^I've been a pirate for... 2 years.

@TH - Haha, no, but the record companies are way too greedy.

The production cost of one CD or a DVD is around 1ct.

Oh well.

I forgive you because of your spending 1500USD on Ayu <3

:weep Oh noes. Not piracy. Immilk has gone to the dark side.

I guess its ok if you buy what you downloaded and loved. Not burn the stuff to the CD and live happily.

I never burn stuff, I keep it on my HDD until I'm tired of it, lol.

I wonder how long I'll keep my 350Gb of Ayu stuff ... of which I own physical copies of most of it anyway.

For reals, immeljan.

exactly. it is hoped that singles can sustain the sales of the album.

the prodcution cost of that cd maybe 1ct but what the about the cost of producing the album/tour on the cd?? It's different from buying an empty disc. I don't want to speak for record companies but too many people fall into the mindset that they are buying a 'disc' as opposed to a disc with content on it.

Yeah, I know, I just had to say that. And what costs the absolutely most money is the promoting of the release.

well...I believe...

because the albums over in Japan are a lot more expensive there than they are here in America. We do have singles here in America but we don't really take time to promote them because they're only like 6 dollars and albums are about 15 dollars, so yeah.

And in Japan the singles are about 10 dollars and the albums are about 25 dollars, and perhaps someone wants a single more than an album as well (like for instance, someone only liked Poker Face from A song for XX but didnt like any of the other songs promoted)

thats what I think

ps: I thought the CDs in Japan were Super Expensive compared to americans' cds.

In relation, they are... they cost more than 200% more, which is sick.

I like western selling CD method way much better than japan. (Sorry, I only like white thing ^_^).

At least Japanese CDs come with obi strips. Maybe that's the stuff making CDs in Japan super expensive. :think

Why would obi strips make it expensive? XD

Any other explanation? :laugh I did notice Japanese album/single covers tend to be thicker and more durable than Western CD covers. For example, I saw the CD single for "Shake It Off" for sale once. One was Japanese and it was RM89 while the normal US one was RM32. The Japanese one looked real tough as the cover was like an album cover. The US one was a normal thin single cover. Have you seen a Western single cover though?

I dont see how this works... BEcuase they release the single then the album..EVERYONE loves the single goes and buys the album..

they release another single..people already have the album so releasing another single isnt necessary unless the few who didnt buy the album when the first single came out.

Well, however weird it may see, it does work.

Releasing a single in the US puts the artist in the spotlight, releasing an album does not.

The single will be played on MTV and radio, the word will spread if the song is good, and the album will sell.

Then they release the next single, the style of it might appeal to more people, the word spreads again, and more people will buy it.

In Japan they use the singles as a sort of preparation for a climax that will come, both ways seem to work for their respective markets. And even though the prices for CDs in Japan is around 200% higher than in the US, the percentage of people that buy records is higher, or equal to, the sales in the US.

And so on. I guess, only speculating.

Exactly. That's why US singles are often different even from the same album. It's to appeal to a different market each time. So with probably 3 different genres, they get the attention of 3 different markets.

Look at Kelly Clarkson's sophomore album. It had 6 singles and all of them were quite different within one another. And the album sold more than 4 million copies in the US alone...

Diversity is the key, with that kind of marketing... and of course, the songs need to be good. Heh.

I wonder. I believe the US system is better, but in Japan music is so much more, it's everywhere... every single huge company has one or the larger artists attached to it, and their music and faces is everywhere. Everything got tie-ins, wherever you go or look you can never avoid to see or hear the latest music from the hottest artists. In the US artists aren't as popular to be used as promotion machines, even though it's done.

Yeah that I realized too. Even camera's and various edible products get their own tie-ins. In the US, nothing of that sort has happened on a large scale. I only know Gwen Stefani designed some camera, but it didn't have a tie-in. Maybe songs get overplayed in the US anyway, so they don't put songs attached.

However, I don't believe star power in the US isn't enough to promote products. Surely there's something holding artistes and companies back.

I think that with 'tie-ins' and the US.. people seem to connect that with 'selling out' or something.

It's stopped many from doing endorsements, I'd imagine..