Sales in Music Drop, I'm Still a Fan
Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 12:01AM Global sales in music dropped by $1.5bn in the last year. That's a drop of 8.4%. Sales of CDs dropped by nearly 15%. No wonder labels are thinking about dropping the CD (I believe that niche markets like glam, or classical, will continue to see CDs manufactured, but that pop music will not). Those figures are worldwide.
In the US, overall sales dropped 10%, and CD sales dropped by 20%. If you look at the best selling albums for each decade, you see from the 70s to the 80s to the 90s, that the numbers kept growing.
Now, they are falling. Sebastian Bach released a CD recently, Kicking and Screaming. He announced that as his CD debuted at #67 in the Billboard charts, and the last one debuted at #190, so now he feels he will make more CDs. Sounds good. However, Angel Down sold 6,400 units in it's first week, and Kicking and Screaming sold 6,600.
In contrast, the original Skid Row CD was recently at number 103, having sold 1,762 copies that week. Metallica's self titled CD is still at number 55. Dark Side of the Moon is at number 38. Going back to the 90s, the best selling CD of 1999 was Millenium, but the Backstreet Boys. It sold 9.5 million copies. Assuming it was on sale all year, that's 180 thousand copies a week. The Dixe Chicks, the 10th best selling album of that year, if it was selling all year, sold 67 thousand copies a week. In other words, if they released DURING that year, then they sold more. Amy Winehouse, at number one in the chart I found online for 2011, sold 12,700 copies in that week. There can be no question that music is selling less, a lot less. The question is, why?
I think piracy plays a huge part. I know people who ran a local music store (since closed) and they lost 1/3 of their sales overnight when Napster hit the news. I'd like to think that people like Sebastian Bach still chart because we are more loyal to the artists we love than the typical pop fan. But, I think there's
something else going on. I think kids nowadays don't love music the way we did. I think they have other priorities. I wonder if the bands of today will go on to have long careers, or if the idea of a career in music is simply fading away, all around us. I hope not. But, all the signs are there. There is no question that there's less money being made on music sales, and that's music to support artists who are just getting by, to support stores, to support people working in recording and distribution. There's a lot of jobs disappearing, and the music industry is looking less like an industry all the time.
One thing is for sure, I'm stocking up on CDs before they stop making them. Although, I've wondered if the "no more CDs" story was designed to make me do that, I am certain this is an industry trying everything it can to survive.
Reader Comments (24)
Billboard on future of CDs: "Record labels have shown no desire to ditch the CD. The format still accounts for most sales revenue."
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/business-matters-don-t-bury-the-cd-just-1005490122.story
if we cant get it on cd, we'll get it somehow.
many industries are crumbling. cant say i feel any worse for the music industry.
should i keep on using the post office when e-payment is easier and cheaper just to save a mailmans job? no. its all gotta settle down and let the market correct itself..
I will buy everything that I like and that I can get on CD, LP, Cassette, 45, EP, 12", 8-Track, you name it, 'til the day I die!
Yes, I believe in supporting the bands but I have a more selfish motive -- I'm a collector, as I'm sure many of you are, and I like owning the physical thing. I also love looking at the artwork n' stuff.
I love finding hidden gems I've never heard before and I won't
stop until I own it all!
I always want the real deal when it comes to real music!
But, Todd, I hear ya. I have so much stuff in storage, so I know what you mean. Still, I like knowing I got the actual official CD, so I'm always willing to devote space to it.
But the truth is that digital distribution has completely changed how we can access music. I can legitimately listen to high quality versions of virtually any song, anywhere, for free via YouTube or their web sites. Or, I can pay to download an electronic copy from iTunes. Or I can pay $10 per month and listen to unlimited music, where I want and how I want from Spotify or rdio.com. Unless you enjoy collecting (which many do, and always will), there's no reason to spend $$ on a CD any more.
All of this is terrific for consumers. I could personally care less about owning physical media, so I love the new digital options that are available. Choosing digital does not make people bad music fans, any more than choosing to read a news article online makes someone a bad news fan. It's just a distribution mechanism.
On a somewhat different note, I often read the argument that buying a CD gives your favorite band some $$, so it's sort of a moral obligation to support them this way. It's a nice sentiment, but it's also mostly false. With the exception of the top few bands who are in their 2nd or 3rd record deals, most bands don't see a dime from the sales of their recordings unless they do _huge_ sales. Most of the money from CD sales goes to the recording company to pay back the advance they gave the artist when they signed, or before recording.
The exception would be independent bands who self-publish & distribute their recordings -- they see much more of the revenue and since they had to up-front the recording & manufacturing costs, every sale does have an impact.
But by and large, bands make their money from touring & merch - always have, always will. If you want to truly support them, make sure to buy a ticket & a t-shirt the next time they come around.
I have absolutely no compassion whatsoever for the tons of non-musicians who make up the music industry. When Napster took off, the major record labels should have embraced the technology and figured out how to monetize it, but instead they tried to sue it out of existance. they made their own mess, and now they have to wallow in it. One thing I will say for both the movie and music industries, they sure know how to blame everybody but themselves, and manipulate the truth to make people feel sorry for them.
Many (most?) bands do end up owing the record companies money because they weren't able to generate enough in recording royalties to pay off their advances. I doubt the record companies chase them, tho, so it's unlikely that many end up in actual bankruptcy.
I'm not talking about the big bands of course - bands like Motley, Poison, Warrant, Cinderella, Extreme, GNR all sold tons of records and everyone made (and in some cases, still makes) money off of them. But for every Motley, there are tens, if not hundreds of signed bands who don't make a cent in royalties. Those are the guys who it's nice to think you're supporting, but in reality they will never see a cent of your CD money.
It's these smaller guys need you to buy shirts and concert tickets, revenues which usually fall outside the realm of their record contracts (unless it's one of the new-style 360 deals).
As for concert ticket prices, they are priced to the maximum point where they will sell. Nothing more, nothing less. Ticket prices are so high because we continue to pay them; if a promoter can make $120 from a ticket, he's going to sell it at $120, regardless of whether the band would have been happy to make 1/2 as much by selling them for $60. Guaranteed that if the prices were too high, people would stop going and the prices will drop.
In fact, I think some of that is going on right now. I recently read that overall concert attendance actually dropped in 2011 from 2010. So maybe we'll actually see some lower prices next year.
Just kiddin'! But, look, we're just gettin' started!
Christian, stop thinkin' everyone else is an idiot! I got The Angels first two albums, original Aussie pressings and long out of print. It's pretty much the only way I roll when it comes to CD collecting. I usually only get original releases, rarely going for reissues unless they are caringly done with faithful and sometimes expanded liner notes, graphics and artwork along with extra bonus tracks.
Don't know if you caught it, but I'm pretty sure Axl was sayin' on That Metal Show, one of the bands he's been listening to lately is Angel City. I assume he meant these guys.
Byron - yes, most bands ended up owing money and IMO the industry is trying to stop people having careers, so they can control them better. I do agree the industry handled Napster badly, not least b/c it was easy to steal music before Napster, and I assume it still is. No-one can control the web, that is the issue. Until mp3 players were mainstream, there was no mainstream market to sell mp3s, IMO.