An album is a book like holder with multiple pockets in which you insert 7, 10, or 12 inch diameter shellac or plastic disks, each side of which contains an analog recording of a single song. Anything else is NOT an album.
Posted on 08/31/2014 8:01:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
U.S. album sales hit 3.97-million last week, the smallest weekly total for album sales since Nielsen SoundScan first began tracking data in 1991, Billboard's Ed Christman and Glenn Peoples report.
It's also the first time during that period that weekly sales have fallen below 4 million, they write.
Sales for the week ending August 25 fell 18.6%. The best seller was rapper Whiz Khalifa's "Blacc Hollywood" which debuted with 90,000 units, Billboard says. For the first time in more than a year, sales for the soundtrack to Disney's "Frozen" fell below 100,000 units.
CD sales have practically vanished, down 19.2% year-over-year, with sales at mass merchants and chains down mass merchants and chains have fallen 23 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively.
And even digital sales are faltering, with digital album sales off 11.7% and track sales down 12.8%.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
almost all is worthless crap.
it wasn’t better than the SMUG episode about people who drive hybrids.
The only laws Hollywood and the entertainment industry care about are the copyright laws that protect their money. Many years ago I was looking at laws connected to the Endangered Species Act and here was an insertion giving the movie industry tax breaks for some unrelated stuff. Conclusion: Leftist slimeballs paying off their supporters.
Let the ‘entertainment’ industry suffer the ravages of the rest of the economy from outright theft, copyright and patent infringement.
An album is a book like holder with multiple pockets in which you insert 7, 10, or 12 inch diameter shellac or plastic disks, each side of which contains an analog recording of a single song. Anything else is NOT an album.
The first album I ever bought was Axis Bold As Love. I liked vinyl.
My favorites are the later Rick Nelson albums, Eagles, and the best of the Moody Blues albums, The most excellent vinyl albums aren't just music. They're a total artistic creation.
With Pandora and satellite radio, why bother to buy and album?
Sound quality. I can't comment on Pandora because I've never used it, but satellite radio sound quality is far inferior to a CD.
I relate the music industry to the book industry:
Both products are available on hard copy and digital download.
Folks still buy books, perhaps because there is a quality inherent in a new book that is lacking in new music.
With the exception of the Hag’s book, it’s called CONTENT.
People purchase content. New music sadly lacks content for the general populace.
I do understand the streaming music services can make a dent in this equation, though if new music was so damn good people would buy it. Period!
Of course, I stopped listening to anything made after the late 70's
I don't consider rap or hip hop to be music...
More like tribal war drums...
Perhaps, but a car is probably the worse environment for listening to music for quality.
It felt so strange for me to walk into a “record shop” last year to actually buy some music. I had just discovered Leona Lewis, the British song bird. I looked around; nothing seemed interesting. Modern country music is mostly pathetic.
I haven’t bought a cd in years. I listen to free Pandora.
The folks who actually actively listen to music on a good home hi-fi have pretty much went the way of the dodo. Most seem to only listen through earbuds and computer speakers while they are doing something else like running or driving or doing the dishes. Popular music reflects the listening habits of the audience, that’s why most popular music is recorded and mixed the way it is. It generally sounds like garbage on good systems, and the concept of an album as a discrete thing to be listened to all the way through is gone.
Freegards
True, but when the artifacts of excessive digital compression bother you in a car (my experience), you know it's got to be much worse at home.
30 years of used CDs are on the market, nearly 70 years of LPs and 45s, nearly 100 years of 78s.
Additionally there are tens of thousands of labels/artists who’s new release recordings are not tracked by soundscan.
BIG MEDIA is losing sales but there are plenty of active musicians recording and touring, locally and nationally. These are full-time musicians with no day job.
Movie ticket sales are also in dramatic decline.
People are still watching movies and tv shows. Just not at the theater or on tv.
The old business model is no longer relevant.
Well that pretty much tells you all you need to know about what the music industry today - or what's left of it.
Back when I was buying records, a best selling album would sell a half million a week for months at a time.
I saw this coming 10 years ago when the RIAA was busy suing their own customers because they were sharing their favorite music online. While the Internet was revolutionizing commerce and digital media, the recording industry clung bitterly to their outdated business model, calculating on the silly notion that their lawyers would intimidate people into continuing to purchase overpriced compact discs at a retail store as opposed to obtaining it online at a fraction of the cost.
The implosion of the recording industry is very enjoyable to watch because the buffoons who ran it deserve all the bad fortune that is raining down upon them - they brought it upon themselves.
That said, there is no shortage of good new music out there. It's just that the major labels and mainstream media no longer decide for us what should be popular and what should not. They are not longer the tastemakers. More and more recording artists are using the Internet (such as YouTube) to promote their music and videos and are selling content directly to the consumer while building a fan base to go to their concerts - which is the primary source of revenue and profit for most performers today.
The music industry is like the shaving industry in that the music content is the "razor" and the concerts are the "blades". Give away the razor at cost - earn your profit on the blades. The old recording labels with their sleazy executives and A&R men are now out of the loop.
I was noticing that when songs are released they are almost immediately available on-line, sometimes on Youtube within minutes. They don’t make much from that, but fans go to concerts - that is where the money is made these days. Not in album sales.
I finally ripped nearly my whole CD collection onto my computer throughout the last week or so, and I am so thrilled to have my own music server I can use anywhere in the house. We hardly ever buy music anymore between streaming services online and our own collection.
Although with the Apple cloud hack, I’m sure some hacker geeks are now enjoying my 70s/80s/90s collection. LOL.
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