Pow.R Toc.H's Journal: New brazilian CD releases quoted in US$?!

Last sunday I went to a local music- and book-store, Livraria Cultura. I went there specifically to look for Ravel's "Concerto for the Left Hand in D major" and Gershwin's "Concerto in F", both of them for Piano and Orchestra. I managed to find both at reasonably good prices, principally when we're talking of import CDs here. Each one of these sold by R$ 21,00 (US$ 7,00).

So. I went to take a look at brazilian music when I found the latest Joyce release. It seems to be a very interesting record and features Toninho Horta and João Donato, among others. I asked the for the price, and the salesman said me: R$ 37,20 or US$ 12,58 - EXACTLY the price of an U.S. manufactured CD at amazon.com! So I've double-checked and this CD was Made in Brazil...

And the record labels don't understand why people are going for free downloads! Sure, 12 bucks is not very much for a typical USA-Europe resident, but in Brazil there are releases by the SAME ARTIST being sold at half this price.

I think that the majors do this on purpose: deny access to great music to the people, as it's just a tiny fraction of the people here that can pay such a price for a CD. And thus people can only buy junk, sold at "promotional" prices (read payola here).

Oh, BTW the classical CD's I've bought were cheaper than this one. And one DVD I took in the same visit was just R$ 2,50 (US$ 0,86) plus expensive than this particular CD. Go figure!