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 ...
Pandora ONE claims to offer CD quality sound. That is their subscription service. I *do* subscribe, but I can’t tell you for sure whether it is actual CD quality. It was very good when I listened on headphones, but that was a few years ago now. Now we listen on PA speakers outside.
Motown hits were mixed for AM car radios.
The mono version is available again (for the first time since original release) on vinyl, along with some "new" Hendrix albums (different from the other releases of studio tapes over the years).
The boycott seems to be working.
Now for a pie-chart showing how much of their revenue is coming from works that are over 28 years old (and over 56 years old). Extended copyrights keep them solvent but it doesn't keep the recording artists/actors etc flush with cash.
The article listed streaming audio as one of the top 5 markets. And then indicated it brings in maybe 10% of the revenue.
And even then, the artists aren’t the ones seeing the revenue stream.
Time to do away with RIAA/ASCAP/BMI. They’ve pocketed enough already.
“It’s okay to stream the songs so long as the enforcers of copyright still get a cut, with fractions of pennies paid to the actual writer/singer...”
And that’s not to even bother with invoking all of the royalties collected that were never paid out.
Some labels like Bloodshot or YepRoc permit you to stream songs or albums online (at the label’s site).
This is good because the CD listening station in stores (and the record listening station of older days) for new releases is largely non-existent.
It’s tough to justify gambling on a “new” album when you’ve liked their work in the past. Some just aren’t up to snuff, or offering anything “different” than the last one, or are too different. Get burned once and you may not go back at all. Live shows generally include a mix of old and new material.
And the article mentions that the industry is lucky if people buy one new album a month. That’s quite a bit actually. Unless you live in a social environment like college or high school.
Growing up, I didn’t have 48 new albums. Maybe I’d get one at birthday, and two at Christmas, and buy a couple during the year. And some used ones from garage sales and some cut outs and check out some albums from the library. You’d learn more about the music from the albums you owned as it became your music/your soundtrack.
The music business was experiencing a downturn when the CD format convinced grown adults (of the babyboom generation) to repurchased their library (for albums/artists that had already paid off their production and advertising expenses). That fad petered out as the 90s wore on.
NEW music has been suffering a very long time and while the industry still notes that radio exposure is the best way to penetrate the market, radio playlists are dull and locked into boring market tested sessions from the advice of women 15-30.
This:
If you buy the CD from Amazon I think they let you download a digital copy also.
good for you... these mutts don't believe in capitalism and all preach Eat the RICH so i see no reason they should make any money from cd sales!!! after all, they don't want to get eaten... right??? 8^)
I buy CDs from Amazon and most of the time Amazon will give you the digital download for free AND automatically put it on your Amazon cloud AND it doesn't count towards your cloud storage limit...
They do. But I'm in the sticks on 52K dial up. Just one song is a chore. Besides I like the CD quality vs MP3. I use MP3 in my player when I'm mowing and quality doesn't matter then.
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