It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me

February 28, 2008 By David Burn Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune reports that 48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006.

Rachel Rottman, 14, says she hasn’t bought a CD in a year. The Santa Monica High School freshman says she downloads five or six songs a day, using paid services such as iTunes and social networking site MySpace, where bands post songs for free download. Rachel said she had about 2,600 songs stored on her computer.
Before getting a computer in the seventh grade, she always bought CDs. But now it’s too much trouble, she said.
“You have to go to the store and then you have to pay — I don’t know how much, $12, I’m guessing? — then you have to put it on your computer,” Rachel said. “When you download it, it’s right there.”

When I think about how much space all my CDs take up, I’m not exactly excited to add to that pile of plastic. Yet, I’m only too eager to discover something on iTunes that I can buy and store digitally.

Filed Under: Demographics

About David Burn

I wrote my first ad for a local political candidate when I was 17. She went on to win her race, and I felt the power of persuasive copy for the first time. Starting in Portland in 1995, I worked my way across the country as a copywriter and eventually became a content director making media products for big packaged goods brands. I returned to Oregon in 2008, and now I focus on building brands for companies that matter, including this one.