逆數字音樂大潮 日本樂迷對CD癡心不改

TOKYO — Around the world, the music business has shifted toward downloads and streaming. But in Japan, the compact disc is still king.

東京——音樂市場在世界各地普遍都轉向下載和流媒體播放。但在日本，CD卻仍然大行其道。

On a drizzly Sunday afternoon recently, Tower Records’ nine-level flagship store here was packed with customers like Kimiaki Koinuma. A 23-year-old engineer in a Dee Dee Ramone T-shirt, Mr. Koinuma said that, unlike most men his age around the world, he spends little time with digital services and prefers his music on disc.

在下着毛毛雨的一個週日下午，淘兒唱片(Tower Records)的旗艦店裏擠滿了顧客，身穿迪·迪·雷蒙(Dee Dee Ramone)T恤的鯉沼公明(Kimiaki Koinuma)就是其中一位。這個23歲的工程師表示，他很少使用數字音樂服務，更喜歡CD音樂。這有別於全球各地的大多數同齡男性。

“I buy around three CDs a month,” he said, showing off a haul of six new albums, including the Rolling Stones’ classic “Exile on Main St.” and an assortment of the latest Japanese pop hits.

“我一個月買3張CD左右，”他說道，並展示了他的六張新唱片，包括滾石樂隊(Rolling Stones)的經典專輯《主街流放》(Exile on Main St.)和一些最新的日本流行金曲。

Japan may be one of the world’s perennial early adopters of new technologies, but its continuing attachment to the CD puts it sharply at odds with the rest of the global music industry. While CD sales are falling worldwide, including in Japan, they still account for about 85 percent of sales here, compared with as little as 20 percent in some countries, like Sweden, where online streaming is dominant.

日本在新技術方面一直都屬於熱衷嚐鮮的那一類地方，但它對於CD的癡迷則讓它跟流媒體服務風靡的各國大相徑庭。CD銷量在世界各地都呈下降趨勢，包括日本，但它們在日本的音樂銷售額佔比仍然高達85%左右。相比之下，一些國家的這一比例低至只有20%，如在線流媒體服務當道的瑞典。

“Japan is utterly, totally unique,” said Lucian Grainge, the chairman of the Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music conglomerate.

“日本市場真的很獨特，”全球頭號音樂巨頭環球音樂集團(Universal Music Group)董事長盧西恩·格蘭奇(Lucian Grainge)說道。

That uniqueness has the rest of the music business worried. Despite its robust CD market, sales in Japan — the world’s second-largest music market, after the United States — have been sliding for a decade, and last year they dropped 17 percent, dragging worldwide results down 3.9 percent.

那種獨特性令整個音樂行業相當擔憂。儘管日本的CD銷售表現強勁，但這個僅次於美國的全球第二大音樂市場十年來一直在下滑，去年更是下跌17%，致使全球銷售額下降3.9%。

Digital sales — rising in every other top market — are quickly eroding in Japan, going from almost $1 billion in 2009 to just $400 million last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan.

根據日本唱片產業協會的數據，在其它主要市場均呈現增長的數字銷售額在日本卻快速下降，去年從2009年的近10億美元下滑至只有4億美元。

Turning Japan around has become a priority for the global music business, which has struggled to regain its footing after losing about half its value since 2000, when digital technology began to disrupt the album-based business model.

扭轉日本市場的運營成爲了全球音樂行業的重中之重。自2000年數字技術開始顛覆基於唱片的商業模式以來，該行業已經縮水了接近一半，一直無力挽回失地。

But accomplishing change has been difficult, according to analysts and music executives in Japan and the West, in part because of a protectionist business climate in Japan that still views the digital business with suspicion.

然而，在日本和西方國家的分析師和音樂高管看來，尋求變化並非易事，部分因爲日本的保護主義商業環境，該國仍對數字業務表示懷疑。

Streaming music services like Spotify and Rdio, widely seen as the industry’s best new hope for new revenue, have stalled in efforts to enter Japan. Spotify, the biggest such player, has been stuck for two years in licensing negotiations with music companies in Japan, where homegrown pop idols by far outsell Western acts.

Spotify、Rdio等被行業寄予厚望的流媒體音樂服務均遲遲未能進入日本市場。該領域最大的服務商Spotify陷入了與日本音樂公司的已有兩年的版權談判拉鋸戰當中。在該國，本土流行樂明星的唱片銷量遠超西方歌手。

Ken Parks, Spotify’s chief content officer, said he was optimistic about his company’s prospects, and noted that the negotiating process was slow wherever it went. Spotify, which has more than 10 million customers in 57 markets around the world, negotiated with labels for almost two years before it arrived in the United States in 2011, for example.

Spotify首席內容官肯·帕克斯(Ken Parks)指出，他對公司的前景感到樂觀，事實上，版權談判以往在其它國家也並不順利，進展緩慢。例如，2011年進入美國市場之前，它也跟唱片公司談判了近兩年時間。Spotify目前擁有超過1000萬用戶，覆蓋全球57個市場。

“When the decision makers finally feel that the heat is intense enough that they have to do something different, they will,” Mr. Parks said. “I think we are approaching that moment in Japan.”

“當決策者終於覺得坐不住了，必須要實施一些變化時，他們就會採取行動，”帕克斯說道。“我覺得我們在日本市場快要迎來那個時刻了。”

Others have doubts, pointing to the Japanese market’s devotion to the CD, which remains a primary source of revenue for record labels in the country, and an indispensable promotional tool.

其他人則心存懷疑，指出了日本市場對於CD的熱愛。在該國，CD仍然是唱片公司的主要收入來源，而且還是不可或缺的營銷工具。

Peculiarities of Japan’s business climate have shaped its attachment to the CD, but cultural factors may also be at play, like Japanese consumers’ love for collectible goods. Greatest hits albums, for example, do particularly well in Japan, perhaps because of the elaborate, artist-focused packaging. The hugely popular girl group AKB48 pioneered the sale of CDs containing tickets that can be redeemed for access to live events — a strategy credited with propping up CD sales, because it can lead the biggest fans to buy multiple copies of an album.

日本獨特的商業環境造就了人們對CD的癡迷，不過文化因素可能也在起作用，比如日本消費者對於收藏品很熱衷。例如，精選輯在日本賣得特別火，這可能是得益於唱片專注於歌手的精緻包裝。熱門的日本女子偶像組合AKB48開創了買CD送演唱會門票的先河。這一策略提高了CD的銷量，因爲它能夠吸引狂熱的粉絲購買多張唱片。

Tower Records closed its 89 American outlets in 2006, but the Japanese branch of the chain — controlled by NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest phone carrier — still has 85 outlets, doing $500 million in business a year.

Tower Records在2006年關閉了89家美國門店，但該連鎖店的日本分公司(現由日本最大的電信運營商NTT DoCoMo控股)仍有85家門店，年銷售額達到5億美元。

At Tower’s flagship store, in the heart of the skyscraper-lined shopping district of Shibuya, a group of preteen girls called Kokepiyo performed for fans and autographed CDs one afternoon last month, while their mother-managers watched protectively. Outside, an 18-year-old student who gave her name as Yuria had come to Tower to see her favorite band, the Lotus. She carried a bag full of merchandise she had bought at the store, and said that she frequently buys multiple collectible copies of CDs.

上個月的一個下午，在Tower Records位於澀谷摩天大廈林立的商業區的旗艦店，少女組合Kokepiyo在爲粉絲表演和籤售CD，她們的母親和經濟人則守護在一旁。外面，一位叫Yuria的18歲的女生來到Tower Records看她最喜歡的樂隊Lotus。她在該店買了滿滿一袋東西，她說自己經常一次性購買多張收藏CD。

“Each store has its own freebies to give away to sell more CDs,” Yuria said. “So it all depends on how good they are.”

“每家店都提供自己的贈品來刺激CD銷售，”Yuria說，“所以全要看它們有多好。”

In the United States, digital sales have long since overtaken physical ones. But CDs still account for 41 percent of the $15 billion recorded music market worldwide, and, in addition to Japan, some big markets like Germany remain reliant on CD sales. That attachment worries some analysts, who contend that if those countries do not embrace online music, an inevitable decline in CD sales will further damage the industry.

在美國，數字音樂銷售早已超過實體唱片銷售。然而，CD在規模爲150億美元的全球唱片音樂市場的份額仍達到41%，除了日本之外，包括德國在內的一些大市場仍依賴CD銷售。消費者對CD的這種癡迷令一些分析師感到擔憂。在他們看來，如果那些國家不積極擁抱在線音樂，CD市場無可避免的下滑將會對音樂行業造成進一步的損害。

“If Japan sneezes and Germany catches a cold, that’s it — we’re done,” said Alice Enders, a media analyst with Enders Analysis in London.

“如果日本打噴嚏，而德國又感冒，那音樂行業就完了，”Enders Analysis媒體分析師艾麗斯·恩德斯(Alice Enders)稱。

A distinctive business ecosystem in Japan has kept CD sales lucrative for music companies. Pricing restrictions on retailers keep the cost of most new CDs at more than $20. In the mid-2000s, a nascent download service, Recochoku, was tethered to Japan’s expansive cellphone market, but that system collapsed once the country moved on to smartphones like the iPhone.

日本獨特的商業生態系統，讓音樂公司仍可以從CD銷售獲得不俗的收益。對零售商的定價限制使得大多數新CD的售價都超過20美元。00年代中期，新興的下載服務Recochoku植入了日本廣大的手機市場，但隨着該國轉向iPhone等智能手機，這一體系土崩瓦解。

Part of the problem, executives say, is the complex array of companies that control rights to the most popular music in Japan, which have been very slow to license new services.

行業高管們認爲，該問題一定程度上是因爲日本流行音樂版權分散在各家公司手上，而它們在向新服務授予版權時行動緩慢。

Sony’s Music Unlimited, for example, is the largest available streaming service in Japan, but it lacks the most popular hits there. (Sony declines to say how many subscribers it has to Music Unlimited, in Japan or elsewhere.) Apple’s iTunes store arrived in Japan in 2005, but only in 2012 did it begin to sell the Japanese music titles of its hardware rival Sony.

例如，索尼的Music Unlimited服務雖然是日本最大的流媒體音樂服務，但它的音樂庫卻沒有該國最流行的那些音樂。(索尼拒絕透露Music Unlimited在日本和其它市場的訂戶數量。)蘋果的iTunes商店於2005年進入日本市場，但直到2012年才能開始出售其硬件產品競爭對手索尼手握的日本音樂。

Executives in Japan and the West blame an overly cautious Japanese music industry for not adapting, and serious worries remain about Japan’s ability to recover from its losses last year.

日本和西方行業高管都指責過度謹慎的日本音樂行業沒有去適應大趨勢，日本能否從去年的虧損中恢復過來也存在很大的疑問。

“A substantial amount of senior management is worried about what happens on their watch, but not necessarily worried about what happens after that,” Shigeo Maruyama, the former president of Sony Music Entertainment Japan, said in an interview.

“很多高管擔心的是，在自己任內會發生什麼，但對此後怎麼樣則不一定那麼關心，”日本索尼音樂娛樂株式會社前負責人丸山茂雄(Shigeo Maruyama)在一次採訪中表示。

This year, things in Japan are looking slightly better. In 2013, there were no million-selling albums, but this year there have been two: a Japanese version of Disney’s “Frozen” soundtrack and the latest release by AKB48. Yet in the first half of the year sales were still down an additional 3 percent compared with a year earlier.

今年，日本市場的情況略有改善。2013年它連一張銷量破百萬的唱片都沒有，而今年則已經有兩張：迪士尼《冰雪奇緣》原聲專輯日本版和AKB48的最新專輯。不過，今年上半年的銷售額跌幅相比去年擴大了3個百分點。

“The Japanese record companies’ hope is to maintain the current size of the physical market, and to try to make the digital market grow again by licensing new digital services,” said Yoichiro Hata a director of the Recording Industry Association of Japan.

“日本唱片公司的希望是，能夠維持實體市場當前的規模，同時嘗試通過向新數字服務出售版權來使得數字市場恢復增長，”日本唱片產業協會的一位負責人羽田陽一郎(Yoichiro Hata)指出。

For the rest of the struggling global recording industry, that growth cannot come soon enough.

對於陷入困境的全球唱片行業來說，那種增長當然來得越早越好。

“It’s inevitable that this market comes back to growth,” said Mr. Grainge, of Universal. “What I’m not going to predict is when.”

“這個市場必定會恢復增長，”環球音樂的格蘭奇說，“什麼時候發生就不好說了。”