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.

Comments

Circular problem ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Album Sales Are Dying as Fast as Streaming Services Are Rising

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.

Re: Circular problem ...

[AsylumWraith]

Yes, Amazon sells music downloads on their site. But unlike in the past, where you bought the music and got a downloadable file, now you have to download into an Amazon application on your computer. They want you to keep that file there, and play it in their app, and stay nicely within the Amazon ecosystem.

This is completely incorrect. I regularly buy music from Amazon, and when you go to download it, yes, they do want you to download it into the Amazon Music app, but they also give you the option to download (DRM-free,) MP3s. I always take the second option.

Re: Circular problem ...

[itsdapead]

, yes, they do want you to download it into the Amazon Music app, but they also give you the option to download (DRM-free,) MP3s.

And even if you do use the App, that still saves it as a DRM-free MP3 with sensible names in your "Amazon Music" folder (as well as letting you stream it).

Then there are more "indy" sites like Bandcamp (that lets you stream the whole album in the browser, and buy a download if you like it) although you won't find the mainstream stuff there...

Re:Circular problem ...

[jwhyche]

I don't trust the streaming services not to be douchy assholes who share my information and violate my privacy,

I assume you are talking about services like itunes and spotify. Then don't use them. You can still stream music anonymously from thousands of shoutcast/icecast sites. I use the XiiaLive app on my phone for streams too. There is literally thousands of stations from all over the world. Any kind of music that I want to listen too is here. I just have to look for it. XiiaLive is just one of the apps there are to stream shoutcast. Pick one and explore. Hell, I can even listen to iheartradio dreck if I want too. Iheartradio seems to use icecast with at 48K AAC stream.

Quite honestly I'm really surprised that more /. people don't use or talk about icecast/shoutcast as being an option.

I, for one, still buy mp3 albums

[fbobraga]

It's so convenient: not depends of internet connection... if you, like me, stay out of a wireless network in a major part of the day, to listen offline is a necessity

Re:I, for one, still buy mp3 albums

[mccalli]

Thank you. As a tiny tiny microscopic part of the music industry - hobbyist artist/self-publisher - I keep far more of the revenue from a sale than than from someone streaming. Buy my album? You've bought me a coffee! Thanks. Stream my album? Well, only another thousand or so streams to go and I can get that same coffee...

Re:I, for one, still buy mp3 albums

[jwhyche]

As someone that listens to shoutcast and spotify to find new music, then goes to websites to buy music right from the author. "You're welcome."

I think streaming has done more to level the playing field than any other service. In less than 15 minutes a artist can set up a shoutcast site and be streaming his music 24/7. I would rather see my money go directly to support an artist than have it go to "big music' pockets any day.

There goes easy to access uncompressed audio

[Hydrian]

CD's were always my default fall back when I couldn't find lossless audio compression file formats. Also, CDs are guaranteed to be DRM free. I hope lossless audio becomes more prevalent than it is now.

Re:There goes easy to access uncompressed audio

[Nkwe]

Doesn't matter, it's still DRM. Hydrian said "CDs are guaranteed to be DRM free", and as the AC pointed out, that's just not always true.

Well there is a CD as in the generic term and there is Compact Disk Digital Audio, which is an official specification that is commonly referred to as a "CD". Actual CDs that follow the official CDDA specification *are* DRM free, other formats that are just referred to as "CDs", but aren't actually CDDA may not be. So you both may be correct.

Re:There goes easy to access uncompressed audio

[jwhyche]

I hate to pop you bubble there but not even CD's are lossless. Every time a analog is converted into digital something is lost. That is just simply the nature of the beast. The trick is to keep the sampling high enough to make the loss negotiable.

We will have more lost media

[Anonymous Coward]

When music gets taken down and there is no physical back up.

I hope CDs stick around

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:I hope CDs stick around

[zeugma-amp]

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?

Same here. The first CD I bought was Dark Side of the Moon. I still have it and cdparanoia still thinks the disk is fine.

The downside of some of those old CDs is that the manufacturers didn't really know how to take advantage of the dynamic range of CDs. On a few of my older disks, I have had to rip them as WAVs, then bump up the volume a bit in Audacity before converting them to mp3.

That minor inconvenience aside, I much prefer having physical copies that I can re-rip if necessary (as I've done over the years to go from lower bitrates, to the much higher bitrates I use today. I'll admit to living in fear of a fire that would (among other things) destroy the physical collection. I'd still have my backups in that case, but at that point would have less flexibility.

For someone my age (old fogey) I'm buying CDs pretty consistently. My collection is about 80gb and still growing.

Re:I hope CDs stick around

[jwhyche]

Do you really believe your streaming service will be around in 2060?

Why not? If it is a profitable business model then why should we not assume it will still be here in 20, 40, or even 100 years from now? Disney has been a profitable entertainment industry for almost a 100 years now and shows no sign of slowing down. Comcast, as shitty as it is, has been in business for close to 50 years.

An if some reason the business model doesn't prove to be viable, something else will come along and take its place.

Re:I hope CDs stick around

[jwhyche]

Rush, Presto and Heart, Brigade from 1991 or so. Both still play fine. I'm listening to Presto as I type this.

Re:I hope CDs stick around

[jwhyche]

I am made from the dust of the stars.....

YouTube to MP3 Anyone?

[turp182]

Doesn't everyone just rip music from YouTube? Certainly good enough for the car, and alternate versions are usually available if one would like (radio sessions, non-released versions, live versions, cover versions, etc.)..

I just use a tiny USB stick in my car, with MP3 files.

At home, I gave in and we have Alexa the associated music service. Merry Christmas to me (I'm working on a couple of Skills)!

I need to run, there's a package from Amazon being delivered....

Re:YouTube to MP3 Anyone?

[GuB-42]

MusicBrainz Picard can do a pretty good job at fixing that mess automatically.

Re:This is why we can't have nice things

[MitchDev]

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...

But I thought...

[Oswald McWeany]

I thought that Video killed the radio star!

People are strange

[nagora]

The higher-quality, lower price option (CDs) are fading yet the shitty quality high price (vinyl) is going up, albeit slowly.

I've yet to see any reason to subscribe to a streaming service for music. I suppose if I wanted to enjoy the feeling of listening to artists I like whilst simultaneously knowing that they're being as badly ripped off as I am, I might give it a go.

Re:People are strange

[PuddleBoy]

"The higher-quality, lower price option (CDs) are fading yet the shitty quality high price (vinyl) is going up,"

While I agree that the price of new vinyl is too high (sometimes outrageous), for recordings made more than 30 years ago, I find vinyl is definitely higher quality than CD. (Yes, you need high-quality gear to play it on - nothing new there) I have done a lot of A-B testing on high-end audio gear, mainly of recordings from the 50's thru the 70's and vinyl almost always wins for quality.

For 'modern' recordings, streaming or CD's are generally the equal of vinyl, so there's no significant advantage to the big black disc.

(And buying used vinyl is a crap shoot: I've purchased used LP's for a buck or two that were perfect, and purchased used LP's for $10+ that were full of way too many pops and scratches. You factor the cost of the duds into the overall value equation.)

Re:People are strange

[nagora]

"The higher-quality, lower price option (CDs) are fading yet the shitty quality high price (vinyl) is going up,"

While I agree that the price of new vinyl is too high (sometimes outrageous), for recordings made more than 30 years ago, I find vinyl is definitely higher quality than CD.

While it's true that material recorded with vinyl in mind will sometimes sound better on vinyl, that only really works up until the point where you've dragged a gemstone across it. After that the quality goes audibly downhill pretty rapidly.

Vinyl is inherently rubbish simply because of its fragility. I hated it even before there was an alternative, and I'm certainly never going back to it.

Re:People are strange

[squiggleslash]

For 'modern' recordings, streaming or CD's are generally the equal of vinyl, so there's no significant advantage to the big black disc.

That should tell you that your conclusion was ultimately a mistake.

On the basic technological level, CDs generally faithfully reproduce a greater part of the original audio than Vinyl is capable of doing. The reason you think the older records are better is more likely to do with the quality of production, before the audio was stamped onto either media, in the 1970s, than it does the medium. Older media is obviously going to sound "better" if the recordings are better than their modern equivalents.

If, comparing like with like, you can't see a difference, then you can't really argue you can conclude one is better than the other. When you've been given identical content on two different mediums, you've found you can't tell them apart. That should tell you that at best vinyl isn't better than a CD (it also says CDs aren't better either), unless you can find technical reasons to support one over the other. As of now, the technical evidence is POP that CDs are higher quality, but possibly not so high anyone can tell the POP that CDs are higher quality, but possibly not so high anyone can tell the POP that CDs are higher quality, but possibly not so high anyone can tell the POP that CDs are higher quality, but possibly not so high anyone can tell the POP that CDs are higher quality, but possibly not so high anyone can tell the SCRATCH erence.

Re:People are strange

[drewsup]

"The reason you think the older records are better is more likely to do with the quality of production, before the audio was stamped onto either media, in the 1970s, than it does the medium. "
No, the reason it sounds better is because the music was better!

Re:Duh.

[hjf]

Is that really worth saving the bother of ripping your own cds and maintaining your own collection?

Yes.
Because I barely have any free time and sure as hell I'm not going to waste int in "ripping my own cds" and "maintaining my own collection". I did that 20 years ago, when i was 15 and had all the time in the world. Now? Not so much.
But I still have the "skills" to pirate anything I really want and was "taken away" by some suit who decided I'm not elegible to listen to this song anymore.
And lastly:

GET REAL.

A yearly subscription to Spotify gives you access to millions of songs. But only 3 CDs worth of music if you really want to "own" them.

Re:Purchase Disks

[hjf]

I pay $3 a month for millions of songs off Spotify. Anything else I can pirate. I don't give a shit about my "posterity" since I know my children won't give a fuck about about my "old music" as much as i don't give a fuck about my dad's "old records".

Also, How many CDs does $3 get you? That's what I spend in a month for music. $3.

It may suck to be someone who loses thousands of dollars worth of purchases when their gome burns down, a thief stoles their albums, or a child plays with their discs.

Re:Purchase Disks

[forkfail]

And - you can't leave your collection to someone after you die. It all goes into the rubbish heap.

https://www.marketwatch.com/st...

Ownership, hello?

[TigerPlish]

While y'all are so busy yelling at each other like a divided bunch of little schoolchildren about blue this and red that, you've all been not noticing the corporations (all of them, really) moving to models that reduce or eliminate ownership.

And what's one of the most tangible ways we had to distinguish ourselves from heathen communists? Ownership. C'mon, boys and girls, all together now: Ow - ner- ship. It's your house, not the State's. It's your car, not the state's.

It's your music, not theirs.

But nooooo, you short-sighted, divided morons continue to fight amongst yourselves and you don't see this .. this thievery happening right under your noses.

Re:Ownership, hello?

[TigerPlish]

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.

I disagree. I would LOVE to see Sony / EMI / RCA / AG / DG / Polydor / MCA / Decca come into my house and retrive my LP / CD of

You see, you OWN the CD, but not the music in it. But you own the physical object in which said music came in.

With the "streamers" if they say "Well, no more bad 80's synthpop for YOU" then *poof* there goes your ability to stream that. With no recourse.

But they absolutely can't reach into your house and remove all your horrible 80's synthpop records and CDs.

Yet.

Sounds like some people would love nothing more than to do just that.

Why is that so hard to see?

Re:BuzzAngle's Report

[hjf]

Vinyl is a fad. It will go away and become a "niche" again. Only "hipster" types and curious kids are buying them.

Not about sound quality

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Downsides

[bhcompy]

Even streaming services will let you purchase

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

Re:Duh.

[stealth_finger]

Is that really worth saving the bother of ripping your own cds and maintaining your own collection?

Yes. Because I barely have any free time and sure as hell I'm not going to waste int in "ripping my own cds" and "maintaining my own collection". I did that 20 years ago, when i was 15 and had all the time in the world. Now? Not so much. But I still have the "skills" to pirate anything I really want and was "taken away" by some suit who decided I'm not elegible to listen to this song anymore. And lastly:

GET REAL.

A yearly subscription to Spotify gives you access to millions of songs. But only 3 CDs worth of music if you really want to "own" them.

All the time it takes to click 'rip now' or 'convert cd' or whatever you program of choice says? Yeah whatever, you don't have to babysit the thing. Spotify is $9.99 a month. around the same price as cd. So about the price of 10-12 cds but if you want to treat music as a disposable thing and are only really interested in current pop then that's fair enough. Personally I haven't spent a penny on music in about 10 years. I just kinda got bored of new music and have more than enough in my collection that I don't feel the need to add to it, if there was anything I wanted to but that's a different issue.

Anyway. if you think the trade off is worth it then good for you. But no complaining when spotify shuts down and you're left with nothing but a dick in your ass for the hundred twenty dollars you've put in per year.

Re:This is why we can't have nice things

[Junta]

Of the internet media (books, video, music), music is the only one where purchased tracks are generally *not* drmed, so I have no particular inclination to buy CDs and rip.

Video on the other hand, I buy and rip media rather than buying DRM encumbered video files that can go poof at the whim or misfortune of the vendor.

albums are a nice format

[goombah99]

It adds a lot of dimension over singles when artists put songs together into a collection.

I still think the easiest way to instantly pull together a playlist of thematically congruent music is to just plop 5 CDs in the changer. It lets you have just enough control while not wasting your time with fine grained song by song control of a shuffle playlist.

  I find it's way too much effort to assemble a long song by song playlist and do that many times. And it's never satisfying when pandora or amazon or apple synthesizes a "channel" for me, in part because I can't play it over again when I like the combination.

Re:Duh.

[stealth_finger]

A yearly subscription to Spotify gives you access to millions of songs. But only 3 CDs worth of music if you really want to "own" them.

THIS is the thing the "CD forever" people don't get about why their antequated medium is dying.

For the same price as I can buy a few albums, I can stream tens of thousands of albums, more new music than I could listen to in many lifetimes. No way am I going back to the limited selections we had back in the old pre-streaming days.

Once you have infinite music at your fingertips, you are not going back to buying music ever again.

On the other hand, for the same price as millions of shit songs I don't care about I can get a few albums of actually properly good music that I like. If you happen to like genres that aren't pop you've no guarantee they'll have the bands you like, the further you go the less likely, even then there's no guarantee the pop artist you like will be on there either because it's not all music is it? Not even close.

Quality>quantity

Re:Downsides

[stealth_finger]

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?

Re:Duh.

[stealth_finger]

Well good for your country that prices it so cheap I wonder how much they are paying your local folklore records and if they are available anywhere else? Hondo Mclean, Johnny Truant, earthtone9, Skindred. Do me a favour, stick those in and see what comes up I am actually interested. As far as I can tell there's no way to check what music they have before you sign up I would assume you can get most of the big names but again, only if they have signed up because it's not all music is it? And even then it's a nightmare of international rights that even if something is available there's no guarantees it will be in the future. I think it's obvious I don't use spotify but I'm not pretending I'm too good for it, it just doesn't appeal, apparently the same way ripping cds doesn't appeal to you.

My days of media are almost over.

[jason777]

I will never stream anything. I have enough music now to last the rest of my life. New stuff sucks anyways. As far as movies, I prefer high quality, hdr, 4k content on a high end home theater and sound system. I will never purchase a streamed pos low quality viewing. When they finally take away discs, I'm out. My plex server currently serves me around 32TB of movies. I'll just re-watch those till I die. Or, see what the pirates have in store for me for download.

Re:My days of media are almost over.

[jwhyche]

Bullshit. I have a huge plex system but its not close to 32 TB. How many movies/series do you have, what codec do you have them encoded in? Bit rates and resolutions and how long have you been collecting?

Re:My days of media are almost over.

[jwhyche]

So you keep all your media in the native format off the disk and don't re-encode it with better codecs?

Re:Downsides

[jwhyche]

Speaking of data loss though, how long is streaming service x going to be available and what happens when it shuts down?

What happens when your cd player dies and it can't be fixed and nobody makes them any more? Pretty much the same thing.

Re:Downsides

[TechyImmigrant]

Speaking of data loss though, how long is streaming service x going to be available and what happens when it shuts down?

What happens when your cd player dies and it can't be fixed and nobody makes them any more? Pretty much the same thing.

The CD is just a transmission medium between the vendor and one's personal storage devices.

Re:Downsides

[jwhyche]

I disagree about it being irrelevant. Eventually the stuff the play the physical media will go away. It happens with all physical media. How many places make parts for the Edison wax phonograph?