« Budget and investment in creativity | Main | December - and 2005 - trade in intangibles »
February 9, 2006
The evolving music industry
As recording technology has changed, the 45 record single was replaced by the LP album, which was replace by the CD. Which is now being replaced by -- you guess it, the single. As the Washington Post reports, Downloads Make Singles a Hit Again:
As iPods and other MP3 players outsell CD players, sales of downloaded singles are booming accordingly: Though sales of full-length albums were down 7.2 percent last year, the digital singles market grew by 150 percent, with 352.7 million individual songs sold online, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was by far the highest figure for singles sales in any format since 1973, the first year for which Recording Industry Association of America shipment data are available for singles. In late December 2005, weekly singles sales topped CD sales for the first time, as American consumers -- many of them flush with holiday gift cards and loading new MP3 players -- purchased 19.9 million digital tracks but just 16.8 million albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan.And that's to say nothing of the $600 million (and growing) ring tone business in the United States.
Ironically, not to long ago, as the story relates, the single was seen as a dinasour:
By 2002, so few individual hits were being released commercially that the National Association of Recording Merchandisers launched a "Save the Single" campaign. But it didn't help -- at least not that year: In 2002, singles accounted for less than 7 percent of music sales, with only 12.2 million singles sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Billboard reported that it was "believed to be the lowest number since the single was in its infancy in the early 1950s."
Some are not happy with this revolution (in both the current and original sense of that word). The Post sotry quotes Charles Goldstuck, president of BMG North America,
"The challenge for the industry is to find some balance between singles sales and album sales. We want to create an artist experience, not a singles experience."
Others agree:
Says artist manager Jim Guerinot, whose clients include pop singer Gwen Stefani and the rock bands Nine Inch Nails and Hot Hot Heat: "While somebody might view a scene from a play as being really well done, well performed and well written, most artists would prefer to have you watch the entire play. Musicians put their music out in a long-form format, complete with artwork, and their preference would be for you to experience their work that way."
But there is an alternative way savor the artistic experience. It is called "the concert." Maybe that is way people still go to hear live music performances. And why they will continue to be a big part of the business model in the music industry.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at February 9, 2006 8:43 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.athenaalliance.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/537