05/26/97 WHAT MOVES MEL TORME? THE WEB

WHAT MOVES MEL TORME? THE WEB

WOULD YOU BELIEVE THAT perhaps the hottest band on the Internet is a symphony orchestra? According to Music Boulevard, one of the Web's largest purveyors of compact disks, Leonard Bernstein's New York Philharmonic Review has been its best-selling disk since the Christmas season.
Online music buyers aren't all Gen-Xers after all. A recent survey of Music Boulevard's customers reveals that 25% of its frequent buyers are 30 to 39 years old and half are over 30. CD Now, another Web seller, does a brisk business in classic rock as well as New Age stuff.
Online buying appeals to older music lovers. ''A 45-year-old guy doesn't want to hand his Frank Sinatra CD to a kid with a Mohawk and a nose ring'' at the cash register, says Jason Olim, CD Now's president. Also, boomers probably won't find the complete recordings of favorites such as Grand Funk Railroad in a store, but they are likely to online.
Analysts Jupiter Communications projects that CD sales on the Web will reach $47 million this year--more than double the $19 million sold last year. That's tiny next to the $9.9 billion worth of CDs sold worldwide last year, but Web commerce is growing at a fast clip while store-bought music has those going-no-where blues.
EDITED BY LARRY LIGHT
Roy Furchgott