The Wall Street Journal is reporting (Holiday Buyers Spurn Tunes As Industry Picture Worsens) that, after a brief recovery, music sales are down some 20% this year compared with the same period last year.

They’re blaming all the usual suspects - high prices, CD burning, competition from other sectors and - of course - ’sharing’. I think there might be another reason. Since I transferred all my old CDs onto my iPod I’ve realised how little of the music I owned I’d actually listened to properly. So I declared a moratorium on music purchases until I’d heard every track I already owned at least once. It just seemed profligate to buy new music until I’d cleared the backlog. I’ve been chugging through them (and some of them are pretty dire) for a couple of months. As a result I have only a thousand or so unheard tracks left now.

So that’s my contribution to the downturn. Of course I’m boycotting Sony BMG so even when I’m back off the CD buying wagon I’ll give them a miss - but apart from that I should be ready to start lobbing my hard earned cash down their greedy little gullets sometime in the new year. Let’s hope they can hold out that long.

Gogopuffs, or should that be Gogopuffs (hello Randal)? And while I’m at it Todmorden Porn.

Have a nice day.