Ask A Columnist: Rolling Stone Executive Editor Joe Levy Answers Your Questions

Pavement.

Isn't the economical solution to falling album sales to simply lower the prices? When a DVD's sales begin to slow down the price begins to drop until it ends up in a $5 bin. When an album drops it may sell for about $10 then go back to $13 or $15, regardless of who the artist was or how successful the album sold. How can the industry justify selling a pop album with maybe two or three popular tracks for the same amount, if not more, as a movie that took $200 million to produce? -- Chuck

Doesn't the same thing happen with CDs already? There's a bargain bin at Virgin. It's pretty crowded. Look, you're right. The industry can't justify jack shit. The industry is desperate. They tried lowering prices. I think it's called iTunes or something like that. Not solving all their problems, but it will allow you to buy two or three popular tracks for $3 instead of $20 (and albums for less than $20, too). Pricing is an issue, but it's not the whole issue, or the whole answer. A few years ago I was in the office of the president of major label and he put it this way: How do you compete with free? It's true. No matter how low they make the prices, free is still cheaper. By the way, he also told me he believed people still listened to music on stereos (in his defense, this was pre-iPod), which will come as a surprise to anyone listening to music on their computer while reading this. I'm mentioning that just to let you know that there are bigger problems in record companies than CD prices.