's something wrong with this tag, for there was more than one post on the topic) and Stereogum.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking that here (and that would be in Moscow, Russian Federation) we don't have enough independent record stores to support. And no surprise, nobody here knows anything about "the Day"... Also, I've been trying to find a proper picture, or just a concept of a picture that would represent a concept of "economics of music" somehow and googled my nose right into this one:



First thing I'd like to say about the picture - they should have lost India somewhere along the way! I mean... just look at it, every country with a relatively big population has it's own piece of a disc, and India somehow doesn't. I don't believe that poverty is washing out this population factor in amount of music illegally consumed. Maybe they just don't know how to count it there?

And now about the big share of that disc going to Russia and about 'our' record stores.

- If you live in a russian city that has, say less than a million people, you can be at least 90% sure your local record store sells illegall CDs. The other 10% would go to huge national music-related retailers and would usually have nothing interesting for a music-lover, hence no reason for support.

- Even if you live in a big city, say Moscow or St. Petersburg, most of the records available to you are "semi-illegal", since russian copyright law is far less seveir than US or even EU copyright law. (And I must say - thanks God or whoever responsible for it!).

- The official imported records you get are sold at double price (if you compare it to the US\EU before-export price) and it has absolutely nothing to do with international trade restrictions. Pure profit, or loss if you're a consumer.

- Those "semi-legal" records are sold at affordable prices, but they are so boooring...

So who I have to support? National giants like "Soyuz" (union) or "Nastroyeniye" (mood, and by the smiley face in their logo you should assume that the mood is good, but no), or all-in-one stores like MediaMarkt? Or those guys who travel to Europe, carefully chose some records there and then copy those records illegally for everybody's happiness? Or maybe just my computer?

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Why am I here? Naïve foreword.

For me there are many reasons to think about the subject they call “music economy” or “economics of music”. The first two of them (the reasons) are very personal: I’ve always been in love with music of some kind and I do economics for living, so the blend of words “music” and “economics” seems very natural for me. But there are other, non-personal reasons for thinking about the subject.

First is – music is a rare kind of good you can’t escape unless you’re deaf. You might like it or not, but while you are shopping or passing an open window of somebody’s car and you hear a song, or sometimes even a symphony, you are consuming some of that precious music. Fortunately for you, and maybe unfortunately for the record-bosses, one has to catch you listening to that copyrighted material to make you pay, especially if you hate what you hear. Now unfortunately for you, and maybe fortunately for record-guys, they make you pay anyway by listening the ads. Yet it doesn’t change my point – there is only one other “good” that would catch you even if you don’t want it too, and it’s a smell, good or bad.

Second – music is one of good indicators of cultural life as a whole. If you listen to the “music-through-time” you can notice dramatic changes. The Dumas-Musketryan time French music is hard to enjoy and hard to understand for a modern ear, while Bach is already ok. And I really don’t think that Bach would understand what all the modern compositions are about even if we’d give him some “new classics”. The other side of this “cultural” approach is the pattern of social roles taken by average musician\composer: servant – intellectual – pop-star.

Third, and I’d like to stop here for now, is the fact that music is one of the industries undergoing a rapid change right now. It’s being shaped by new media and new philosophy at the same time. 

Why it came to the point of change and what’s going to happen next. That’s what I want to understand. I don’t know much on the subject (yet) and want to fix my steps in learning it here. And I hope to get some help through discussing the subject with anyone who’s interested.

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