Not surprising, but still ugly.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/08/25/129428450/album-sales-hit-record-lows

I'm actually quite surprised album sales peaked as late as 2000, I would have imagined it to be a few years earlier. Still, pretty bleak outlook for the record industry. Keep in mind, that chart seems to refer to albums - to the modern mainstream consumer, the album is all but dead as a format for purchasing music. What's far more likely is picking and choosing what tracks to purchase from an album on iTunes or some other digital distributor.

The full article mentions single track sales, but even when you add them all up the figure is still lower than it should and it doesn't make up for the loss in full album sales.

They are also figuring 20 illegal downloads for every legal download...and I think that is a conservative estimate.

Where do fallen music sales go? I just don't know, I just don't know...

I am not surprised. Combine the weak economy and the availability of mp3s - it is the perfect storm. It would be more interesting if it were possible to factor out economy and see where album sales/digital sales might have been. I think the lack of disposable income has turned people who would buy cds/mp3s into illegal downloaders.

Illegal downloads aside, you don't have to buy music any more. Almost every song that has a video is on YouTube (legally or otherwise) to be seen and listened to by anyone with a computer. And some songs have fan-made videos also. Pandora, Last.fm, and other sites allow listening without purchase and they are legal, so casual listeners don't have to buy anything anymore.

No more blind buying, I think, has hurt them a bit. You can just about preview every album legally.... and if you don't like what you hear, your not going to spend your hard earned money on crap, especially in this economy.

This is not something that I think concerns Metal fans all that much. This is the overall, mass-marketed, Billboard Hot 100, mainstream buyers. Of course music sales as a whole have fallen. The economy, downloading, no blind-buying, no emotional connectivity to the music (generally), all this contributes to low sales.

We, Metal fans, will still buy CDs.

There will always be small labels for our crowd, making CDs/physical product/box sets/reissues. There will be smaller pressings, because we are a smaller audience, but physical mediums will not totally evaporate...at least, not in our lifetime.

I'm personally not worried if the newest teen heartthrob or Lady Gaga wannabe decides to release digital only and the giant corporate labels stop making CDs. That doesn't affect me.

But I don't see Metal Blade, Century Media, Tribunal, Heaven And Hell, Inside Out, Frontiers, etc go 100% digital...there are too many collector-geeks in Metal...and that's a good thing.

Look at things like Prog Power & Wacken...TONS of vendors selling CDs & shirts and people eat it up! Because WE are the crowd who does buy CDs. 50,000 people attending Metal festivals, buying merch, etc...THIS is why Metal (or any other non-corporate-mainstream type of music) will survive...because we care about our genre and we love it.

We all knew this was coming. But as Shawn had said we metalheads support our genre by buying cds attending festivals, and buying merchandise whenever we can afford it.

Ever since I became sober in 1991 I have amassed more than I could have ever imagined due to sites like these and online metal vendors that support us that buy cds/dvs from those metal artists.

I buy whatever and whenever I can I want the physical copy just enhances my collection tenfold. I've have about 100 metal T's to show my support for those artists. I think because of those record companies who in the past pillaged those artists who made them rich alot of what happened back then is now affecting sales today.

Sure PC's and the internet also is a contributing factor. Who's to blame? They are. Thank god we are true to our genre and we actively support those bands. I'd kill to have alot of money and living in Europe and attending all those festivals. Over here we have basically a handful and even then those are very few.


1 other comment I want to make there are those bands from the 70's and even the 60's who put out albums and even today are still not out on cd will those artist ever see that happen? So with those artist not seeing some of those albums in CD format the only way is DL them.

Wargod51

The record companies let the digital genie out of the bottle in the first place, they had no idea the power it had. I bet they never would have guessed their CD goldmine would lead directly to it's own digital demise...it's only 1's and 0's anyway, whether physical or downloaded from the computer.

When possible I'm buying LP's again, at least there's actual audio waveform etched into that sucker.

I can't believe sales peaked in 2000! I would of guessed the mid 90's...

On an interesting note, the people who tend to download the most music also tend to buy the most music.

This is the generation of no attention span. They download the song of the moment and move on and add to that all the other entertainment options vying for their dollar and it's inevitable.

I am glad i grew up in the era that I did, if I grew up in this generation I have no idea if I would apprecited or loved music as much as I do.

Buying an album (or CD or tape) meant alot to me (still does) and I would get absorbed for hours over the artwork, lyrics, credits etc, it was not just backround noise, and a band had record an almost full album great material not just a track or two.

Also record labels are too blame, they bred no loyality toward bands anymore, if a band records a debut that is not an instant hit they get dropped, they do not help bands develop a career let alone give them a chance at long term success, it is sad and labels are to blame for treating the music, artists and the medium as disposable.