Unreal Music Sales Data

Showbiz411.com has a shocking article on the state of the music industry these days. According to the post, album sales are down more than 14% for the first six months of 2014.

From the post:

"According to Nielsen, during the first six months of 2014, sales of all albums both physical and digital were down 14.9%. And sales just of digital downloads (from iTunes mostly) were down 11.6%."

But wait, there's more: the article goes on with this nugget of news:

"Sales of CDs were down 19.6%. What was up? Streaming jumped 50%. And sales of vinyl LPs were up 40%."

To recap, music sales suck, and only dinosaurs like you and me actually buy physical media anymore. I don't have a paid Pandora subscription or anything like that, but I do have Amazon Prime and Prime Music just rolled out last month and so far I like it, so I can definitely see the draw of using streaming music only. Still, there's something very special about owning physical copies of your favorite album -- typically in various formats! I can't help but think the kids of today are missing out on having a real relationship with their favorite bands. Come to think of it, kids today probably don't even have favorite bands, do they? I suspect they might have favorite songs... or YouTube channels... or "favorite musician on Instagram."

Sales data be damned, music is a business and artists must get paid for their work. So, like the article on Showbiz411 -- I certainly hope streaming companies figure out a way to compensate musicians fairly -- and fast. Because the future is here and sadly, the days of physical album sales seem long gone.

Comments

[Dj]

Music right now the way I see it is really weird. I've noticed kids throwing the terms around but not actually owning the stuff. As far as hip hop goes "mixtape" is being thrown around like hell. They're still listening to complete albums, it's made a comeback, but it's all free and digital. Personally for me, music means so much more than background noise. I have my favorite bands and I buy the CDs, and if they're my favorite I buy the vinyl because new stuff is being pressed and reissues and stuff. Music is weird right about now.

[Jakki Steal]

Music is over!!!

If CD's don't sell by the millions...than nothing really matters.
Landmark albums are a thing of the past.
Say goodbye to any album ever having the impact as such albums like:
Sex Pistols-"Nevermind The Bollocks'
Def Leppard-"Hysteria"
Michael Jackson-"Thriller":
Nirvana-"Nevermind'
Motley Crue-"Dr Feelgood"
Guns N Roses-"Appetite For Destruction"

People just download songs & forget about them as soon as possible.
Music is extremely unimportant to people of all ages (pretty much) this day & age.
All the stragglers like me (who still buy CD's are so insignificant & will never make a difference).
Music of all genres will just become the elevator music of life.

The internet has destroyed music itself.
Things will never be the same.
Kids/teens today will grow up w/music just being a little insignificant soundtrack to everything else around their lives.
Music is no longer important, every new "artist" is just a flash in the "99 cent download" in the pan!
Welcome to the robotic future!

[Penn T Graham]

I agree with Jakki.
Times have changed for the worse. I'm just glad I grew up in a era where I could experience the pleasure of having full albums to believe in. I couldn't imagine growing up as a teen without full complete albums to relish in. Single songs here and there are just so disposable and easily forgettable.

Certain artists specific albums at times have defined certain times in my life. Stuff like that is sadly just wishful dreams in the past. I feel sorry for future generations.

P.S. I'll add 5 more landmark albums to Jakki's excellent list.
Motley Crue-Shout at The Devil
Def Leppard-Pyromania
Nirvana-In Utero
Michael Jackson-Bad
Ratt-Out Of The Cellar

[Manny]

I will admit I am a dinosaur, I love owning a physical product, owning a file does not feel like I own anything. I love the idea of owning an actual album, scanning the album titles, reading the liner notes etc, I will keep buying albums til it is no longer possible to buy them. I am sure in my lifetime I will see the end of the CD, but I blame labels for the lack of foresight and there is a whole generation of fans who have never bought a single disc and feel entitled to own music for free. Artists don't win, neither do the fans, nor do the businessmen.

[Kixchix]

It's a new world. Let the youngins find their way.

I'm quite content having my glam and the random new release. At 44 years old, I'm good. Have enuff on my plate; music is on the plate just not as large a portion as in 1986.

It's business. Not my business, hence I shall let the market flow.

Think I'll stream the new Judas Priest over breakfast. :-)

Peace

[Metalboy!]

Here's a great artist and his latest Mixtape (which dropped on Mother's Day):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ8lfNd_ZCU


It's proof the Music Biz lives, just not as we remember it.

[oper8n]

I continue to buy music from iTunes, amazon, and CDs from best buy/target/etc if they offer bonus tracks. I still support "old" artists by purchasing what they put out, and will occasionally buy individual songs if it is something I don't have. While I despise "reissues," I still buy them, like Bon Jovi's New Jersey reissue, as there were several songs that I wanted but did not have. I understand the appeal of streaming, but don't want to pay for a data plan to listen to stuff in the car. My kids (ages 10, 7, and 5) like to sing along to the 80's Hair Metal, much to my wife's chagrin. I hope the music business continues to attract talented people who continue to write for all of us to enjoy, but if not, I've got lots of music saved on my computer and a couple thousand CDs just in case.

[bryon]

I subscribed to rdio.com 2+ years ago and have never listened to more music than I do now. The thought of being limited to songs or albums that I have actually bought now just seems odd now that I can listen to what I want, when I want & where I want.

Music will never go away, and it's certainly not dead. But how it is distributed & how it's consumed will constantly change.

[Will]

I disagree that teens and people don't care about music anymore. Just look at ticket sales. According to Pollstar, last year was an all time high in sales at over $5 billion. The top 100 artists sold over 40 million tickets in 2013. I used to go to shows at Barton Coliseum, an 8000 seat dungeon, to see popular bands and only half the arena would be full. Now all arenas hold 18,000 folks and I don't recall the last time I went to a half empty arena. Music festivals that hold 90,000 folks sell out before the lineup is announced.

They aren't buying music anymore (only 3 albums have sold 500,000 this year) but people are certainly listening to it and they are still so impacted by what they hear that go to see it live in record numbers.

[Bob]

Several good points have already been made so I won't repeat them. I will add this...Let's not forget that the music industry survived for quite a long time before the explosion of album sales. Albums did not outsell singles for the first time until 1967. The fact that times are changing and the long-form album is now on its way back down doesn't have to mean the death of music. What it does mean is that artists are going to have to get used to relying on something other than blockbuster album sales to make their money. This is just the nature of an ever-changing world. automobiles killed the dominance of the railroad industry. The popularity of television ended the careers of many radio actors. Cell phones have all but eliminated the need for home phone service. Cable TV, along with streaming services, have greatly cut into the dominance of the broadcast networks. I could go on and on. As consumers, is it our responsibility to prop up these older business models? No, the business models need to adapd to changing consumer trends if they want to stay relevant. Quite frankly, if artists want to blame anybody, they should blame record labels for not getting into the digital sales game right away. If Napster proved anything, it was that consumers had a real desire to acquire individual songs without having to buy a physical product. Let's not forget that, although Napster was free, it was also a huge mess. Lots of songs took forever to download, had bad sound quality, and often were misnamed so they weren't even the song you wanted. Yet, consumers put up with it because they wanted just those single songs. This was a clear consumer trend that the labels could have seized upon by creating a killer digital platform, but they didn't. Instead, they tried to sue the technology out of existence. Then, when they did finally pull their heads out of their backsides several years too late, they insisted on putting digital restrictions on the songs people bought so that they could only be played on one computer, or one other device. They tried to hold onto the past instead of adapting to the future, and now they're suffering for it, and they expect us to feel bad for them. Look, I am an absolute music fanatic, but even so, I've got my own problems to worry about without worrying about propping up a changing music business.

[bryon]

Great comments, Bob.

Napster was the beginning of the end for traditional distribution methods, and I agree it was a complete mess, especially when the record companies started seeding it with crap versions of songs.

What's great with the environment now is that the music industry is completely onboard. They distribute high quality video via YouTube (and get paid for it), and high quality audio through a variety of digital channels such as iTunes, Spotify, etc.. For consumers, this has meant a great deal of choice at fair prices.

Streaming services are experiencing huge growth because they've hit on a model that people love, and what's particularly great is that every person that signs up is purchasing music legitimately rather than stealing it. As millions more switch to streaming, the money will become huge for the labels and they once again will make money off recorded music.

[House]

For me, it's somewhat bittersweet. In that, artists aren't selling enough product, so they recoup the loss by touring more and offering meet and greets and other commodities. However, more bittersweet is when the meet and greets cater the 1 percenters. Then, I'm baffled...actually, not baffled, more angry and perplexed.

[bkallday]

Great comments as usual, Bob. And oper8n, you need a new wife but keep the kids! As for me, i think its about time us consumers actually start catching some breaks. Gone are the days where you have to pay a 1000% markup for a cd that youre not even sure you will like, now the artist actually has to be creative about making $. Touring more, better merch, meet & greets, & being more open with new music(ie streaming, audio samples, etc.), has benefitted us consumers while making it "harder" on the artist. Having said that, if my fave band(Crüe) comes out with a cd of new material, ill buy it w/o ever even hearing it. But if its anyone else, if i dl it(yes, for "free") and i really like it, i will pick up a used copy on amazon. I refuse to pay anywhere from $10-20 on a cd, anymore. This current shitty economy makes those kinda risky purchases, very difficult. When ppl are basically being forced to buy health insurance, after bills & groceries, its kinda hard to fit in this months new cd purchases. Im sure some more fortunate, & some others that were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, will feel quite differently.

[oper8n]

I should clarify: my wife is awesome and goes to all kinds of concerts with me, it's just the songs with the f bomb or overtly sexual references.
The kids are starting to understand them. Our oldest has seen KISS, Poison, Def Leppard, etc with us.
I've enjoyed everyone's thoughts.

[Metalboy!]

Excellent perspective, Bob.

Crazier still is the fact that the Video Gaming industry is bigger than Hollywood and the Music Business combined!

[Metalboy!]

Great comments all, particularly, Bob.

Also, great to read yours, as well, Will. Haven't seen ya in awhile.

Okay, I put up this link earlier and, apparently, doesn't seem like any of you guys checked it out.

It's Mac Miller's latest Mixtape, "Faces". It dropped on Mother's Day. It's the "Dark Side of the Moon" of Hip-Hop.

And it's the perfect example of how the music biz works now...

Mac Miller first came to national attention when his first album, the independently released "Blue Side Park" shot to #1 on the Billboard Hot 200 Chart, the first indy to do so since Snoop Dogg's "Dogg Food" in 1995.

Miller is very prolific, as are many Hip-Hop artists, putting out as many as 6 Mixtapes a year aside from 1 album a year. What's happened with "Faces" is that it's the best thing Miller's done and he actually says it in one of the songs.

He plays all the instruments on the album and only uses samples from old jazz records. He has a few renowned Rappers doing "features" as they're called but no Jay Z or Kanye, as he proudly points out in the lyrics of one of his songs.

Yet Mac Miller is worth $6 Million. How is that possible? He even gives the music away for free!

What he DOES to make money is, yes, tour incessantly, but also makes money doing features on other's albums AND earns money doing licensing and endorsement deals.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ8lfNd_ZCU

Enjoy!

[Joe Schmoe]

What the hell are you talking about Bob??? Those are the dumbest comments I've read in a long time!!!

[Paul Pierce (The Truth)]

The dumbest comments hands down have been made by Bob!
What a goddamn idiot!
TALK ABOUT DEFEATED, I'VE NEVER FELT MORE STUPID AFTER READING HIS MORONIC COMMENTS!

No wonder the CD format is dead with idiots like this fool walking around.

Hell help us!!!

[Him]

Contra Joe Schmoe and "The Truth," I think Bob raises some valid points. Most (not all) of what I write below in predicated on his lead.

Bkallday, you grind axes, right? I agree with several of your points as well; specifically, I am as dedicated as I was to my favorite bands, even if the ways in which I show my dedication have changed as the market, my tastes, my income, and my life have changed.

But you really do like to split things down the middle nice and clean, when the reality is often rough and messy. The issue of mark-ups, of health care, of entitlement . . . how much is too much? Talk about a mix-tape. Consumers have always been sold a bill of goods that is at odds with the actual nuts and bolts of what is offered. Simply put, it comes down to what the market will withstand. And the market, for the most part, is a mass of people (not specific people), with a very long tail that is influenced by factors, that exert pressure on both the makers and the consumers, oftentimes without either side entirely being aware of it. Our choices--yours and mine--of how to use our discretionary income, a factor that is also influenced by scores of things that go beyond music, change because we--in our age, our careers, our responsibilities--change. That isn't shocking. It is life. Welcome to the [Rage Against the] Machine. Like de la Rocha, you often seem in search of a target even when your opinions (love of Slayer, for instance) are spot-on . . . at least to me.

And Metalboy! shows us a new way of life in the music biz that works for some and not for others (thanks for that). Creativity won't always find a way. But it often does. I agree with a host of you: the classic era of "classic albums" is over. Because that era, like the singles/session era before it, and the largely live era before that, has been eclipsed. Even then, we still find echoes in the packaged bands that fade in and out of style (a trend that McLaren captured with _The Sex Pistols_, or even how _Alice in Chains_ eventually caught the eye of industry big-wigs), in the nostalgia for lost quality (White's _Third Man Records_), or in the reemergence for good or ill of once popular formats (the EP). Counter-balancing that, we have newish trends (like the recorded-live for the audience CDs or memory sticks), and even newer ideas (Young's PonoMusic and Young/White's pressed live in studio albums).

How does this impact me? Well, I occasionally feel like Manny, Byron, and Will. I still own close to 500 cassettes (some of which barely work now). I also own over 1000 CDs (almost all of which work). I buy CDs from time to time, and enjoy the fact that Amazon provides a physical copy and a digital version, even if that duo is largely irrelevant nowadays with streaming services and plug-in capabilities in most cars (even at the base level). In my home I rarely play CDs or cassettes, and instead stream the music from TV using Pandora or YouTube. I was once a great fan of XM, but ditched it because of cost and because it is a trend that never quite kept up even as it's pricing structure inched higher. I go to shows, big and small, and . . . well, that's it. I don't buy much merch. Why? Because, save in rare context-specific instances, the idea of wearing shirts or gear that I would have worn when I was 18 or 25 doesn't make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Still, I think I am a fan.

I guess my overall point is this: sales don't drive fans to music any more now than they did back in the day, even if that used to be the main way the industry told people what was worth their while. Funny thing is, fans have never necessarily been beholden to what the industry tells them, even as they sometimes made/make the industry listen to them. Remember my comment a bit ago about consumers? Well they also are classified more narrowly as "friends," other "fans," and the like. Oftentimes, trends start there and branch out. All the while, musicians make the music--some pandering and some exploring and some doing both--that we either like, love, or loathe. None of which will stop because of the next big "Death of the . . ." or "The Rise of the . . ." trend. Music, like life, finds its way or it doesn't. If it is evolution, then evolution is a lot more complicated than Occam's Razor.

I have to admit, I think that the new technology is a blessing for those raised with all of its marvels. Paradoxically, I think the tech I grew up with has something that those growing up now will likely miss out on. And so it goes, right? Nostalgia and awe, coinciding together.

Music is dead. Long live music!

I hope everyone had a great 4th.

[Metalboy!]

Hear, hear, HIM! As usual, an astounding job of "wrapping it all up" in one nice neat little package.

The only place where you snagged me was in your last paragraph, albeit, just a LITTLE snag...

You caveated, tech of yore kids today "will most likely miss out on", however as Allyson shows in the data, LPs are trending up significantly, though far from platinum, showing there's hope in those grooves.

p.s. And listen to Mac Miller, "Faces", y'all. Expand your horizons! Best damn Hip-Hop album ever made, except for the fact it's a Mixtape. Jump to the track "Uber", if you must, though I recommend listening to the ENTIRE Mixtape from start to finish, to fully understand my claim, it's the "Dark Side of the Moon" of Hip-Hop. He also painted the "album cover". Count the FACES you see in it. : )