Too Little, Too Late, Wrong Store, Unintended Consequences?

Apparently Wal*Mart is pushing to pretty much reinvent CD pricing. Coolfer points out at the end of his piece what happens when manufacturers defy Wal*Mart, but when you consider the insidious effect the retail chain has had on the music business -- limited shelf space narrowing choices for non-blockbuster artists, forcing artists to alter their art or be banned from that shelf space, crushing mom and pop stores that actually know stuff about the product they're selling -- maybe walking away from that chunk of sales would be good for the industry.

Or, rather, it would be good for the industry had they adopted this pricing strategy already. Seven bucks for "midline" catalog finally would get us back to what LPs cost when the CD was first introduced.