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Album Sales Are Dying as Fast as Streaming Services Are Rising (rollingstone.com)
In 2018, Best Buy decided to stop selling CDs, with the change partly brought on by record labels' increasing reluctance to even issue them. Both choices are symptoms as well as causes of a seemingly inevitable trend: Buying music is now going out of style nearly as fast as streaming music is rising. From a report: In 2018, album sales fell 18.2 percent from the previous year and song sales fell 28.8 percent, according to U.S. year-end report figures from data company BuzzAngle, which tracks music consumption. Meanwhile, total on-demand music streams, including both audio and video, shot up 35.4 percent. Audio on-demand streams set a new record high in 2018 of 534.6 billion streams, which is up 42 percent from 2017's 376.9 billion streams.
It's tricky to compare the specific unit numbers of sales to streams --since such a comparison would be pitting continuous playback of a certain piece of music against a one-time purchase of it -- but certain other milestones in the consumption market can help highlight just how much streaming is replacing physical sales and downloads in America. For instance: Even though total song downloads are still in the hundreds of millions, they're coming down in scale at the top. In 2018, there was not a single song that broke 1 million sales -- compared to 14 songs that reached that figure in 2017, 36 in 2016 and 60 in 2015. At the 2 million sales mark, two songs took that trophy in 2017, while five claimed it in 2016 and 16 songs made it in 2015, throwing the modest figures of this year's sales into even sharper relief.
It's tricky to compare the specific unit numbers of sales to streams --since such a comparison would be pitting continuous playback of a certain piece of music against a one-time purchase of it -- but certain other milestones in the consumption market can help highlight just how much streaming is replacing physical sales and downloads in America. For instance: Even though total song downloads are still in the hundreds of millions, they're coming down in scale at the top. In 2018, there was not a single song that broke 1 million sales -- compared to 14 songs that reached that figure in 2017, 36 in 2016 and 60 in 2015. At the 2 million sales mark, two songs took that trophy in 2017, while five claimed it in 2016 and 16 songs made it in 2015, throwing the modest figures of this year's sales into even sharper relief.
I'm not a fan of streaming, but there is almost literally no places left where I can go in and buy CDs just by looking through the stacks and seeing what they have -- which is how I've bought music for the last 15+ years. I'd just go in, wander around, and buy a couple of CDs I found.
If I can't buy it on CD and rip it myself, I'm not interested. I'm definitely not interested in paying to stream music which is then going to be subject to ads and analytics of my information -- I don't trust the streaming services not to be douchy assholes who share my information and violate my privacy, because at this point you have to assume all online stuff is douchy assholes.
So, I can't go anywhere to buy CDs, I refuse to stream ... which means I simply no longer buy music, and listen to my already very large collection of MP3s ripped from CDs I've bought.
I miss actual music stores, but at the end of the day, if they don't want to make CDs, and will only give me digital DRM'd versions of the music or be forced to stream it ... then I simply won't buy their product and will get on with my life.
The music industry didn't adapt to the modern world, and refused to sell a product in the form people wanted. Now, they're losing out on even more revenue.
When music gets taken down and there is no physical back up.
I bought my first CD in 1981, and guess what, it still works. That is close to 40 years old. I've got records that still play from the 70's, albeit with some scratches now. Do you really believe your streaming service will be around in 2060?
I prefer to buy and rip, as no Internet connection is required to play an mp3, and I have full playlist control. And garage sales/used music stores are your best friends price-wise. Sample new stuff on the web and decide if I want to buy the album or track from there when I want something new, radio is unlistenable between the ads and repetitious playlists...
It was never "your music" unless you made it. You never owned it, even on CD. What distinguishes us from communists isn't the ability to buy a Ariana Grande CD.
Lossless is more about having an exact bit-for-bit copy of the original cd which is suitable for archiving. If music isn't exactly a passion for you then you probably don't even care about having your own music collection, and therefore lossless compression isn't much use to you. But if you do, the usual technique is to copy your original cds using lossless compression, put the cd away in storage, and from the lossless master copy you can generate lossy copies in any format, whenever you want. The master copy remains perserved as it was on the original cd: a true archive. Again, this probably sounds pointless to 99% of you, but for those of us who take our music collection seriously, it is the only way.
Speaking of collecting music, I have to put in a plug for secondspin.com. I've been buying used cds from them for about 15 years now, paying an average of about $4 to $5 per cd. I've built up a massive collection this way, and the best part is that the music I like most (jazz, fusion, classical, new age) is typically what other people like least, and therefore I have plenty to choose from at good prices. I have a list of artists/albums I'm interested in, hundreds of items long, and every 6 months I go to secondspin and simply run down the list of the currently "hot" items. I have an extensive system of shell scripts to do the archiving, tagging, and converting. It rocks.
Sure, but quality varies. Tidal, Apple, and a few niche services offer some type of lossless selection(very limited, tbh). The rest? Not so much.
Permanently renting your music doesn't appeal to me
The only real upside I can see is that it gives you a modicum of better control over your collection and a backup in case or data loss (albeit with a ton of work to restore).
I think the real difference is people who enjoy music vs people who listen to it. If you just listen you don't care what the song is or who its by as long as there's another one after. Speaking of data loss though, how long is streaming service x going to be available and what happens when it shuts down?
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