Record sales plunge further...

To be fair, a billion-dollar market is a little different than a billion-dollar industry.

 

I am a high school teacher so I talk to lots of teenagers. Every year there are always a few of my students who are avid music fans. This past year, there was a handful of girls who liked some of the same artists I do (Death Cab For Cutie, Morrissey....can’t recall others right now). Anyway, these girls listened exclusively on Spotify. In fact, they asked if they could follow me on Spotify so they could listen to my playlists. I said no, but did turn them on to Neko Case. But it’s streaming all the way with them, and they are even big concert goers!

 

Is there any way to find out what percentage those six titles are of the total amount of cd sales?

 

Well, there are multiple sources for numbers and it's all interpolations but you could rough in a calculation. If you download the Nielsen Mid-Year Report, they report a sales number for each of these albums, you could then divide that by the physical media or CD unit sales total for the six months which is a figure that may be in that Nielsen report too. You can download it here: U.S. Music Mid-Year Report 2018

 

I've heard that many libraries have slowed, stopped and even begun culling CD collections, but I have no actual data on that. I'm sure someone does. But it's an interesting point on who the buyers are for sure.

 

So not a music lover then, at least in the terms we use around these parts.

 

Watched it on Youtube, thought it was crap and didn't buy it. Makes perfect sense.

 

No and not really that different to a lot of people I've met over the years, all well before streaming was a big thing or even an idea. I'm talking height of cd era and earlier. I don't think that attitude is particularly new. It might be more prevalent, I can't say for sure. But it's always been there IMO.

 

You could but you have to make sure you are using the same source data for both numbers. Not sure where those sales figures come from but if they aren't from the RIAA and you use their numbers instead of say, Neilson's, the answer can't be relied on as they use different methods to get to their numbers.

 

That was not his claim as I read it.

 

I know lots of people of my age (40+) who behave the same way though. The term "casual listener" was invented much before the streaming age.

 

Probably mostly classic rock, just like the folks on this forum.

 

Of course. My point is really that people of the same opinion have always been around, and when it comes to music, I've never had much in common with them. I'm struggling to discover why I should at all be bothered that people who are nothing like me, prefer different things.

Same with the whole Best Buy thing, I've never bought CD's from there, so no loss. People who casually flip from song to song.... nothing in common with them. They like streaming, and jumping around - good! But it's got no bearing on how I go about things. I'm sure they feel the same.

You know, it strikes me that if I think of the community of music lovers I belong to, Streaming isn't really too important. It's not for us. The people that like it exclusively are also not a loss to us, because they were never part of the same community (or they've changed). We can argue about money, income, trends, blah blah blah. That's also something I have no control over. And how many years have we been complaining that the labels only care about money? Nothing new....

The only thing that truly bothers me is when someone of the same community - someone who appreciates physical product - applauds when another physical format is declining, and perhaps going away. I'd expect them to at least appreciate how important these things are to us. I don't ask that Vinyl lovers buy CD's instead, only that we stand as one in demanding physical releases in our format of choice (and yes, it works both ways). Empathy, you know?

Big news flash - I have nothing in common with todays teens. I have nothing in common with millennial's. It's okay - there's no need to panic.

At this point, talking about streaming on the SH Forums is akin to complaining your local radio station has a poor playlist. It's just not important. Streaming is not important. Yes - money money money.... but if there's one thing I didn't get into this for, it's to worry about money.

 

I've only come in towards the end of this thread so apologies if I get the wrong end of the stick. I'd like to think that was not the intention of another forum member to imply that a decline in importance of CDs and Vinyl was a good thing.

Physical media is important to me but if I'm honest I'm buying less of it as the years goes by, I would be buying new releases of films and CDs as soon as they hit the shelf now I buy only artists I feel need a helping hand as soon as possible, others I will buy as and when sometimes after a price drop or until there is an offer. I would miss my physical collection but if the worst happened I would take comfort in having a digital backup of my CDs (onsite and off).

Streaming may not be your thing but have you tried it? There's numerous trials on offer from all the providers. Tidal offer a basic stream and a CD quality stream for example, having a massive music catalogue on tap allows me to try new music and explore an artists back catalogue. I've listened to untold Genesis as a result of this forum and many other bands that are hard to dip your toe into the water with. As with most things the more you put in the more get out, start listened to artists/following them and the recommendations get better. Each week I get a couple of playlists including artists I would never hear on radio or read about and from there I can explore their music more.

As I've said previously on other posts don't think of it as one of the other, streaming can be a complementary service, save the vinyl/CDs for when you can concentrate and 100% enjoy, use streaming when out and about or multitasking around the house. Give a couple of them a try and see what you feel, if they aren't for you at least no one can accuse you of not having experience of it yourself!

I'll know go back to the beginning and try and work my way through the rest of the thread.

 

Yes, I tried streaming. I didn't like it for various reasons, most of which I wrote about earlier. Call me old school, someone who is living in the past, or whatever. But I have an MP3 player. I put things on there I want to hear. When out, I can use that. If, for some reason, I get an urge to hear something that's not on the player, then I do without. It's not as though I have to scratch every itch, satisfy every urge right now.

 

Last spring, I discovered that a library near where I live has a nice collection of CDs. Lots of jazz, R&B and world, obviously curated by someone who knew its way with the music. So I started borrowing CDs, and the staff quickly referred me as the CD Guy. They told me that no one asks anymore for any CDs.

 

Some intelligent insights and observations throughout this thread. It's ironic how 20 years ro so ago artists were told (and sold, apparently) on the 'promise of the Internet'. A few have made it work for them. I'd guess most haven't - but that said, I wonder many of the latter would have made a decent living with a conventional record contract.

 

I'm no expert but I strongly suspect that there's a lot of musicians working today and spreading their music via the Internet who would never have a conventional recording contract today if that were the only game in town. Not because they're not good but because they would be deemed insufficiently commercial and ignored by record companies. That's the thing: today's technology makes it much easier for people who know how to create and distribute their own high-quality recordings. It won't make many of them wealthy, but at least they are able to do it. And if it wasn't for this outlet, you'd probably never hear about them at all.

 

Maybe. There are other ways. I'm a curmudgeon by nature and getting old. I like choosing what I listen to, not some algorithm.

The economics of that are probably debatable. You seem a bit defensive about this, so, I'm out.

In my experience and from what I see, you can use the Internet to make people aware of you, but with streaming, etc. it is an immensely crowded field; you would be one of thousands of "brands" that flash by in a second, like on a speeding train; and finally, how do you monetize your music in this climate?

 

The economics aren't debatable: artists make zero on a secondary-market sale -- no royalties are collected and distributed to copyright holders when used CDs and records are sold. By contrast they make something on a stream, small or not there's compensation to rights holders and royalties accrued.

If a person is opposed to streaming because it doesn't compensate artists well enough, that same person, following the same principle, should be completely opposed to buying used LPs and CDs on a secondary market since artists make nothing from that.

I'm not defensive. I have nothing to defend. I'm not a Spotify investor; I'm not a music copyright holder; I don't work for a record company or for artist's management; I don't sell new or used records. It doesn't do anything for me either way. But you said, "I have decided to take a firm stance on this. I will not use a streaming service. Musicians get minuscule money from that," so that led me to wonder if you had taken an equally firm stance on other kinds of music marketing that benefit musicians even less.

 

Not to mention that, unless you are an artist with an enormous amount of clout and can negotiate a deal that pays you an unusually high percentage of your album sales. streaming plus writing your favorite 10 artists a check for $5 each once per year will net them more money than they would have made off you if you didn't stream and bought their new releases.

 

Streaming services are nowhere close to having all the music there is. Also, they cannot be relied upon to offer whatever they do have on a permanent basis.

 

The situation would have been no different in the 70s if there was streaming then. Most teenagers would have stopped buying many LPs and 45s and listened to a stream (radio). Many back then just listened to radio and only had a handful of records for mood music when entertaining/partying. But there was a lack of alternatives to records/tapes including no DVDs.

OTOH I am increasingly running across young people 20-30 who play vinyl records. Some of them are pretty fanatical about them too. This is a big change from the period 1990-2010. So the market is dividing in different ways.

 

Point taken.

 

Plenty of legacy acts continue to pump out new music. Middle age people still support their favorites.