I was at a small Tower Records last year on my visit to Fukuoka, Japan and bought a couple Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (J pop) CDs.
The one theory is that since Japan has so many old (or older) people, buying CDs the old fashioned way is popular. Another thing is that even though Japan is into modern technology and they are innovators of the modern world, they still hang on to old ways. Like I've heard that many offices still use fax machines and there are still people who rent movies from videos stores the old fashioned way of the 1990s.
Let's see if they start opening US stores. Now that there are so few physical stores that sell CDs and DVDs, they might actually have a chance of making it in the US. If they do open US stores, it would be interesting to see if they price match Amazon or not.
Now 1/3 of US recorded music revunue comes from streaming. Download sales are decreasing, and vinyl sales are increasing rapidly, but are still only around 7% of revenue, compared to around 22% for CD. The industry seems to keep evolving. The extent of the huge surge in streaming, and the revival of vinyl are a surprise to many.
I would love to see blue ray high definition audio discs become popular, and to have have high definition binaural recordings(made using a dummy head with mikes where the ears are, and intended to be played back using headphones) also on the discs.
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