Music Sales Plummeted During Previous Decade

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
As far as I'm concerned, music is one of the best inventions ever. It can pump you up, mellow you out, cheer you up or bring back old memories. I think it goes without saying that music is a big part of most of our lives, but if you were to judge that by music sales trends, you might begin to think that there's a downward spiral in effect, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down.

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2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Interresting article Rob... I can't disagree with your observations, as far as they went...

However, there is another layer to the problem... Quality.

I cut my musical teeth setting up and tearing down for a couple of bar bands, got to watch the shows and got a real good look at what gets people up and dancing and what does not. The interesting thing is that it wasn't the type of music; Otis Redding's "Do you like good music" was no more likely to get people up than The Association's "Cherish" (and these are two of my all time favorite songs). What got people up was how well the band played the song. It was the quality of the music that motivated people.

Ok, fast forward 30 years to setting up sound systems in modern clubs... The same is still true. When the DJ plays crap people sit down but just about anything that is well performed will get them up.

(Sidebar: I once had a bar owner ask me if there was a selection of "ho hum" stuff he could add to his automated music system "so that people will sit down and drink for a change".)

Sooooo... why wouldn't this extrapolate to album sales? In fact, I think it does.

I am 59 years old and I listen to Miley Sirus, so I don't think I'm terribly behind the trends and I gotta tell you that most of what's getting out into the public today is either A) not music at all or B) crap.

The heart and soul that used to characterize good music has been replaced by the precision timing of midi sequences, the lyrical skills of a good vocalist have been replaced by gimmickery. Seriously, who want's to listen to some bimbo hit High C in every song she does or some guy that can't sing at all using electronics to create a unique sound... Music is and always will be about TALENT.

Rap is not music. I'll give it high credits as Urban Poetry but I simply can't consider some dude not even trying to sing, cursing his fool head off and talking about ciminal acts as a musician... At best he's angry... not talented.

And of course my number one beef... a short lived trend, thankfully... People who take very successful older songs and simply sing along with them... I can do that and I'm not about to waste the price of an album on it.

It doesn't take long to duplicate my observations... take any 20 hit songs from the 70s and compare them with any 20 hit songs from the 2000s ... you'll get the idea. The talent, that "feel" of real music is almost drained away. The vocals are mostly bland, lifeless. With rare exception the artistry of the musician is almost totally absent in today's music.

And yes it's going to show on sales charts...
 
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Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
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.
 

2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey

*#$@ record companies... probably still moaning the decline in Vinyl! :D

Really... there's a lot of bacwards thinking in the industry. Any sensible record exec. would have seen the enormous popularity of digital media and worked out a way to cash in on it a long time ago...

Example: Torrents....

The smart Exec would have his company running their own trackers, dispensing movies and music to the public for free. Toss in some ads, bill the advertisers and it's win-win-win... They get their money, the advertisers get exposure and we get our music for free...

It's painfully obvious, right there in front of them... why they don't get on the game is beyond me. Instead they haul people into court and take money by a means not entirely unlike legalized extortion.
 

Phineas

Obliviot
I doubt that people are listening less.
Based on the number of people I see with ear buds, I would say not.
It would appear, then, people are buying a lot less 'new' music.
Digital storage is a more certain medium, vinyl, DVD CD's had to be replaced too often because of breakage and scratches.
Then, there are those like me that haven't heard much worth listening to in a decade or two.
 

crowTrobot

E.M.I.
I don't think people are listening less either. I think more and more independent music is being heard now than before compared to popular music with the advent of iTunes and other digital distribution mediums.
I mean now the biggest selling record artist is Lady Gaga and she only has 7 Million records sold which pales in comparison to 9-14 Million records which the random big bands of the 90s sold. Sugar Ray sold 5 Million stateside with their 14:59 album, and their not even in the top 15 best selling bands of that year. I think the market is more diluted and the major labels don't have the major foothold they once had. Alanis Morisette sold like 30M worldwide with Jagged Little Pill. etc. I'd love to see the stats on the increase in independent sales this decade as I'm sure it took a huge chunk off the major label sales.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Exactly. The current #10 spot on Billboard sold only ~33,000 albums, it's ridiculous. But it's all superfluous, because the vast majority of music sold is now digital. The music industry just wants people to forget digital sales even exist because they made much more off of album sales than individual digital tracks.
 

Phineas

Obliviot
..... The music industry just wants people to forget digital sales even exist because they made much more off of album sales than individual digital tracks.

At the peak, the record companies made twenty times as much off each album as the artist. Having worked in and around the business three to four decades ago, everyone made money, with enough left over for "favors" for even small town DJ's who played what they wanted. Hell even newsmen got free tickets to every concert along with as many free albums as they wanted.

Who wants to let that go so the consumer can buy direct from the artist?
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
At the peak, the record companies made twenty times as much off each album as the artist. Having worked in and around the business three to four decades ago, everyone made money, with enough left over for "favors" for even small town DJ's who played what they wanted. Hell even newsmen got free tickets to every concert along with as many free albums as they wanted.

Who wants to let that go so the consumer can buy direct from the artist?

Just because it is sold online doesn't mean the artists gets most of the money. The site gets a cut, the label gets their cut, and the artist is still at the end of the food chain. I don't remember where I read it, but I believe they get less than a third of the $1 per track. Many are actually doing well to make 10%, or 10 cents!

Some labels were smart enough they had their contracts worded so digital sales were treated like physical sales, and the artists get the typical percentage they'd get from a physical album (which indeed is an even smaller cut than what they get from digital sales, ironically).

Hell, it's even worse then what I just said for many artists. Labels just don't want to lose their free ride on the money train: http://digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com/...-says-digital-is-a-raw-deal-for-some-artists/
 
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