7 December 2005
That fuckawful cavalry song
LONDON – REUTERS (via JonnyB). Whilst thousands of Britons indulge in the annual ritual of complaining about the earliness of hearing Christmas records in the shops, music business chiefs are braced for a far more real and pressing problem – one which shows no sign of going away. According to figures by industry analysts Datamonitor, projected sales of ‘The Best Christmas Album in the World... Ever!’ are likely to be slashed once more this year, leaving this once-mighty market a shadow of its former self.
It’s a far cry from the glory days of the seventies and eighties, when sales of the leading Christmas compilation album in December alone would account for almost 60% of music industry profits for the entire year. So what’s been behind the huge downturn that is only compounding the woes of an industry some say is in terminal decline?
“It’s a very simple problem of supply,” explains Michael diCrabbe, Vice President of Christmas Album Compilations at Universal Music (now working part-time, two days a week, Tuesdays and Wednesdays). “There really have been no reasonable Christmassy tracks recorded for a number of years. Therefore our Christmas Album product is essentially the same as it was ten years ago. Therefore there is no incentive for our customers to upgrade.”
At the root of the problem is one plain fact: market conditions are such that it’s simply uneconomical to record Christmassy songs in 21st-century Britain. Ballad production has now generally migrated to Eastern Europe, and whilst there has been some success in outsourcing rhythm and basic backing vocal tracks to the Indian sub-continent, results have been erratic at best. Hopes that the Chancellor might throw the industry a lifeline in his pre-budget announcement were dashed when he announced help for house-builders and pensioners’ fuel bills, but no new money for Christmas songs. All this has left diCrabbe gloomy for the future.
“There are still sales there on the occasions when we’re able to add on the odd new extra track, but once Cliff stops then we’re all buggered – me in particular,” he says. “I guess I could do another day on the market stall, but that would be on a Wednesday, and I work here at Universal Music on a Wednesday. I’d have to move my day here to the Thursday, which would mean a gap, which wouldn’t be convenient at all. Plus I have to pick Yvonne up on a Thursday.”
The problem has been compounded by the lack of new technology platforms for the foreseeable future. Normally these would keep the Christmas album market buoyant, as consumers upgraded from tape, to vinyl, to CD. In fact the relationship between technology and Christmas songs is mutually-dependent. “There are two things everybody knows drives the uptake of new technology,” explains diCrabbe. “Pornography and Christmas songs. When CD players first came out there was a loyal core of Jona Lewie fans keen to hear what he sounded like on the new medium. Likewise when they could watch him on DVD. So they created critical mass for hardware manufacturers like Sony, who were then able to sell enough units to reduce the manufacturing cost.”
“Without the Christmas songs,” he continues, “there’s no incentive for the likes of Sony to invest in new recording technology, as there’s no key market to support it. Except filth.”
Is there hope for the Christmas compilation album market? Perhaps. Its posher cousin, ‘Christmas Carols from Wells Cathedral’, has after all avoided extinction despite no new carols having been written for hundreds of years (apart from ones that are a bit rubbish and only get sung in assembly). But it provides negligible revenue for a large record company with overheads to match. In terms of major sales, it appears that the goose that laid the golden egg is well and truly cooked and served up with cranberry sauce, and parsnips.
END