Streaming Accounted for 75% of US Recorded Music Revenue Last Year, While Vinyl Sales Jumped 8%

Digital Music News ^ | March 1, 2019 | Daniel Sanchez

[DoodleBob]

For the first time since 1986, CD sales brought in less than a billion dollars.

For the third straight year in a row, the music industry in the US has posted double-digit growth.

That’s according to a new report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Breaking down key findings in the Year-End 2018 Report, the influential trade organization found recorded music revenue reached $9.8 billion. That’s up 12% year-over-year.

Revenue from streaming music services increased 30%, reaching $7.4 billion. Streaming alone contributed 75% of total revenue in 2018. According to the RIAA, the medium accounted “for virtually all the revenue growth” last year.

(snip)

Revenue from shipments of physical products plummeted 23% to $1.2 billion. CD sales fell 34% to $698 million. This figure marks the first time that CDs brought in less than a billion dollars since 1986.

Vinyl, however, continues on the rise. Revenue from vinyl albums jumped 8% to $419 million. This marks the highest level of vinyl sales since 1988. Breaking down physical sales, vinyl comprised more than a third of revenue from physical formats.

[SamAdams76]

True but it’s “good enough” for most so therefore it is the mainstream format. Audiophiles do have a higher standard which is why other formats still exist as a niche.

[newfreep]

As an aside, I’m blessed to have an acetate of the Doobie Bros “Minute By Minute” album and the CD, both cut/re-mastered by a dear friend. I was at the studio & watched the acetate being cut directly from the master studio tape using a $30k 9-watt 300B SET vacuum tube amplifier I represented in the US market.

Although the acetate has limited number of plays, it is darn close to the studio master tape I heard that day.

The remastered CD sounds very close to those master tapes, too.

[DoodleBob]

Well, if we REALLY want to get snobby, there is only one proper format for listening to music:

It's been a while since I did the comparison, but a RTR version of Beethoven's 9th blew away the same recording on CD.

Of course, practical considerations win the day. I can't bring my RTR into the car, it's hard to bring to shows for recording, and let's be honest...every now and then you get a mess with a RTR.

To that point, there was a thread a few months ago about how the iPhone et al effectively wrecked the markets for cameras, camcorders, home stereo systems, and calculators. The same happened when CDs wrecked the industry for albums, cassettes, 8-tracks and (of course) RTR, and when the internal combustion engine wrecked the buggy whip industry. Clearly, there will ALWAYS be a core group of people who are wedded to their HP12c calculator and will NEVER use the iPhone calculator, and so on. But this process of creative destruction is nothing new. At some point, the iPhone will become antiquated.

The issue the original article presents, is how do people entering the music industry as performers make a buck nowadays? I know many independent bands are pressing physical product (albums, CDs) and they sell those at shows. That is a good, capitalist move. They also sell flash drives, which is also a smart move. But, in general, we're not going back to the 1970s. The speed with which streaming has displaced downloads and CDs is incredible. Songwriters make about 9 cents per copy of song sold, but they make 0.4 cents per stream.

I have been to several clubs and seen countless unsigned bands that have serious marketing chops. Yes, Virginia...there are Millenials who work hard. And, as I wrote elsewhere, there are a good number of new bands that don't suck (though, to be sure, there is a lot of dreck out there). If you want to see the future of music, go to a club and find out how the kidz are working today, because it'll be in the headlines 3-5 years from now.

[DoodleBob]

Adele originally was anti-streaming but she changed her mind.

[1Old Pro]

Listening to those compressed streams can be a pain in the ears. But most listeners are now dumbed-down and accept crap.

Agree, however we have the technology to stream much better audio quality.

[Chickensoup]

I have hundreds of CDs many with intricate classical pieces. I would love a way to save and listen to them in all their glory instead of in compressed files.

[newfreep]

You can easily save/listen to uncompressed CDs, as follows:

1. Rip the CD to a hard drive as an uncompressed 16-bit WAV file to your HD, or, for better sonics, a SSD.

2. Exact Audio Copy is free software to do this and save a digital (not analog) file.

3. Use a software app to playback the digital file by sending the file to a DAC, typically via a USB connection.

4. The DAC will convert the digital file to analog that feeds your preamp, integrated or receiver.

btw, this setup will allow you to purchase High Resolution 24-bit digital downloads that can come close to the master studio tapes.

[Chickensoup]

This sounds like an option. I was thinking of moving all the music to a dedicated computer. I wish that one could find a sound system designer that could figure out music. I miss it.

the caveat my budget. LOL

[TexasGator]

Hmmm …. Where do you get high resolution tapes.

I enjoy 96/24 downloads which are far better than that RTR specs.

[zeugma]

Vinyl even with its imperfections is continuous analog audio as opposed to sampled slices of digital audio and requiring conversions from analog to digital and then digital to analog. Put on a vinyl of the Beatles’ Taxman and you will hear the difference.

It depends upon the bitrate and the ripping process. Yeah, if you're ripping lossy at 128, you're likely to end up with audio artifacts that affect the sound. If you've ripped at 384+ with a good quality ripper, unless you've got really good ears and an acoustically silent room, the differences are negligible. There are also plenty of lossless ripping methods that will still give you enough compression to make it worth your while.

Personally, I dislike streaming for 2 reasons. First, you never actually own anything. If you want to hear the same song at a later date, you effectively have to pay for it again. Second, the sound quality will be adversely affected by bandwidth limitations.

I have more than 17,000 tunes in my personal library, and am still buying a couple of disks a month, depending upon my musical whims. It's the sheer convenience of electronic music that I really love. I can fit all of that on a flash media that is smaller than my thumbnail. This means I can have a playlist that is far wilder than anything I could stream or listen to on the radio.

[TexasGator]

A blind test with 24 musicians found that they preferred cd over lp.

But I have 96/24 downloads which make me feel like I am next to the live performance. LP’s can’t touch it. Other than that you post is very informative.

[zeugma]

I have hundreds of CDs many with intricate classical pieces. I would love a way to save and listen to them in all their glory instead of in compressed files.

Rip them as FLAC files. It's lossless.

[TexasGator]

You can get an online program to download.

I have all my cd’s archived to 44.1/16 lossless flac files.

Not all systems can play flag but my cars and AVR do.

I also have 360 Mp3 copies for my phone.

[TexasGator]

My library is ripped at 44.1/16 but I still enjoy streaming.

[TexasGator]

Why do you need a sound system designer?

[TalBlack]

After years of working with digital using Universal Audio hardware and software (strong analog sounding digital) I hear serious shortcomings in vinyl.

[eddie willers]

To make money now it's about getting your song used on a TV show.

I learn new music when it's good enough to bubble up and be used in a commercial.

Liberty Mutual gave me HEM
Subaru gave me Barenaked Ladies
Apple gave me Feist

Rinse and repeat.

[Cedar]

Yes, I knew she eventually let “25” be streamed. I wonder if she will follow her same pattern with the 4th album...CD’s first, then a few months later streaming? I hope she does.

[TexasGator]

As with cameras numbers don’t tell the whole story.

[bagadonutz]

You don’t know what real nirvana is. All Spotify is compressed and tidal is only 44/16. Not big def nirvana.

We are all trying to get perfect reproduction of the music. Streaming has come along way. there is details on our old CD's that modern DACs are finally revealing. I just bought a multibit R2R DAC. It needs to warm up with all the resistors in it. but it does the digital format very well. 16 bit 44 kHz sounds better than vinyl (although I love my old vinyl dearly).