With CD sales this summer in their worst slump in 12 years and no signs of a longtime rebound in sight, music retailers and record labels are not just worrying about losing the young digital generation. They're scrambling to hold on to old-fashioned fans brought up on buying hard copies of CDs.

	Bob Dylan has embraced modern times for his first recording in five years -- a pre-order of "Modern Times" at iTunes comes with videos and pre-sale possibilities for concert tickets. Click photo for larger image.

That means lavishing longtime fans with extras -- such as free DVDs, extra musical tracks, concert ticket pre-sales and band-related tchotchkes -- with most major releases. Record labels big and small have long employed gimmicks like these, but in these dark days for the free-falling music industry, they are all but required.

Stores that depend on music sales, nationally and in Pittsburgh, have fallen back on selling more used CDs than new ones in order to make a buck.

Freebies are dangled by retailers and labels to lure fans into pre-ordering CDs online before they are officially released. Those going to iTunes to pre-order Bob Dylan's "Modern Times," his first recording in five years, get five Dylan videos and a chance to pre-order concert tickets on his summer tour. Those ordering through Sony (the parent of his label, Columbia Records) get a sample CD of Dylan's satellite radio show on XM.

Fans ordering the last Red Hot Chili Peppers CD got the same concert ticket offer, and big box retailer Target offers something similar to those buying crooner James Blunt's new DVD.

Some independent labels provide perks with a twist: Eugene Mirman personally called 25 fans who bought his comedy CD. Click photo for larger image.

Indie labels do the same thing. Those who pre-ordered the critically acclaimed new release by psychedelic rockers Comets on Fire from Seattle's Sub Pop records got a free concert DVD. Pre-orders of the upcoming CD from Portland's The Thermals get a free copy of the new "Burn to Shine" DVD, with live performances by the Shins, Decemberists and other Portland, Ore., bands. Perhaps the most direct thank-you for fans has come from comedian Eugene Mirman, who called 25 fans who bought his CD early from the label.

Another indie, Merge Records, packs pre-orders with band-themed gifts, such as pilot wings from Scotland's Camera Obscura and a beer-bottle opener from noted boozehound Robert Pollard.

Besides extra videos, fans expect extra musical tracks. When Yo La Tengo, one of the biggest acts on New York's Matador Records, came back from the studio with no extras from its new album, set for release next month, the label sent the trio back to record more, according to Billboard. The label plans to issue extra MP3s with pre-orders as well as concert ticket promotions.

There is reason for the labels' largesse. As of the end of July, CD sales dropped almost 8 percent for the year and were at their lowest point since January 1994, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Digital album sales have been growing, but not enough to turn around the industry's overall slump.

Wooing -- or keeping -- music customers through giveaways and other offers was a focus of the industry's biggest record store powwow, the annual National Association of Recording Merchandisers conference, earlier this month in Florida. A survey of 3,400 music fans by analysts at the NPD Group showed high interest in DVD extras with CDs, coupons offering money back on return trips to the record store and "DVD albums" that play music, video clips and interviews.

The problem -- according to NPD's music analyst Russ Crupnik -- is the extras only drive impulse buying among dedicated music fans already visiting their local record store.

"They should not be expected to drive traffic," Crupnik told the group.

Dimple Records, a family-owned record store chain in Sacramento, Calif., and another presenter at the convention, plugs its current extras at the store's Web site, including a free 7-inch single from New York Dolls and Ani DiFranco art cards with purchase of their new CDs.

The exclusive content does not significantly drive new sales, said Dimple's chief financial officer Oliver Radakovitz, without scads of promotion by record labels. That's not guaranteed for smaller record stores, with major labels giving more attention to high-volume retailers, such as Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

Why give so much love to big retail? Even in the music industry's huge slump, sales of physical CDs (as opposed to digital ones) still account for 90 percent of its business.

"The profit margin really isn't there on new stuff," Radakovitz said in a phone interview. "It's very difficult to compete [with big box stores]. You have to keep prices in line with them, and to do that you're really not making much on the stuff."

Selling used CDs, he continued, "is a way to offer the consumer a type of product that even when used, is basically just as good as new for the most part, and at an even lower price than the big box stores."

That is the strategy of The Exchange, with 10 locations in the Pittsburgh area, where CD sales are about 65 percent used, 35 percent new, according to South Side manager Kelly Braden. Like other record chains nationally, The Exchange diversifies beyond just music, selling DVDs and video games as well.

The Exchange also uses a trade system, giving customers a mix of cash and store credit for bringing in used items. Like the coupon schemes discussed at the Recording Merchandisers convention this month, the credit keeps customers coming back to the store.

Trade is just another way record stores are working all the angles to save the physical CD -- and the record store customer -- from extinction. It's like they're going back in time, to the pre-cash economy of the barter system, to hold onto their business.

It's the kind of thing the digital generation -- which owns only fleeting, copy-protected music files instead of solid compact discs -- may never understand.

"There's nothing like having an actual thing, a CD with artwork, and physically having the product," Braden said.