CD sales way down in 2008 compared to 2000, check it out

[pjrake]

technology changes and advances constantly. we had vinyls, 8-track, cassette, CD's, etc. but never, EVER, were any of those "technological" advances free to the public, legal or not.

 

the second technology made music available free to the public (via illegal downloads), everything changed.

 

it's not because music today "sucks", or artist are not being creative, it's simply the fact that people have access to any music free. if this would have happened 20 years ago, we would be making the same argument: music sucks, artist are not creative, etc. this has nothing to do with the big "evil" labels destroying music.

 

so, the million dollar question is how are artist going to make money making music. giving it away for free and making it up by playing live is not the answer, sorry. what is the answer? i don't know, but whoever comes up with is going to be a very, very rich person!

 

-PJ

[Vito Corleone]

 

Yeah, but talking movies didn't infringe on the copyrights of organists.

 

 

True, but unfortunate as it may be, copyright laws have always been subject to the limitations of the real world.

 

Nobody can stop other musicians from performing your copyrighted material, or stop radio stations from playing your copyrighted recording. The only even marginally means to offer protection to the copyright owner is the system put in place by ASCAP. Which is, for all practical purposes, a joke. Technically, you're infringing on a copyright anytime you perform a cover tune for money and no royalties get paid to ASCAP. And something tells me every musician here has done that at one time or another.

 

Now, instead of the songs themselves being ripped off endlessly with little or no compensation going back to the copyright holder, now the RECORDINGS are suffering the same fate.

 

No option left but to find some other way to make money off the songs you write besides recording them and selling the recordings.

[Instrospection]

I keep on hearing that the money is in publishing--but bands are gonna have a hard time getting their music on soundtracks, films, video games, commercials, etc, anyways. More producers and studios are working for publishing deals and points as producers, but if the bands aren't getting much exposure, a certain percentage of not much equals not much.

 

As a songwriter and producer of my own recordings, i've got good chart play at various radio stations. But radio royalties aren't much, and you'd have to chart extremely high for a long time to really see much dividends. It's the same reason why bands that hit the lower end of the Billboard charts (ie: 100-200) aren't making their record companies money or producer points, anyways. You need to be in the top 20, arguably the top ten or top 5 for awhile to really make that money.

[StratGuy22]

You know what it is, for the same 15 bucks, I can get a DVD movie, complete with extra features, commentary etc etc. For music I get 2 good songs and 12 filler songs.

[BlueStrat]

 

You know what it is, for the same 15 bucks, I can get a DVD movie, complete with extra features, commentary etc etc. For music I get 2 good songs and 12 filler songs.

 

 

True. But how many times are yoiu going to watch that 15 dollar DVD? Once? Twice? 3 times?

 

I listen to CDs at least a dozen times, more if I really like them. And in most cases the 12 "filler" songs start to grow on me and I end up realizing that what I first considered weak music is in fact better than I though it was.

[Vito Corleone]

 

True. But how many times are yoiu going to watch that 15 dollar DVD? Once? Twice? 3 times? I listen to CDs at least a dozen times, more if I really like them. And in most cases the 12 "filler" songs start to grow on me and I end up realizing that what I first considered weak music is in fact better than I though it was.

 

 

Music Is Your Best Entertainment Value!

[Dean Roddey]

 

It has a LOT to do with downloading, of course. But whining about downloading killing recorded music purchases is a bit like whining about talking movies killing the available jobs for organists. Technology is going to move forward. There's no way to stop it simply because it puts a dent in some people's revenue streams if, for no other reason, because somebody ELSE is making money from the new technology. .

 

 

 

This is a comment misconception. Theft isn't a technology. It's not like the car taking over the horse and buggy. It's not competition, and it's not something that can be competed against. There is no solution in a capitlistist society when the consumer just steals the product.

 

The only people making money from it are people who are abetting that theft. The ISPs who are signing people up in greater numbers because they want to download. Or Apple selling the iPod by the truckload and we all know what it's used for.

 

And I'l talking about illegal downloads here of course, not legal ones.

[Vito Corleone]

 

And I'l talking about illegal downloads here of course, not legal ones.

 

 

And if you can figure out a way to have one without the other then you'll not only be a very rich man but we'll no longer have to worry about misperceptions, common or otherwise.

 

Problem is--it can't be done. Cries of "but it's ILLEGAL!!" aren't going to go very far when the entire music industry is standing in the soup line.

[dooshbag]

The Top Five Boneheaded Music Industry Moves Of 2008

 

TONY SACHS

 

In a business where, for the last decade or so, every move made by a major record label or established artist is almost guaranteed to be a dumb one, it's hard to pick a mere five as the créme de la créme of stupidity. Anyone who disagrees with my choices, please write in and add your own! But here, for dumb or dumber, were my five shining moments of pure idiocy:

 

5. TRAMPS LIKE BRUCE. Did Bruce Springsteen invest his record royalties with Bernie Madoff? Did he forget that his kids are rapidly approaching college age? Because I can't think of any other reason why The Boss would sell a new greatest hits CD exclusively through Wal-Mart, which hasn't exactly been the champion of employees' rights over the last few decades. Not only that, Bruce is basically telling the few remaining brick-and-mortar record stores just what he thinks of them. This move is so un-Springsteen-like that I'm almost tempted to believe that nobody's told him about it yet.

 

4. BEST BUY, WORST SELL. Guns N' Roses decided to release their (his?) centuries-in-the-making magnum opus Chinese Democracy exclusively through non-record store Best Buy. The only problem is that Best Buy forgot to actually, you know, promote the album. So despite oodles of press coverage about the album's release, not to mention the fact that G n' R are still incredibly popular, Chinese Democracy failed to hit #1 on the charts and nosedived out of the Top 30 faster than you could say "Buckethead."

 

3. GOOD TIMES FOR LAWYERS, BAD TIMES FOR BEATLES FANS. The entire Beatles catalog was remastered two years or so ago. Want to hear it? Then you'd better get a job with EMI and somehow get access to the vault where the tapes are stored. Endless horn-locking by both the Beatles and their record label means that we won't get sonic upgrades on the 20-year-old CDs currently on the market anytime soon. They can't even figure out how to agree to get their albums on iTunes, for crying out loud. By the time the upgrades are finally released, it'll be time for another upgrade. In the meantime, the CD buying audience continues to shrink and the original Fab Fans get another year older. Oh well, there's always the brilliant "deluxe edition" bootlegs mentioned in the New York Times last week. And hey, they're free! It's a nice way to give the figurative finger to the powers that be at EMI and in the Beatles camp, and hear some great music besides.

 

2. YOU DON'T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO KNOW YOU'RE GETTING RIPPED OFF. One of my favorite albums of the year was Bob Dylan's latest from-the-vaults compendium, Tell Tale Signs: Rare & Unreleased 1989-2006. The standard version contains 2 CDs with 27 tracks and a nicely annotated booklet, with a list price of $22.99. The deluxe version contains an extra CD with 12 more previously unreleased tracks, plus a book featuring photos of all his 7-inch single picture sleeves (apparently from a fan's personal collection). And it retails for ... $169.99?! Listen, Dylan's earned the right to do whatever he wants, but for an extra $147 he'd better be personally delivering that puppy to my door, along with a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke. I burned a copy of disc 3 from someone who was dumb enough to buy it. The picture sleeves, I can live without.

 

AND THE MOST BONEHEADED MUSIC INDUSTRY MOVE OF 2008....

 

1. In 1983, the list price of most vinyl LPs was $8.98. Along came compact discs, which cost nearly twice that. The technology needed to make CDs, we were told, is very expensive, but the sound is so much better than vinyl that you'll agree it's worth the extra bucks.

 

25 years later, as CD sales continue to tank and the dollars from digital downloads fail to take up the slack, LP sales suddenly make a dramatic comeback, posting their highest numbers in nearly two decades. It's still a tiny fraction of overall music sales. But the fact that it's the only physical music format showing an uptick, and the fact that the LP buying audience is skewing younger, still encourages retailers, especially indie music stores.

 

As usual, the record labels, quick to do nothing in the face of possible success, keep their prices astronomically high -- a typical LP now costs about $20-25. Not out of line for the audiophiles who were vinyl's primary demographic in the '90s. But ridiculously high for the kids who want to get a vinyl copy of the new Radiohead or a classic Led Zep album. The technology needed to press LPs, we're told, is very expensive, but the sound of a 180 gram virgin vinyl LP is so much better than a CD or MP3 that you'll agree it's worth the extra bucks.

 

And so it goes.

[soundwave106]

 

it's not because music today "sucks", or artist are not being creative, it's simply the fact that people have access to any music free. if this would have happened 20 years ago, we would be making the same argument: music sucks, artist are not creative, etc. this has nothing to do with the big "evil" labels destroying music.

 

 

It was in a way... the tape-trading networks. Of course a CD is much better than some nth generation tape. Of course MP3 trading spreads songs a helluv a lot more than nth generation tapes and tapes off radios and whatnot.

 

Piracy is a problem, but sometimes I feel that the collective music industry is using MP3s as an excuse to ignore that their business model flat on its face. Even before MP3s sprung onto the scene in the late 1990s, music was getting concentrated, cheaper tech was getting more people into the hobby, clubs and local music stores were closing, it was increasingly difficult to make it from a local band to national thanks to the destruction of regional hits, etc. Piracy merely accelerated the Balkanization; it wasn't the first cause of it.

 

 

so, the million dollar question is how are artist going to make money making music. giving it away for free and making it up by playing live is not the answer, sorry. what is the answer?

 

 

Produce a product or service that kicks so much ass over a mere MP3, people will pay for it.

 

Which obviously is more difficult than it sounds. Right now music companies are experimenting with publishing deals, bundling, etc. Currently, music is moving to merely being a way to perform additional marketing, not a business in itself. It's a bad time to be in music if you want to make money.

 

(As a hobby though music is pretty excellent.)

[nwtsnma]

yes the business of selling recorded music is ending

[BlueStrat]

 

Music Is Your Best Entertainment Value!

 

 

I agree.

 

I also don't buy the 'cds are overpriced' argument.

 

In 1970 I could go see a movie for 75 cents. Today it's $9.50. Increase: 12 times.

 

I could buy a pair of Levi 501s for $3.50. Today- somewhere around 30 bucks. Increase: over 9.3 times.

 

I could buy gas for 30 cents a gallon. Today it's a buck and a half to 4 bucks (depending on the market) . Increase: 5-13 times.

 

I could buy a 2000 sq ft house w/ 3 bed/2ba for 19k. Today it's 250k. Increase: 12 times

 

I could buy a brand new Ford Mustang for under 3 k. Today: 24k Increase: 8 times.

 

But music? I could buy a 45 minute vinyl album for 3 dollars. Today: a 60 minute CD for 15. Increase: 5 times.

 

Oh, and we'd buy vinyl singles for 50 cents. Today downloads are 99 cents or less. Increase: less than 2 times.

 

In other words, the production of music has not kept up with inflation in regards to everything else we buy.

 

When we buy a pair of jeans for 30 or 50 bucks do we complain that we're "only buying a slice of denim and some thread assembled by some third world unskilled worker for 50 cents an hour"? Not likely. Yet a bunch of us here do when we buy a CD. Music is one of the few things we bitch about paying for based solely on it's cost to manufacture. What is overlooked is that manufacturing costs are only part of the cost of production. As if the music recorded, mixed, mastered, produced, published, packaged, photographed and produced artwork, promoted and distributed itself. Not to mention any profit for the artists and writers.

[T.B.]

The drop in CD sales wouldn't have to do with poor value ($18 for one good song while the remaining 15 are crap fillers) or lack of talent to choose from (major labels only sign the idiot no-talent bands because they don't bother to read the indentured sertivude contract), would it? Naaaaaaaaaaah....

 

[Vito Corleone]

 

When we buy a pair of jeans for 30 or 50 bucks do we complain that we're "only buying a slice of denim and some thread assembled by some third world unskilled worker for 50 cents an hour"? Not likely. Yet a bunch of us here do when we buy a CD. Music is one of the few things we bitch about paying for based solely on it's cost to manufacture . What is overlooked is that manufacturing costs are only part of the cost of production. As if the music recorded, mixed, mastered, produced, published, packaged, photographed and produced artwork, promoted and distributed itself. Not to mention any profit for the artists and writers.

 

 

It's all about percieved value. The industry has continually, if unwittingly, cheapened the percieved value of the product while raising the price. LPs in the 1970s mostly had packaging that at least gave the impression of value--a 12" x 12" package, embossed lettering, big pictures and lyric sheets, and maybe even a poster or T-shirt iron-on thrown in. When CDs came along all of that was dispensed with, but nobody noticed because the percieved value was now contained in the higher sound quality of the product. But once the higher sound quality became accepted and standard, what were the labels left selling? A 5 inch plastic disk in a plastic case. And as soon as it became possible for anyone to copy the product themselves with identical sound quality on a 10 cent blank disk, how are you supposed to put forth the idea of value?

 

And now they don't even want to sell you the 5" disk. They just want to sell you some computer data you can download to your computer in a matter of seconds. How is the public supposed to percieve that THAT is worth anything?

 

Not to mention that the artists themselves are no longer packaged with any real value. One of the reasons it was a big deal to buy a Led Zeppelin album once a year or a Pink Floyd album every two years is that was virtually all anybody knew about those guys. There were no music videos, there was rarely any pictures published or articles written about them--all of rock music was considered a sub-genre by the mainstream media while it was selling millions to the kids. Listening to the music was pretty much the only way to learn anything about these mysterious artists. Now, people are all so sick and tired of seeing Britney Spears or John Mayer or whoever else every night on E! or Inside Edition that who the hell wants to shell out 15 bucks for a CD to learn anything more about their lives?

[BlueStrat]

 

Now, people are all so sick and tired of seeing Britney Spears or John Mayer or whoever else every night on E! or Inside Edition that who the hell wants to shell out 15 bucks for a CD to learn anything more about their lives?

I guess I don't buy music to learn about the artist's lives. I buy their CDs because I like the music. I would guess most people are like that.

 

The drama that Roger Waters contributed to Pink Floyd was never a consideration in making a purchase of one of their records.

[Vito Corleone]

 

I guess I don't buy music to learn about the artist's lives. I buy their CDs because I like the music. I would guess most people are like that.

 

 

Most music IS about the artists' lives. We buy into the music because we believe they are singing from the heart and telling us a story that comes from a personal experience and connection.

 

To varying degrees, of course. But I think you get the point I'm trying to make. Part of the success of many artists has always been about the ability to create a mystique about them and make them so-much-bigger than life. Where's the mystique in today's modern culture with any of these artists?

[BlueStrat]

 

Where's the mystique in today's modern culture with any of these artists?

 

 

I see your point.

 

I read a magazine article awhile back that talked about how this generation has to make their entire lives public-myspace, facebook, youtube, twitter- everything has to be shared. The magazine called them the 'look at me' generation. It started when their mothers hung every smear they ever made and every participation award they ever got on the refrigerator door and it hasn't stopped.

[pjrake]

 

I read a magazine article awhile back that talked about how this generation has to make their entire lives public-myspace, facebook, youtube, twitter- everything has to be shared. The magazine called them the 'look at me' generation. It started when their mothers hung every smear they ever made and every participation award they ever got on the refrigerator door and it hasn't stopped.

 

 

that is very interesting! i would love to read the whole article if you have a link.

 

-PJ

[Vito Corleone]

It used to be that the managers and record labels worked over time to get their artists' publicity because publicity was so hard to get. Now we're over-saturated with publicity but I'm not sure the labels have figured out that this is sometimes a detriment.

 

It's not an accident that the only format seeing an increase in sales is the LP: it's because the industry has been able to create this sense that the LP is once again "cool", and it's a product that can't be downloaded. The CD stopped being cool about 15 years ago, and I don't think packaging music on mini SD cards is going to help things much either. The vinyl LP itself probably isn't the answer, but the answer lies in creating a product involving the music and the artist that can't be downloaded.

 

No encryption technologies will work. Those will always be cracked. And more laws against file-sharing aren't going to help either. The only thing that will work, IMO, is in creating a product that has nothing to do with download technology. The music itself, will always be able to be put into a digital downloadable file, so the industry has to look beyond the music itself.

 

In this way, maybe those 360 deals aren't such a bad idea (providing the labels can manage it all correctly which is debatable). Get the artists under control, limit their access to the media and their public personas. Turn these artists into people that their fans want to know as much about as possible, and make sure the only way to find out about these artists is to PAY for this information.

[PFB]

I have to say CDs are way overpriced. $15-18? It's perception, I suppose, but when I used to buy lots of CDs, I would take a chance on almost anything that I knew a song I liked or heard was supposed to be good for $10-12. Over $15, essentially means you have to take a $20 bill out of your pocket to buy it. So I'm only getting 2 CDs, where I used to get 3 or 4.

 

They are now pushing Vinyl as the way to get great sound, I assume so they can re-re-repackacge the old Pink Floyd and Zeppeln catalog. I don't know why they aren't pushing CDs sound far better than mp3, but perhaps it's too late.

[Lee Flier]

 

I wrote a blog about this and while researching a bit, I realized how big a hit CD sales have been taking over the years, and I'm only comparing a few years back. In brief: - The top selling album of 2008 was by Lil Wayne selling 2.87 million copies - In 2000, the top selling album (by N Sync) sold 9.94 million copies - In 2000, 18 albums sold over 3 million copies each beating 2008's #1 I knew things were bad but I didn't know exactly how bad so I found the numbers very interesting. Rediculous huh.

 

 

Maybe. Most sales of indie CD's are still not reported by Soundscan. As of a couple of years ago, I remember reading that it was estimated independent CD's accounted for about 20% of the market. That number may have gotten even bigger since.

 

I think a big part of what we're seeing is the result of there being many more people releasing many more CD's, so the biggest sellers are selling far fewer. And lots of people are buying CD's directly from artists at gigs, online, etc. Each artist is making a lot less money, and the major labels are making a LOT less. But that doesn't necessarily mean CD sales overall are way down.

[Poker99]

 

Maybe. Most sales of indie CD's are still not reported by Soundscan. As of a couple of years ago, I remember reading that it was estimated independent CD's accounted for about 20% of the market. That number may have gotten even bigger since. I think a big part of what we're seeing is the result of there being many more people releasing many more CD's, so the biggest sellers are selling far fewer. And lots of people are buying CD's directly from artists at gigs, online, etc. Each artist is making a lot less money, and the major labels are making a LOT less. But that doesn't necessarily mean CD sales overall are way down.

 

 

huh...

 

 

«According to a new study, of the 13m songs available for sale on the internet last year, more than 10m failed to find a single buyer.»

 

 

 

«173,000 of the 1.23m available albums were ever purchased – leaving 85% without a single copy sold» «...80% of all revenue came from about 52,000 tracks – the "hits" that powered the music industry.»

 

[Lee Flier]

Interesting, Poker99, but I think the OP was talking specifically about CD sales, not download sales. And I still don't think a lot of the direct sales are being reported. We sell CD's at gigs and directly through our website, and Soundscan has no way of knowing those particular copies were sold, for instance. There are thousands of bands around the world doing the same thing. Maybe indie CDs that are sold through CD Baby, Amazon et al were included in the study, but not the direct sales, which probably account for a lot of indie bands' sales.

 

I'm not arguing that most sales still come from major labels - they've got the promotional muscle to generate way more sales than indie artists do. I'm just saying I think we still have a very incomplete picture of total sales.

[Vito Corleone]

 

I have to say CDs are way overpriced. $15-18? It's perception, I suppose

 

 

I think it's all perception. BluesStrat is right that, compared to most other commodities, an album is a bargain today compared to its price in 1970. But the point I keep trying to make, and I think so many people in the industry are overlooking, is that--whether we realized it at the time or not--we were buying so much more with that 5 bucks than just the music in the grooves. Which is why we still get those nostalgic feelings when we listen to that old music now. A new album release by our favorite artists used to be an EVENT. If it was still such, you wouldn't think 15 bucks was overpriced.

 

The labels have succeeded in cheapening the product to nothing more than a simple digital audio file and then they sit around shocked that people percieve it to have no value.

[SteinbergerHack]

 

The labels have succeeded in cheapening the product to nothing more than a simple digital audio file and then they sit around shocked that people percieve it to have no value.

 

 

....

 

[/thread]