by Gavin Blackburn

The release of the annual “Recording Industry in Numbers” by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) revealed that Germany ranks ahead of the UK in physical music sales.

Low digital penetration, a healthy CD market and a stable economy have all helped push Germany to number three on the IFPI league table. Sitting just behind the United States and Japan, it’s one of the world’s largest music markets - as well as the biggest in Europe – and beats the UK in physical sales for the first time in more than a decade.

The UK’s recent slip down the rankings has been attributed to an increasingly strong network of digital download platforms as well as the recent disappearance of high street heavyweights such as Woolworths and Zavvi, victims of the global credit crunch. All this has resulted in a dwindling interest in physical products. CD sales in the UK for 2010 totaled $1.38 billion, a staggering 11 per cent drop compared with 2009.

In contrast, physical music sales in Germany accounted for a whopping 81 per cent of all recorded music purchased, buying the market with a healthy $1.14 billion.

The news is welcome but scarcely unexpected, especially for those working in the independent sector. German indies commanded an impressive 26.7 per cent of the physical album sales market in 2010.

“I’m not entirely surprised,” Christof Ellinghaus, chief of Berlin-based indie label City Slang, told Deutsche Welle, “One strategy that people have been following in the UK much more aggressively than over here is to lower the prices of CDs to keep physical retail attractive. Unfortunately the outcome is the complete opposite, and retail has never been in a more dramatic state in the UK.”

British music executive Grant Box, co-manager of independent label Snowhite, has had experience of the music business both in his native England and in Berlin where the label he co-runs is based.

“With Germany being populated by 20 million more people than the UK, it’s a surprise that there were ever more sales in the UK than in Germany,” he said, “The UK is a trend-setter and more and more people in the UK are downloading music from iTunes and other platforms which will happen here but slightly later in the same scale.”

While physical sales in both countries continue to fall as digitally-generated revenue cuts into more traditional sales markets, both countries have quite different consumer landscapes.

While iTunes is the dominant platform for digital music in both territories, subscription numbers are higher in the UK. In Germany the shift from traditional buying to digital has been much slower. Ongoing negotiations between subscription services and the German authors’ collection agency GEMA has been cited as one reason the growth of the digital market has been sluggish. A recent revival of interest in domestic music has also helped keep the physical sales market healthy.

Germany seems unusually hesitant to embrace digital music buying. The current market is valued at only 13 per cent in value terms. With emphasis increasingly shifting to digital platforms, the UK’s infrastructure is already better suited to ride the change while traditional, cautious Germany may well soon lag behind again.

Music producer and label chief Mark Reeder has been active in the German music business since re-locating to Berlin in 1978. Having cut his teeth working in the flagship Virgin Records store in Manchester, he could immediately see a difference in the way music was sold in the UK and in Germany.

“Our shop would be crammed and we had the latest music blaring out, at that time mostly punk rock,” he explained, “It created an energy and raised adrenaline levels and it certainly influenced our sales. When I moved to Berlin, I discovered the Germans sold their records in a much different way. In the main, the shops would be neat, some almost clinical with cold racks of records crammed together. In our shop the music was loud but in German record shops the music just doodled somewhere quietly in the background and some shops didn’t even play music at all!”
But why are Germans seemingly so hesitant to make the switch to digital? Mark thinks the explanation may lie in the age of the people predominantly buying CDs.

“On the whole, Germans are usually very loyal when it comes to buying records by their favorite artists,” he said, “Usually they will buy every release regardless of it being good or bad. Germans obviously like something physical to have, hold and own. A CD is still something of value. But I think in Germany, like in the UK, young people are much more likely to download a track rather than buy it.”

While Germany can celebrate this leap ahead over the UK at the moment, its long-term position may not be so secure. The Mercury label – one of the world’s largest imprints and home to artists such as Elton John, Justin Bieber and The Killers – recently announced it would cease production of CD singles, a further sign that the market is increasingly turning its back on physical products and looking towards a digital future.

So what is the future of the physical format in Germany? It won’t necessarily disappear, but will possibly become more of a niche commodity.

“We’ll continue to do both (digital and physical releases),” explained Desi Vach, co-manager of Snowhite, “The customer should have the choice whether they want a digital track or something they can hold in their hands. We’ll still release on CD and of course on vinyl with really lavish packaging. That’s our point of service as a label.”

City Slang’s Christof Ellinghaus points out that his label will also continue to produce luxury line releases for hardcore fans who want a physical product and that with digital sales there comes a disadvantage: “It’s really a track-based business which is a shame as many of our artists like to think of their work in the context of an album,” he said, “But we do love the way you can link from just anywhere to a point of sale, be it from Youtube or Facebook. The direct link to a Spotify or iTunes or any other outlet really is it. It doesn’t make things much easier, does it?”

Text: Gavin Blackburn

posted by Gavin Blackburn for EYHO Blog Berlin
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Take a relatively obscure 80s pop track, re-work it by one of the UK?s most successful bands and release it on a highly-respected German label

by NEALE LYTOLLIS

- if you thought that recipe for success was a just little too ambitious to be true then think again because no less than Pet Shop Boys have just released their latest single – a cover of the classic I?m In Love With a German Film Star featuring vocals by Sam Taylor-Wood – on Cologne-based label Kompakt.

On the surface it may seem a curious concoction all round yet it?s perhaps the unlikeliness of it all that has ensured a striking finished product. Kompakt?s Michael Mayer explains how the single came about: ?There?s a longstanding mutual admiration and respect between Kompakt and PSB,? he said, ?We?ve loved their music ever since they started recording. Neil and Chris discovered our label many years ago. They are very up to date with electronic music and even came digging for records in our record store.

This collaboration with Sam Taylor-Wood is a very special side project that they didn?t want to run through their usual channels. It?s a labour of love and the song is about a German film star ? so Kompakt seemed to be a suitable harbour for it.? Neil Tenant says of the collaboration: ?I?m a big fan of Kompakt and it?s a thrill to release something with them; they?re a definitive electronic music label.?

When the song was originally released at the beginning of the 80s it was only a minor hit yet it?s made a lasting impression on Neil Tenant: ?I bought the original version by The Passions in 1981 and I?ve always thought it was a mesmerising track,? he explained, ?We thought the song would lend itself to an electronic interpretation. I hope we?ve emphasised the sexual longing.?

All the stops have been pulled out for this release which features a brace of sexy remixes, three of which come from Berlin?s own Mark Reeder. Michael Mayer is hooked: ?It was the boys? wish to include him in this project. Of course we were aware of his existence since he started the label MFS in 1990 but our paths had never crossed before. To be honest, I was a little unsure if he would be a matching choice given the fact that he was known for working mainly at the mainstream end of trance music but when I heard his mixes I was staggered. He?s totally captured the classic PSB sound of their early Bobby O. phase. That?s probably something a 25-year-old minimal techno hotshot couldn?t have accomplished. I think his Stuck in the 80s Mix rounds off the package in a very appropriate way.?

While Michael Mayer may lean towards Natassja Kinski as his favourite German movie goddess, the striking cover art can leave no doubts as to which German film star Neil Tenant is in love with: ?Marlene, because she?s so glamourous and has that wonderful husky voice!?

Sam Taylor-Wood produced by Pet Shop Boys ? I?m In Love With a German Film Star is out now as CD maxi, 12? and 7? on Kompakt Pop.

www.petshopboys.co.uk
www.kompakt-net.com

TONIGHT NOVEMBER 8TH 19:00 CET “GERMANY CALLING” SHOW ON RADIO SONETT77

DJane Fidelity and Jonty Skruff start their new radio show tonight 19:00 !

(the show will be aired again Monday 10th of November same time)

check it out in the on-demand section – finde the sonett77-player here:

click here to stream

She will also spin the Alec Empire “Landscape Izuma” Remix by Alec Empire….and a lot more great beats… make sure you check it out

OK?

?sorry, but you know when you start a sentence with ?OK? it means you?re about to say something bizarre of offensive like, ?OK, you know you?re my best friend but you have really bad breath,? or ?OK, I do like screwing you but next time could you maybe do something more than just lie there like an ironing board?? That kind of thing. Saying ?OK? kinda sets the tone for something odd.

So here goes.

OK, cyclists really get on my nerves.

em04_3

There, I said it. I am abusing my good working relationship with the EYHO team to use their blog not as a platform to plug a new record, review a cool gig or lament the break-up of a favourite band but to rant about cyclists. Perhaps this blog entry should carry a public information sticker: ATTENTION! THIS BULLETIN INCLUDES ABSOLUTELY NO MUSIC CONTENT WHATSOEVER! So at least you?ve been forewarned?either read on or turn back now and check out one of the many other wonderful texts on this site.

All I am going to do here is vent my spleen about something which irritates me under the perhaps misguided belief that someone out there actually gives a shit except myself.

I am a cyclist. I should make that clear right from the off. In fact I have a rather sexy black bike which my dear friend Mark Reeder gave me. It?s big, it?s black, it has about 4000 gears?it?s the Monster Truck of bikes, very capable, easy to handle, lightweight. In fact, it?s the business and I love it dearly (although mercifully not enough to actually have given it a name ? it is just a bike after all). It?s my primary mode of transport; stick your head out of your window at any given point during the day and you?re likely to see me whizzing past ? if you know what I look like that is.

What pisses me off are other cyclists. They are an incredibly bizarre breed and they get on my nerves like nobody?s business. I hate the kind of cyclist who will gladly breeze through a red light and then go crazy because someone in a Robben and Wientjes truck has almost wiped them out. I hate cycle couriers who have ?5000 worth of bike and ?2000 worth of cycle clothes and then ride slower than my gran can walk.

I hate the kind of stupid Prenzlauer Berg mother who has a huge plastic kids cycle seat on the back of her wonky old bike and uses it to carry a sack of potatoes rather than a child. I hate the kind of people who think it?s cool to buy a DDR-era bike because it?s retro and then wonder why the thing doesn?t actually move.

I hate the kind of Dolly Daydream who sits at a green light holding up the whole world because they?re staring into space dreaming about something they read in Spiegel the day before. I hate it when the light changes to green and some incompetent wibbles and wobbles all over the place trying to get moving as though they?d only learned to ride a bike half an hour before.

I hate it when I get stuck behind some incredibly slow woman and I can?t take my eyes off her tremendously fat arse which only makes me think about wanting to punch her in the back of the head. I hate it when cyclists ride on the pavement because they don?t want to knacker their wheels on a cobbled street yet they turn into Jack Nicholson from The Shining if a pedestrian happens to put one foot into the cycle lane. I hate it when cyclists insist on riding side by side in the cycle lane having a conversation with each other ? or worse still when they?re holding hands ? these people should be machine-gunned to death.

I hate the kind of dumb bell who fumbles around not quite sure of where they?re going, holds up their right arm ? and then turns left. I hate the idiots who ride around the city at night wearing black with not a single light on their bike and then wonder why 10 taxis have killed them. Alternatively, I hate the kind of wanker who has some kind of flashing, strobe, disco light thing mounted on their bike which makes passing aircraft think that they are Tegel Airport and then try to make a landing in Frankfurter Allee.

I hate the kind of cyclist who causes absolute havoc on the subway by insisting on bringing his bike into the most packed carriage on the train so that everyone has to breathe in and hold it and sit in each other?s pockets ? then he gets off after one station ? these guys I have to suppress the urge to kick in the back.

This could potentially go on forever but I am going to call it quits now. I guess in writing this I?ve just realised the point of the whole article?

I am the best cyclist in the city and everyone else should just take the U-Bahn and leave me and the streets in peace.

NEALE LYTOLLIS