Music once again became the focus of the '06 edition of the NARM convention. Friday morning, UMGD presented a video reel with performances to a packed house that was obviously ready to see these kinds of presentations return to the confab. Peter Frampton started off the festivities with "Do You Feel Like I Do," following up with an song from his upcoming instrumental LP on Richie Gallo's New Door Records through UMe, and 50 Cent closed the show joining his latest G-Unit posse Young Hot Rod. Other performances included Rounder's James Hunter, VP's Tanya Stevens and Universal Republic's Hinder. Thursday night's Club NARM featured two knock-out shows from Powerman 5000 and Jurassic 5.

NPD Group's seminar revealed the results of their consumer research effort, as the org's Russ Crupnick told the crowd enthusiasm for music is still as high as ever. And that consumers' music consumption is up "if you include unpaid ways of procuring it," referring to P2P, burning and ripping as "social networking." Paid avenues of consumption, according to their research, now represents less than 30% of the pie. Good news, huh? People finding music through TV shows, sampled clips and in-store listening stations was way up. Radio was way down. Video games and soundtrack were also seeing significant gains. Teens buying was up and older demographics were down. Mass merchants and electronics dealers were up as music specialty stores continued to decline. Heard anything surprising yet?

One interesting point was that all of music buyers are "blurred," not only between whether they buy physical or digital, but also between the many stores they buy their digital from. There are just more choices where to buy music today then there were 10 or 15 years ago. As for the value proposition between music and DVD, the results are mixed. Music is pretty much considered as good a buy for the money as DVD, but only 54% believe that music is a good buy as opposed to 58% who consider a DVD worth the money. Still not great news.

There were some other chestnuts such as "We need to drive demand with the consumer before they get in their car." And "Too many shoppers buy one CD and leave." How about "TV is good and Oprah is better." Well, yeah. Or, hold onto your seats, "A DVD is the most appealing value-add to the widest demographic, but most don't want to pay more for it." Well, you get the idea.

The attendees are looking forward to EMI's NARM Club night, with Blue Note's Amos Lee, Virgin's Starting Line and EMI Music Catalog's Grand Funk Railroad (call out for "We're an American Band") on the bill.

Meanwhile, the NARM hallways continue to buzz with the increasing realization we could lose Tower Records, the most legendary music retailer in history. Having been cut off by virtually all of their suppliers, rumors are rampant that a Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy filing could be imminment. If that is indeed the case, most surmise that Trans World would then be the frontrunner to buy what remains after the fall.