Album Sales Fall, Of Course
from the who-didn't-expect-that dept
This will come as no surprise to anyone, of course, but the only significant area of the music business that is struggling is, once again, CD sales. Bloomberg has noted that album sales in the US declined 14% in 2008. Of course, digital sales continued to grow, and, as recently noted, the concert business is booming. Oddly enough, sales of vinyl records continue to rise -- a trend we noted last summer. To be honest, the fact that album sales only dropped by 14% seems rather surprising. If I were in the business of selling mostly obsolete plastic discs, I'd be thrilled they only dropped that much.
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Filed Under: album sales, recording industry
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Rise and fall of empires...
The curious part is that whenever you hear an industry spokesperson or even most print media articles talk about declining CD sales there is an almost unconscious insinuation that piracy is the underlying reason. No one seems to consider that the “new” media is digital, and that a decline in “old” media is as natural as the decline in cassette media when CDs became the media of choice.
I wonder if it has to do with the “new” media being a non-physical vehicle…
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