Got to agree with both rob and tango here. However, in the statistics, what do they include in the sales numbers? All digital media sales (itunes, amazon digital, etc), radio licenses, broadcasting services, like from TV channels? What about indie publishers, or self promoted bands, bands that don't publish and have their own website etc? Hell, what about merchandise sales from concerts? If the number was purely CD sales, then sure, of course it's going to be lower because of the switch to digital, doesn't mean that overall sales are plummeting. Then there is the point of Singles vs Albums, people will buy the individual songs they like, not the whole album, resulting in a loss of 9/10 of the album sale.
To be honest, i can't sympathize with music publishers, and even digital publishers. When they take over 80%+ of the sale for 'running costs' and only give pennies to the artist... the line between pirates and publishers becomes ever thinner. That and their ever increasing demands on radio licenses as well as internet radio licenses, it's as if they don't want people to listen to music but to simply buy it. You mention Music TV channels, i'd have to agree, most don't show music - and when they do, it's usually of the teenage pop culture variety... which isn't really music.
Speaking on Quality of music, yup, that seems to have hit an all time low. Name a famous song and there's probably 50 different covers for it floating around the many other artist albums. People then forget it's a cover and praise the bands originality. Nearly all the covers and remixes i've heard over the years sound worse than the original, there's only a handful that are ok, and one or two that sound better.
I don't listen to the radio willingly anymore, every time i do, it's usually someone with that god awful voice correction modulator pile of.... with a digital backing band of fruit loops and a drum machine, all with that dreary studio clean sound. And there is the other problem, studio clean... all the atmosphere and raw energy is stripped away and left with a polished surface, ready for the listener to slip up and crack their head on... Right, so i'm rambling and whining, but doesn't matter, point remains the same.
Quality has been diluted and it's the publishers that declare who should be promoted or not, so the person that ends up on the tv or radio, wasn't picked by the public. Now i'm beginning to sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist as well as a rambling whiner, but so be it. I love music, but i have to question how it lands at my ears.
