Pop stars of yesteryear... and today

The Boston Globe found this story interesting, and so did I:

As consumers buy fewer and fewer CDs, an interesting phenomenon is occurring — artists who appeal to older listeners are showing up surprisingly high on the charts.

The reason: Adults are largely the ones buying CDs these days. Younger people tend to download in general and focus on singles.

“We’re appealing to the last buying vestiges of the public, because adults don’t steal, because we don’t know how to,’’ said legendary producer and songwriter David Foster, who produced Buble’s latest album. Older consumers, he said, are “still married to the concept of ‘put the CD in the car, put the CD in the library.’ We’re still in that zone, and that’s why this is still working.’’

Some of the hot acts burning up the Billboard charts these days are Michael Buble, Sarah McLaughlin, Sade, and Susan Boyle.

What gives? Less CD sales overall, and the demographic that tends to buy CDs are older. The Rolling Stones' recent reissue of "Exile on Main Street" ranked #2 on the list with 76K units sold. Ten years ago, that might've placed the album in the lower part of the top twenty; it took sales of at least 100,000 to crack the Top Ten. The older population appears to be in the habit of buying CDs, and also has a life equipped for CD listening, such as CD players in cars. They also tend to give CDs as gifts.

Which begs the mechanics of gift giving -- would you rather give someone a physical CD or a gift card to iTunes where the giftee can choose what they'd like to listen to, albeit with a smidgen of work involved? And on a broader sense, paying attention to the CD charts today feels very outdated, and not reflective of general listening habits. But what can you do, when digital music floats around the intertubez and BitTorrentz uncharted, and unpaid for?

Time for a new way to chart what we're listening to. Any ideas?