Maybe classical will have the last laugh.

I was much more of an audio snob when I was a teen than I am now. At the peak of my snobbishness I had a Thorens direct drive turntable, a McIntosh (no, not MacIntosh) amp, and custom speakers that I built myself using components from a Seattle company called SpeakerLab. Aside from being able to blast my Aerosmith, Bowie, and Clash records at 120 decibels, I could then turn around, switch out the stylus, and throw on some immaculate Deutsche Grammaphon pressing of Beethoven, Bartok, Tchaikovsky or Arvo Pärt. Not too long after that the CD came along, and we were all so distracted by its signal-to-noise ratio and “accuracy” that it took us forever to notice how really bad they sound because of their sample rate. And in the 90′s, my snobbishness finally died a quiet death in the hands of a computer and a crappy file format known as mp3. The ability to compile and shovel around songs by the thousands and not need physical storage space seduced me. And the ability to choose from such a vast array became more important somehow than slowing down and really listening. This fact was painfully highlighted for me the other day when a friend and I were lamenting the dearth of classical music outlets these days. I don’t even know if there is one where I live, and my friend who lives in Chicago says they are a rarity even in a city of its size. So is classical music dying? Well, in a way, yes. The broad category referred to as classical has recently had extremely low unit-per-artist sales and accounted for around 3% of American music sales, and around 5% of global sales. And the trend has been to head steadily downward for some time. Adding to the genre’s woes, American orchestras are recently enduring severe budget crunches. So is this the end of the centuries-long line? Well, Universal and Sony don’t think so; they’ve launched Passionato and Ariama, respectively. Both sites offer CD’s and downloads in both mp3 and FLAC formats. Does this mean there’s hope? What do you think? Have you rocked any Amadeus lately? Is classical doomed? I personally predict an indie classical rock revival with renewed interest in the classics. But then, I’m an ELO fan.