Albums today debut with less than 500K copies sold, what the fuck? Back in the 80s you'd barely make it to top ten on Billboard 200 if your album sold 1 million,,

Is it because of the hacking & illegal downloading? I don't think that will cause a lot of damage...

I think with itunes and such, people just buy singles instead of a whole disc.

Because you can't play records, cassettes, CDs, 8-tracks, reel-to-reel tapes etc. on a phone or IPOD. You need a stereo for that. Why is Radio Shack closing a lot of stores and seems to be mostly in the cell phone business now? Radio Shack was popular when more people were buying stereos, shortwave radios, blank tapes, and electronic crafts. Why did the black & white TV sets go away? Something took its place. People are into other things now.

Blame the sales erosion on P2P torrent sites and iTunes' individual-tracks model.

Used to be, if you wanted to hear some music, you'd have to listen to one of the albums in your collection or be satisfied with playing the radio and TV, or else go to a concert or club.

That's not true anymore. If you took my record collection away and left me with a youtube enabled computer and free spotify subscription, I could still listen to 90% of it.

That being the case, why WOULD young people get into buying albums? Why buy the cow when you're getting the milk for free?

It's a great time to be a music listener, and maybe the worst time in history to be a professional creative type.

Identity said:

Blame the sales erosion on P2P torrent sites and iTunes' individual-tracks model.

lazycrockett said:

I think with itunes and such, people just buy singles instead of a whole disc.

Thought about it

Singles now go 6x platinum and whatnot,, singles 2 decades ago struggled to sell 1 copies because people used to buy the whole album as you said,,

Good point

MickyDolenz said:

Because you can't play records, cassettes, CDs, 8-tracks, reel-to-reel tapes etc. on a phone or IPOD. You need a stereo for that. Why is Radio Shack closing a lot of stores and seems to be mostly in the cell phone business now? Radio Shack was popular when more people were buying stereos, shortwave radios, blank tapes, and electronic crafts. Why did the black & white TV sets go away? Something took its place. People are into other things now.

I may add the new shit people go through nowadays, you copy Youtube links and convert them to mp3s then connect your device (iphone or samsung) with the computer and paste the shit,,, almost 50% people of the world do that,, its not even the same quality you'd enjoy if you buy the song!!

Identity said:

Blame the sales erosion on P2P torrent sites and iTunes' individual-tracks model.

True

Also, Ive noticed cinema buisness never was damaged by the sophistication we're handling today,, peopel still go the movies because even if there's a movie out you still can't see the CAM that's leaked on the web so you're kinda forced to pay money to see that,, music is not,, CDs get leaked even before the actual release, what a shame!! people will never enjoy music truly if they don't buy it!

Shawy89 said:

MickyDolenz said:

Because you can't play records, cassettes, CDs, 8-tracks, reel-to-reel tapes etc. on a phone or IPOD. You need a stereo for that. Why is Radio Shack closing a lot of stores and seems to be mostly in the cell phone business now? Radio Shack was popular when more people were buying stereos, shortwave radios, blank tapes, and electronic crafts. Why did the black & white TV sets go away? Something took its place. People are into other things now.

I may add the new shit people go through nowadays, you copy Youtube links and convert them to mp3s then connect your device (iphone or samsung) with the computer and paste the shit,,, almost 50% people of the world do that,, its not even the same quality you'd enjoy if you buy the song!!

A lot of the younger generation didn't grow up with sound quality, so it probably doesn't matter. They might have played a CD on a PC with cheap computer speakers.

Ace said:

Identity said:

Blame the sales erosion on P2P torrent sites and iTunes' individual-tracks model.

that and Youtube / Spotify

now people ARE ABLE to listen to the entire album before buyin' it, if the album sucks, they'll stick with the catchy leading single, that's all

people will never enjoy music truly if they don't buy it!

Try convincing a young person that has never, ever bought a CD of that!

Hell, I enjoy things I don't pay for.

Shawy89 said:

Identity said:

Blame the sales erosion on P2P torrent sites and iTunes' individual-tracks model.

True

Also, Ive noticed cinema buisness never was damaged by the sophistication we're handling today,, peopel still go the movies because even if there's a movie out you still can't see the CAM that's leaked on the web so you're kinda forced to pay money to see that,, music is not,, CDs get leaked even before the actual release, what a shame!! people will never enjoy music truly if they don't buy it!

Movies are a visual medium, music is not. You don't have to watch music. Some people do buy the bootleg movies off the street though, and they hardly ever look good. The multiplex makes a lot of their money from selling overpriced drinks and snacks. Some people forget that not everybody has or uses a computer, and still buy music from a store, but in some cities, the record stores have closed and they might only have a Wal Mart/Target which has a limited selection of music. Also, you have to have a credit card to buy something on the internet, when you can pay cash in a record store. Kids usually don't have credit, so of course they're going to download it for free. Even if they wanted to buy it, they have no choice.

bobzilla77 said:

people will never enjoy music truly if they don't buy it!

Try convincing a young person that has never, ever bought a CD of that!

Hell, I enjoy things I don't pay for.

You'd appreciate albums or singles if you buy them, you'd listen to them and you'd carefully learn from them, If you have all the albums and singles you'd never learn something.... and even if you do, it'll be so damn tastless.

When was the last new album you bought and listened to it from begining to end and loved it?

How about the last time you bought an album/cd?

The new Queens is solid from start to finish, oh and Beck's new one is a good one from start to finish so it's not impossible to do!

Artists need to put out quality over quantity and maybe you'd see some sales...then again, maybe everyone's right, P2P has fucked the old marketing plan for unit sales. That's why I hear a new song in a commercial before it breaks or on some televion show, the marketing plan has changed and the old way of measuring is obsolite. Let's just judge artists on bank accounts, that's the only real way now.

Us, music fans, often forget that most people don't have the time/patience to invest in full albums, they are all about songs. But back then you had to buy a full album to own your fav songs. Record labels even stopped issuing CD singles to force people to buy 10 fillers and 3 singles on a CD and the industry ruined the album format for many and illegal downloading/iTunes/Youtube was the cure for that.

Even albums, such as Random Access Memories by Daft Punk that get more attention than just the singles, by awarding them Album of the Year, failing to gain a huge audience, it's very telling that millions watched the Grammy Awards but only 30,000 copies of the crowned AOTY winner were purchased the week after...

Shawy89 said:

bobzilla77 said:

Try convincing a young person that has never, ever bought a CD of that!

Hell, I enjoy things I don't pay for.

You'd appreciate albums or singles if you buy them, you'd listen to them and you'd carefully learn from them, If you have all the albums and singles you'd never learn something.... and even if you do, it'll be so damn tastless.

Well the thing that strikes me about today vs when I was a teenager, we didn't have a lot of albums in our houses, so we REALLY listened to the ones we did have. We knew the good ones inside and out and even the mediocre ones, we knew why they weren't as good, or what was the one great song. Walking into a record store with $10 to spend meant an agonizing choice in front of you - so you took it seriously. Our knowledge was not always very wide, but it was deep.

Today it's the opposite. People have access to everything, and they don't get super-into anything. It's a mile wide and an inch deep.

And if you talk to teenagers or 20-somethings that have grown up this way, you are likely to find that almost none of them think about paying for music, or why it might be good to do that. I don't think you could convince them, it was better before, when we had access to very little music and paid a lot for it.

Steve Jobs.

bobzilla77 said:

Shawy89 said:

You'd appreciate albums or singles if you buy them, you'd listen to them and you'd carefully learn from them, If you have all the albums and singles you'd never learn something.... and even if you do, it'll be so damn tastless.

Well the thing that strikes me about today vs when I was a teenager, we didn't have a lot of albums in our houses, so we REALLY listened to the ones we did have. We knew the good ones inside and out and even the mediocre ones, we knew why they weren't as good, or what was the one great song. Walking into a record store with $10 to spend meant an agonizing choice in front of you - so you took it seriously. Our knowledge was not always very wide, but it was deep.

Today it's the opposite. People have access to everything, and they don't get super-into anything. It's a mile wide and an inch deep.

And if you talk to teenagers or 20-somethings that have grown up this way, you are likely to find that almost none of them think about paying for music, or why it might be good to do that. I don't think you could convince them, it was better before, when we had access to very little music and paid a lot for it.

Nail on the HEAD!!! Thank You for that description of the $10 in your pocket heading into the store pressure SO SO TRUE. that was a saturday afternoon from me, with my allowance, mom and dad were going to other stores and i ran into the record store and looked around at what i had been hearing, one store used to have the bilboard chart on the counter and you'd look up and choose the 45 you wanted from the list. And Boom allowance gone. Today allowances go to cell phone bills, and so many other things, MUSIC is the lonely fries with the meal.

JoeTyler said:

Ace said:

that and Youtube / Spotify

now people ARE ABLE to listen to the entire album before buyin' it, if the album sucks, they'll stick with the catchy leading single, that's all

Also, there are people on youtube who are starting to upload songs and albums at 24 bit/96 khz. Even if it is still compressed it sounds as close to or good as a cd. All you need is a youtube converter.

How can you sell an album, when most listeners only want to STREAM one song? They don't wanna pay for that schitt. They don't want a copy of any sort. They just stream it and move on. People do not have music collections, especially young ones. They have on-demand MTV in their fuckin' pocket.

I am a collector, but I am in a transition so I got into the habit of sbatching whatever I wanted to hear right off the net and into my android while I am on the go, mulitply me by millions, this is the problem. I feel for the artist, but this is almost like Karma to the music industry.

Meloh9 said:

I feel for the artist

Since the record business began in the late 1800s, most of the acts weren't making much money from record sales anyway. Not many became really rich, and even in those cases, the label was making way more. Concert promoters and club owners also would skip out with the money. That's why some like James Brown would not perform unless paid before doing a show.

Older artists pretty much don't have to worry about this, though album sales drop for them too, someone into Bruce Springsteen or Elton john may still get the "leak" of their album, but a good % will still buy their records, couple that with artists like that who tour all the time, and you can survive some do it very well, some people lose track of the artists that still DO IT because all they see is what is fed to them on Social Media and Media overall.

I was fortunate to come from an era where it "still mattered" how you collected music and what it meant to you, generations after me music was not background to a teens life, it was a ringtone in their life. Thats just the way it is, alot of things are not IMPORTANT to younger people, they are the ones that will either re-create it in some way or it will just dissolve further. A BIG issue is that the "touring" force is starting to actually hurt, artists that normally are the big draws are gonna be stopping touring soon, I mean they are getting older, though the audiences are there, at some point they will stop too, and the issue is that not many of "big sellers" now are big concert draws, there are a few but the scary thing is that if you look at a concert gross from say mid to late 80's you are gonna see ALOT of the same artists on there, which is great for them but says alot of what is out there now. With clubs and venues closing left and right and cororate and sponsors taking over, its not looking good in the LIVE world either.

Whatever the reasons for the low sales, let's just hope they continue and that the sales get even lower.

vainandy said:

Whatever the reasons for the low sales, let's just hope they continue and that the sales get even lower.

excuse me?

vainandy said:

Whatever the reasons for the low sales, let's just hope they continue and that the sales get even lower.

MickyDolenz said:

Because you can't play records, cassettes, CDs, 8-tracks, reel-to-reel tapes etc. on a phone or IPOD. You need a stereo for that. Why is Radio Shack closing a lot of stores and seems to be mostly in the cell phone business now? Radio Shack was popular when more people were buying stereos, shortwave radios, blank tapes, and electronic crafts. Why did the black & white TV sets go away? Something took its place. People are into other things now.

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

**

*

[Edited 2/27/14 18:17pm]

vainandy said:

Whatever the reasons for the low sales, let's just hope they continue and that the sales get even lower.

You might get your wish. Last year, just over 40 albums sold over 500,000 each, and the average of the top 10 selling albums, if I remember correctly, was barely under 2 million. In 2000, the entire year-end Billboard 200 was gold, and the average of the top 10 selling albums was just over 6 million each.

At the rate we're going, at the end of the decade (2019), fewer than 15 albums will go gold, and the average of the top 10 will be somewhere between 800,000 and 900,000. You might make the year-end Billboard 200 just by selling 50,000.

JoeTyler said:

vainandy said:

Whatever the reasons for the low sales, let's just hope they continue and that the sales get even lower.

excuse me?

Don't you know that if it's not late 1970s funk & disco, it's not worth buying or listening to.