Why selling music is not as profitable as it used to be…
Came across this blog post on topspinmedia.com about a different view on why music sales revenue has declined in recent years. They discuss Singles vs Albums. Makes you question how devalued the album concept is now. Pretty interesting so I thought some of you might like to read it 
What do you prefer buying, albums or singles? Does format/medium matter in your decision? ie would you buy a vinyl album but only a digital single?
When I buy personal music (ie, music I don’t DJ) I buy albums, especially because I look forward to my favorite artists new album releases.
When it comes to DJing I buy specific songs more often than not. I’ll occasionally buy an EP or a label compilation album.
if im just listening in the house, i like to play vinyl, single or albums. I have a Technics SL1200 MK1 dating from the late 60’s set aside purely for that
singles sales were declining that much here in australia that the top singles charts (for the last few years) have included ringtone and download sales of music.
album’s still have massive clout.
coincidentally i just posted a thread about the ridiculous number of top-shelf dance artists that are releasing LP’s this year.
clearly albums are not dying out, audiences just have more power to decide if a band/artist created a successful one worth purchasing in it’s entirety - or if it’s a hack job with only one or two listenable songs.
yeah the music business is making less than half of what they used to because the system isn’t rigged in their favour anymore. they had quite the racket going and now the tables have turned and the customer has them over a fucking barrel.
Because of torrenters.
The singles vs albums idea is fairly insightful. How many times did you buy an album years ago only to find that it was a 1 or 2 track album? That ostensibly never happens anymore. Not to mention iTunes has made music cheaper. CDs used to be $16 new.
So instead of essentially paying $16 for 2 songs, we now pay $1.98. That’s a huge difference.
Before I read the article, I’ll also throw out the idea that bedroom producers who make quality tunes for a fraction of the cost will steer some people away from a lot of the shit peddled by big labels.
Thats pretty much my answer…not even good torrent sites, i bet limewire/frostwire…whatever it is now, probably cuts out about half of the profits.
That’s true but their are just as many bedroom producers putting out more shit to add on top of the bigger labels. Everything goes both ways. Then that brings us to the supposed ‘quality control’ that the big labels had because they would only take on music that fits to the ‘popular formula’. Hopefully now people are realising that it has to be good music to start with no matter what medium or sales concept. Good music sells.
You don’t really believe that, do you?
Labels (ie the execs) have had a pretty much free ride for too long. The digital age has levelled the playing field on the supply/demand system meaning artificial scarcity is not an option. Let the labels rot. Their coke fuelled days of Porsches and parties are over. Artists now have to work very hard to make it, just like the rest of us. Copyright laws are ridiculous these days (life + 70 years, isn’t it?!) So they just need to produce a few albums then sit back and rake it in on sales forever. Digital reduces the value to a more realistic level.
Support the artists by seeing them perform. Minus costs, they get 100% of sales, rather than 8% of media sales!
/rant