You guys are demanding all killer no filler … and the music industry hasn’t quite risen to the occasion.
Music sales have continued to slump in 2008 as the increased number of downloads of digital tracks failed to make up for a plunge in the sale of compact discs.
Year-end sales figures released Wednesday by The Nielsen Co. show total album sales, including album equivalents made up of single digital tracks, fell to 428.4 million units, down 8.5 percent from 500.5 million in 2007.
Physical album sales fell 20 percent to 362.6 million from 450.5 million, while digital album sales rose 32 percent to a record 65.8 million units.
Digital track sales, such as those conducted in Apple Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, were up 27 percent from last year, breaking the 1 billion mark for the first time at 1.07 billion.
The report continues a troubling trend for the recording industry, which has a harder time maintaining profits when consumers buy single songs instead of albums. The number of transactions rose 10.5 percent to 1.5 billion, although the figure treats single track and whole album purchases the same. …
“You have to really be right about your hits. If you’re going to invest that amount of time in them and not run as many records, you have to be way more right today than wrong,” Kallman said.
Nielsen SoundScan said album sales fell in every genre. Classical music saw the biggest drop at 26 percent, followed by country at 24 percent and Latin at 21.1 percent.
Taylor Swift was the year’s best-selling artist with more than 4 million albums sold …
“Taylor Swift is a great artist development story that started as organically as you can in the digital age,” said Scott Borchetta, president and CEO of her label, Big Machine Records. “It involved online, non-stop radio tours and strategic TV opportunities which led to non-stop touring. But — most importantly — Taylor connected with her fans like no other artist in 2008.”
I love how you just can’t read about music right now without hearing about how freakin’ awesome Taylor Swift is.
It’ll be interesting to see how the talent development scene changes over the next couple of years based on the kind of success Taylor’s seen this year.
Go little Miss. Swift!!!
So the record industry is crying poverty because the public realized how utterly stupid it is to spend $15 for the two radio singles you enjoy? Especially when you can get them on iTunes for $2? Oh boo hoo. Piracy is certainly cutting into sales but record companies need to recognize there has been a shift in their industry and the ones who adapt the quickest will be the ones that survive. Find new ways to market digital downloads and minimize the expenses of CD production (each CD is pretty cheap to produce, maybe limited releases or production counts is the answer).
Another way to cut into the losses of physical sales is to step up production of vinyls. Sales are booming and more new artists are releasing albums on vinyl and labels are re-releasing older albums. You mentioned Zooey Deschanel’s She and Him album. I bought the album at Christmas on vinyl and it came with a coupon to be redeemed at the website that allows you to download a digital copy of the album FOR FREE. Not only do I get a wonderful vinyl album out of it but I can put the album on my iPod with no hassle. Record labels that engage in that tactic completely and record stores like my beloved Newbury Comics that make more room for vinyls will be the ones turning profits over the next ten years as CDs become obsolete and record stores go back to being accurately called Record Stores.
The girl cannot sing. Last night on the Dick Clark New Year show, she was embarrassingly bad. Why does nobody ever mention that?
they just need to figure out a way to progress along with technology i guess. wish it werent so. i miss the olden record days. LOL im so full of shit.
Oh I love taylor swift so much!
I’ve never actually listened to one of her songs — the snippets I get when the fricken dolls go off is enough! Yes, there is a doll version of her