Music sales and food for thought

[MaxKincaide]

I found this article this morning on Yahoo! news....

 

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/chart_watch/39922/week-ending-july-19-2009-daughtry-makes-idol-history/

 

I really hits on 2 topics that have been discussed on this forum for a while, and I found it interesting enough to share with everyone else.

 

The first topic is the validity of American Idol and its contestants. The article is focusing on Daughtry, who, of course, is fronted by Chris Daughtry, who never even won the competition. He has just made history by having back-to-back albums debut at #1 on the charts. According to the article, Kelly Clarkson is the only other AI alum to have 2 albums chart at #1, and they were her 1st and 4th albums.

 

To me, that's saying something. It's saying that even though AI is mostly there for ratings, the show can still put out verifiable talent. I know it's something that can be argued that his sales were spurred by his popularity on the show, but that would mostly account for his 1st album. The 2nd album debuting at #1 is a pretty big statement...that enough people liked his 1st album enough to invest in the 2nd album. The test, though, will be to see how long the album stays at #1, or how high it can rank for a period of time.

 

The other thing the article addreses is record sales and online album sales. According to the article, his 2nd album as first-week sales of 269,000 copies sold...and it measures that number against the debut album, which had first-week sales of 304,000. According to the article:

 

"The softening of music sales in the past three years easily accounts for the difference."

 

That's a difference of 35,000 copies. It also says that the digital first-week sales for the album are 63,000, putting the 2nd album in the #1 slot in the digital sales category. The debut album sold 12,000 digital copies in its first-week sales 3 years ago.

 

That really puts a highlight on the popularity of digital music sales. The keyword here, though, is sales. The band is selling both hard copies and digital copies of the ablum...enough to land them in the #1 slot in both categories...and certainly enough to keep them going on tour for a while to suppor the albums.

 

The thing is, though, even though I'm quite sure that Chris Daughtry isn't hurting for money, you can just imagine what would happen over the next few years if the problems with pirating music continues. Just the popularity of the digital sales alone points to the growing popularity of downloading music.

 

What the fear is that eventually, the mentality of giving away music for free will do away with any profit at all. It may not happen in the next 5 years or even 10, but eventually, if it keeps increasing, record sales are going to be virtually non-existant.

 

I just wanted to put this out there for everyone to see and discuss....

[richardmac]

Good topic. Here's my two bits.

 

Daughtry would have succeeded with or without American Idol. IF he'd had a major record label behind him.

 

His music and sound are calculated to appeal to a large number of listeners, and he's got just the right voice for that music and sound. Take Nickelback, make it a little more pop-like, soften it up just a teeny bit, and presto. If Daughtry had never made it, someone similar to him would have been invented by one of the majors.

 

Chris IS a talented singer, there's absolutely no doubt. But the music on his CD's is very calculated. That's fine, a lot of people like McDonald's hamburgers because they never change and you can always depend on them to be exactly what you ordered. Doesn't matter who is writing it - him, Nickelback, professional songwriters, whatever. I would say that the show putting out verifiable talent is definitely true, but big deal - it's a singing competition, and there are hundreds of thousands of talented singers out there. I knew vocal majors in college who were just as good as anyone I've seen on the show. They WERE talented, definitely.

 

As for the idea of people giving away music for free killing the majors... I don't think it will go that way. I think CD sales and music sales will at some point bottom out, and then over time we'll actually see them increase again, slowly. An increasing number of amateurs giving away music won't effect the majors, just like an increasing number of musicians playing gigs for free won't effect ticket sales for major acts.