[78-L] The Relative Price of a Record

[David Breneman]

--- On Sun, 9/19/10, agp <agp2176 at verizon.net> wrote:

> From: agp <agp2176 at verizon.net>

> It occured to me that 75 cents in 1910 was a lot of money
> compared to 
> other things. It also seems that through most of teh era of
> the 
> 'single' (including 45s) that the price of a record stayed
> the same and didn't change with inflation.

The cost of singles has remained relatively stable, in
absolute dollars not adjusted for inflation, up until the
1970s.  But ever since the introduction of the LP, the
price of an album seems to have stuck pretty close to
"a middle class worker's hour's wage" right on into the
CD era, which is roughly what it was in the first quarter
of the last century before the Depression and radio
introduced competition into the pricing model.