Music sales boom, but albums fizzle for '08

Americans bought more music in 2008 than ever before, but album sales — the music industry's main source of revenue — dropped for a fourth year.

According to the Nielsen Co.'s year-end figures, music purchases — CD, vinyl, cassette and digital purchases of entire albums (grouped together as total albums), plus digital track downloads, singles and music videos — attained a new high of 1.5 billion, up 10.5% over 2007.

More than 70% of those transactions were digital track downloads, a record total of 1.07 billion that swamped 2007's previous high of 844.2 million by 27%. Last week's track downloads set a record of 47.7 million, and 71 songs exceeded 1 million downloads this year, compared with 41 last year (and just two in 2005). Track downloads outsold albums by a ratio of 2.5 to 1.

Total album sales dropped to 428.4 million, 14% fewer than in 2007, and have fallen 45% since 2000. Even combining album and track sales (by a formula that counts 10 track downloads as one album sale), the 535.4 million total is still down 8.5% from 2007 and more than 30% below 2000's physical album sales of 785.1 million.

Music purchases are "astronomically high," says Rob Sisco, Nielsen's president of music, "but it's a marketplace in transition from physical to digital." He sees promise in the rise of digital purchases of entire albums, which reached a high of 65.8 million in 2008. New albums by big acts bring the market up, he says, but "there hasn't been a steady stream of high-profile releases."

Music sales boom, but albums fizzle for '08 - USATODAY.com

Wow, it's starting to happen. Exactly as predicted. The advantages of digital distribution now that music is starting to be sold DRM free are starting to really outshine the disadvantages of piracy.

Generally these advantages of digital music sales are summed up as a growth in the depth and breadth of music. A debate I've posted about here in the past.

Specifically it goes something like this.

1) The market of people whom have access to purchase music as it goes digital grows exponentially... it becomes truly global.

2) Love of music is not innate, people can exist without buying any music at all. They can make it themselves in fact and be just as happy. Music interest like all art is cultivated and cultured. People aren't born loving Rothko or PIcaso, they develop a taste, the same goes for Britney Spears. (Eeee. A shiver just went down my spine.) More access to music, more accessibility... more commons = more cultured tastes = huge growth in people's purchasing habits in the mid and long tail

3) people's individual capacity for music is growing exponentially now that it's not encumbered by the physical limitations of CD's.

To put it bluntly I can't wait for the first terabyte mp3 player. I can't imagine what will fill it, but it would be stupid to say say as Bill Gates once did... "I only ever see a need for the individual to have X amount of memory". While this is paraphrased badly, the point is clear, don't be naive about people's capacity to consume and collect nor the ability of new formats to take advantage of that capacity.

I could see music formats of infinitely higher quality, where not only is each instrument a separate track, but each instrument has multiple channels. Who knows where it'll go but I think it's safe to say the mp3 is the wax record of its day.

In the end the death of the CD will have been the best thing that ever happened to the music industry spurring HUGE growth across the board in every area of music from the head to the tail. US citizens will discover musical interests all over the world and we'll discover the rest of the world hasn't even begun to explore the US market.


The only thing limiting the success of the music industry in 2009 will be as always the major labels themselves.

1) While DRM is on the way out, DRM cannot die fast enough. Expect it to stage failed comeback after failed staged comeback though. Everyone loves the unicorn.

2) New competing storefront alternatives are needed to spur innovation in the marketplace, but are limited by the labels arbitrarily picking winners and losers completely contrary to their innovations and contributions. Expect this to continue to slow what would otherwise be extremely rapid innovation and evolution. I.E. Expect to be stuck with the mp3 for a great number of years to start with.

3) geographical barriers thrown up will slow the exponential growth from new world markets slowing the global trend.


All this of course has nothing to do with piracy, that which the major labels fear. In fact as has proven time and again (most obviously with the video game Spore) it directly pushes the market away from the incumbent creating the demand in the p2p black markets and a more demand for independent and alternative artists. Neither are a bad thing for anyone except the major labels... so as is oft said, f*ck em.

In conclusion. Music sales will grow exponentially in 2009 greatly surpassing even the wildest dreams and expectations despite the major labels complete ineptitude. This growth will happen in all areas but CD sales, though even that may eventually even come back in 2-5 years just as vinyl has. Oh, nostalgia.

Saul Williams - The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!

I thought I should blog about this.

My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!,
my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder. The wall of sound that we've created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they'd find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren't aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us 'til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways. The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer...

NiggyTardust!

love,

Saul

I think what he's trying to say is go download his album.

Pay $5 if you like for a 320kbps mp3 or lossless flac version, or try the 196kbps mp3 version for free. He may be more poetic, but he's one of the few people who's wordier then I. Great song writer, bad copywriter. Get to the point buddy, we have short attention spans here! :)

Seriously though. This is the future, wordy copy writing doesn't mean a damn thing. Even if he had misspellings it wouldn't really mean a damn thing in the big picture. Such things miss the point. Being personal, building an honest direct relationship with your fans, that's what this is all about. Saul and Trent are just doing what huge corporate conglomerates have been doing for years, cutting out the middle men. This is just a first step, no need for perfection. Musicians have all the time in thw world to polish their communications skillz.

I must admit, I haven't listened to Saul's latest album yet. (Six minutes remaining till download.) However I have very much enjoyed what I've heard of his previous work in all its untamed rawness especially his music video, List of Demands. Since I haven't listened I don't know what I can say about this new album other then, "Why not go download it for free and see if you like it?"

If you do like it be a patron, add to the tip jar and pass on the good word.

P.S. Love the references to David Bowie's stage persona Ziggy Stardust.

Read more on Saul Williams/Niggy Stardust on wikipedia.

Also, It's important to acknowledge that Trent Rezner and Saul Williams are obviously following the lead of Radiohead with their freely downloadable, name your own price album In Rainbows (wikipedia) which came out in the last week or two.

This release follows the exact same model as Radiohead's In Rainbows. Trent Rezner and Saul have learned from Radiohead's rookie mistakes making sure it's much easier to find the new album on the website and are using Amazon's muchos scalable S3 hosting platform to handle the anticipated rush of downloads.

We are definitely at the very beginning of something big here. After years of it running over the damn is finally letting go. Let the music flow!

Update: Upon second, third and forth reading, I love Saul's copy.

Universal Music snubbing Apple and its customers

Anymore I love reading about what the major music labels are doing, because it's so damn entertaining!

Re: DailyTech - Universal Jumps to SpiralFrog's Free Downloads: iPods Not Welcome

In what appears to be a snub to apple (like NBC's recent move from the Apple Store to Amazon.com) Universal music has chosen to sell it's music through a music service that doesn't work on the iPod, I assume it uses the irrelevant and unsuccessful Microsoft DRM, but the truth is it doesn't even matter.

Has Universal ever been more irrelevant?

They're behaving exactly like a spoiled child.

This is a fight Universal fundamentally has no chance in the world of winning, because it's not about Apple. It's about them waking up and finally realizing that mp3 IS the standard. It's the only one true way to sell music in this era.

A recap, first Universal makes Apple the king/master by demanding DRM on their music, apple delivers the only successful DRM option, then Universal rails against the master they've made. Finally Universal tries to snub it's master by choosing to make some other 3rd party the general public has never heard of their master.

What Universal fundamentally doesn't seem to get is by snubbing apple's Fairplay DRM and the open MP3 format they're snubbing ANY and ALL successful or working options to sell music to their customers. They're giving them no choice BUT to steal music! Which is why Trent Rezner of NIN, one of their biggest artists is off in Australia telling his fans to just go ahead and steal the music. (read on.. I'm getting to it)

I have one further suggestion for Universal based on their brilliant logic.

Universal: 99% of all P2P shared music is ripped straight of a CD! (epiphany) Why don't you simply stop selling CD's as well? Anyone selling CD's is clearly inducing copyright theft. You must stop selling CD's!

Furthermore I would suggest Universal then start selling ties, and start calling themselves a clothing company, because they certainly aren't by definition in the music industry anymore. They seem to be doing anything but selling music.


In related news (as mentioned above) Trent Reznor of NIN and also represented by Universal Music was so disgusted by the price gouging by Universal on NIN CD's in Australia, a topic that he spoke out against months ago, that he told his fans at an Australian concert "...Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means — STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin." Enjoy the clip yourself, I've embedded it below. It's short, sweet and clear. There's no question about the issue.



This just makes me laugh and laugh. Universal has outlived it's utility in the music age. It's whole *idea* of the music industry is, is dead. The only competency they have left is as a marketing arm to promote bands in traditional media. Which is funny because anymore radio and TV are increasingly loosing relevance to word of mouth music sharing on the internet. Web services like Last.fm and iLike.com have far more relevancy in shaping tastes and developing the music market then pretty much all of traditional media combined.

The CD is dead as a format. Therefore there's no need for distribution, so what it all comes down to is there's just no need for Universal at all.

Adios Universal, unless you pull your head out of your *ss and start selling mp3's you're dead... of course you've been dead to many like me for a long long time anyway.

Universal to sell DRM free songs

It's happening as predicted. Since the announcement by that Apple would be selling non-drm music in iTunes from EMI other major labels are slowly falling in line.

The New York Times is reporting that the Universal Music Group is going to be selling part of its catalog sans DRM for the next few months to gauge consumer interest. This is great, but the only catch is that these DRM free songs won't be available via iTunes. Universal, in an effort to lessen Apple's dominance of the digital music market, will be offering up the DRM free music via Amazon, Google, RealNetworks, and Wal-Mart for $.99 a song (a price many accredit Apple to pioneering).

From: Universal to sell DRM free songs, but not on iTunes - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Also

You might recall that Universal recently decided not to renew their contract with Apple to sell music in iTunes, and switched their commitment to a month by month basis. What does all this mean? I am betting that this experiment will succeed, and that Universal will reverse their decision and sell DRM free tracks via iTunes, why not sell your wares on the top online music store?

Boingboing.net has a good take on universal's inevitable move to selling non-drm music too.

The original article is on NYTimes

Amazon to launch music store with DRM free music

As predicted it's happening, the wall is crumbling. Now that apple has announced DRM free music offerings in their music store on EMI we knew soon others would follow. Amazon was as predicted the next, also partnering with EMI to sell EMI's catalogue DRM free.

Jeff Bezos puts it very clearly in the amazon press release.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."

To paraphrase, "MP3-only mean it will play on any device." That's something everyday ordinary people who don't spend all day obsessing about their music can not only understand, but always have understood. The market wants MP3 and always has. It's just taken the music labels 8+ years to listen to them.

That's two major stores and one label down. About four more major labels to go.

My prediction is this holiday season will pay big rewards for Apple, Amazon, EMI and others selling DRM free music. Putting a serious haste in the step of anyone still not selling mp3's. By this time next year nearly all the major labels will be selling non-DRM music and there will be over two dozen major online music stores like Apple, Amazon and other early players like the wonderful emusic, CDbaby and innovators like ArtistShare.

Users will once again have choice, as to where they want to buy, what hardware they want to use and where they want to listen. This combined with podcasting will put an end to things like satelite radio, win and real media, digital music stores like napster that sell DRM music, and whole industry of middle players that have sprung up to serve this inequity in the market. This includes the P2P black market. Well may actually start seeing a slow down in it's explosive growth, though any decline in p2p's popularity will take years.

It occurs to me that in as little as 3-5 years time that people won't even remember what "DRM" was in the first place... that most people won't even know this battle was fought to keep the future of music, media, culture and innovation open. It's a silent fight mostly, one the majority of the public doesn't really even fully understand let alone will most realize this battle has taken nearly *10 years*, and cost billions in lost revenue. We'll be taking it for granted again in no time. In five years time music mainstream artists profits will be at an all time high and the music market will have realized it's explosion not only in profits by the major labels, but in the breadth of new music and artists in the market.

The market is correcting itself

It's happening. Since the announcement by Apple and EMI to sell non-drm songs the long predicted shift to DRM free music is starting.

Microsoft changes tune on selling DRM-free songs

When the tracks actually start selling we should see market forces move the market quicker and quicker to non-DRM music.

8+ years of digital culture prohibition is starting to come to an end and I couldn't be happier. :)

Spectator in his own demise, Tower Records' founder on its rise & fall

I just noticed this amazing interview with Tower Records founder Russ Solomon by J.D. Lasica on the rise and fall of Tower Records. In it he talks about the effect of downloadable music, and the value and experience of music stores.

A revealing 9-minute interview with Russ Solomon, founder of Tower Records, about the music retailing giant's rise and fall. He also talks about Napster, the ipod (he won't use one), trends in the music industry, and how the CD isn't dead.

Most interesting points:

• Russ Solom talks about the opening of the original Tower Records in Los Angelos, 1970, and the odd timing that made it an over night success with the death of Janis Joplin down the street from the store and the subsequent release of her new and final album at the store.


• Russ talks about the downturn in the market do filesharing and what he thinks causing the demise of the music industry... rising prices while the market was slipping over the years, a lack of singles, and the alienation of the youth market.


• Russ also considers there to be a "fad element" to digitial downloading, saying the demand for tactile goods will return.
  
  Personally, While I do generally agree with him I don't think demand will ever return for current "plastic disks". I do think there will come a large demand for better formats, multi-track / multi-channel formats, other new products, merchandising, more imersive and participatory experiences, and above all more demand for real world experiences.
  
  While records were before my time I miss the large artfully format of the record album. Flash cards are also becomeing popular as a means of packaging, USB thumb drives above all. Day dreaming of what new forms music packaging might take now that it can litterally take any form it likes is now favorite hobby of mine.


• Finally Russ talks about being a "spectator of his own demise" at Tower Records during the bankrupcy, the future of the music buying experience, and what's next.

originally posted January 19, 2007 by jdlasica: Tower Records' founder on its rise & fall