Here we are in February 2010 and I am very sorry to report that the sales of new music have now fallen to the point that "traditional" methods of production are no longer viable; average sales have fallen to less than 100 units; in other words all the callers in the world, put together, are buying less than 100 units of our new music. In addition, the ratio of sales of digital (CD and MP3) to sales of Vinyl has now reached one-to-one, so only 50% of the sales are in Vinyl. This situation, combined with lower sales, makes Vinyl production virtually impossible; there would be no way to recover the cost!

A bit more bad news that I am hoping can be overcome but I could use some help… - anybody got any ideas?

While I am waiting for a "miracle", here is the annual survey - our major achievements for 2009 include:

During 2009 we released 22 new tunes, thus nearly maintaining our target of 2 releases per month, all of these releases have been made available simultaneously in vinyl, CD and MP3. For those who might be interested, the revised split between media types (for the Sting and Snow music released in the last year) is:

ALL of our 2009 releases featured in the top 10 Best Sellers, which is marvellous! These results gave us 3 No.1s, 1 No.2, 4 No.3s, 2 No.4s, 2 No.5s, 3 No.6s, 1 No.7, 3 No.8s and 3 No.10s. These are not quite as good as we might have hoped giving an index value of 5.8 (as opposed to 6.3 for last year).

The index value is determined by giving a value to each position, 10 for a No.1, 9 for a No.2 etc., so - if they were all No.1s - the index value would be 10.

Check out last February's Newsletter for the full details of the actual 2008 positions.

It should be noted that one major effect of total average sales falling below the 100 units mark, is that the Best Seller list is now more subject than ever before to re-presses of older titles. From time-to-time old tunes - that have been unavailable for some time - are re-pressed and (effectively) re-released. Usually this results in a spurt of sales, resulting from the "back-orders" that will usually exist (any tune that needs to be re-pressed will be a popular track, when it becomes unavailable a pile of unfulfilled sales requests will be created). In earlier years this might have resulted in a re-pressed title appearing in the low numbers of the Top-Ten. However, these days the relatively small demand that occurs for out-of-print recordings is sufficient to have a serious effect on the Best Seller listings - just check the Best Seller listings on www/dosado.com/music to see what I mean!

As part of our on-going process, during the course of 2009, we have made a further 24 previously released tunes available, for the first time, on CD; these are made from the original studio masters (in most cases), or the "cleanest" copy that exists (if the studio master no longer exists); these CDs include Higher and Lower Key variations (on singing calls). There are 41 tracks still to be released; check the FUTURE and LATEST options on the RECORDS Drop-Down (above), for details.

When you consider all of the above, it has to be obvious that our total output for 2009 is impressive! I wonder what next February's report will have to say… Anybody got a "crystal ball"?

Now for the other news:

BEST SELLER LISTING (positions on the December 2009 listing)
No.2 - Horn-Swoggled / Scall-A-Wag - SIR 524
No.5 - Busy Doing Nothing - SIR 382

NEW RELEASES (February 2010):
As a direct consequence of the collapse of the Square Dance new music business, resulting from sales falling below the point where production costs can be recovered, we have nothing to release this month

NEW CD RELEASES - also available on MP3 & Vinyl (in most cases) / (December 2009):
Side By Side - SIR 206 - Vocal by Ingvar Pettersson
It Doesn't Matter Anymore - SIR 307 - Vocal by Randy Dougherty
I'm Checkin' Out - SIR 332 - Vocal by Paul Bristow

INDIVIDUAL RECORD HISTORIES including ALL THE ADDITIONAL LYRICS:
To find these, just click on the book symbol next to the title on the Catalogue, Future Releases or Latest Releases pages.

If you want to hear how these top-selling recordings sound, just click on the musical note symbol.

Okay, I need to "Travel On" and visit some more of those excellent dancer groups; maybe I will meet up with some of you along the way? Either way, I am looking forward to "Speaking" with you all again, next month!

Go Squareful! - Paul Bristow (Owner and Producer Sting and Snow Records)