Well, I know I have been a bad bad boy.  My blogging as of late has been a bit lack luster and non-existant.  If you are still reading.  Thank You.

I have been in the process of working on my taxes over the past week or so and I had a bit o an epiphany.  You see, when you are relegated to staying in the States while all of the talking heads of the music industry are in Cannes at Midem, you will find yourself enjoying the time you have by filling it up with things like tallying your own personal music tab from the past year for the purposes of writing some of it off (I am in the MUSIC business after all).

Point being… the buzz this year is all about Subscriptions.  Subscriptions are going to save the music industry.  Well- we knew this-  that is why we created the Naxos Music Library years ago.  Subscriptions are a very important part of our business model.  It is good to hear all of this new buzz-  But with the likes of Bob Lefsetz, Donald Passman, and other touting how this really could be the paradigm shift gives it a whole new value in my mind.  The fact that you cant have a talk about digital music without Spotify coming up tells me that this is a move that is coming sooner than later.

Back to my taxes.  I noticed a really interesting fact as I added up my tally from Amazon, , iTunes,  eMusic, Classics Online, etc.  The really interesting thing is I REALLY did spend more money on subscriptions this year than I did on a la carte purchases.  This is a bit freaky to me as I spend a good deal of dough on music.  But it is true.  eMusic got the lion’s share of my money.  This could be attributed to a number of things.  1st of all, I use eMusic as a discovery tool and as a catalog builder.  I would never set out to buy Starship’s Greatest Hits, Gogol Bordello, or Boston, but eMusic facilitated this for me.  These are what I consider great catalog fillers.  I may not want to put them in queue on my iPod touch, but some time I may wish to hear them again and therefore I bought them…  Move over to my iTunes and Amazon purchase patterns.  The vast majority of music purchased through these outlets last year were singles.  Radio hits.  One Hit Wonders… whathaveyou.  Call it what you want.. the crazy thing is I spent less on these than I did at eMusic.  This tells me that I am either a) wasting too much money on eMusic.. of b) I would rather keep my monthly tab knowing that I can exhaust it on any mundane old albums my heart desires than go looking for those albums to pay for them in real time.  I wonder if the rest of the music buying public would agree with this…?

I dont know if this proves any of the great music business thinkers’ concepts as this still neglects the difference between my eMusic subscription and a Spotify subscription.  But it does make one thing evident.  I WILL spend more money on music by the Album than I will by the single and eMusic’s model of giving me an allowance each month will continue to feed my album fetish.  This is mostly a behavioral thing I suspect- but I still find it incredibly interesting.

Ok- thats all for now- I will try to be a better blogger in 2010.. Thanks

Oh.. and Happy 2010.. here’s a video to celebrate.