More People Bought Physical CDs and Vinyl Than Songs on iTunes Last Year (bgr.com) 160
An anonymous reader quotes BGR:
Sales from individual song downloads have unsurprisingly been falling with no end in sight, thanks to the convenience of streaming options like Spotify and Apple Music. A new report, though, makes clear just how few people there are these days who will buy individual digital songs -- there are so few of them, in fact, that they were outnumbered in 2018 by people who went old-school and bought actual compact discs and vinyl records.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, total download sales in 2018 -- for which iTunes led the pack -- dropped almost 30%, to a little more than $1 billion. Purchases of full album downloads likewise fell, by 25%. To put that in context, download sales represented more than 40% of the music industry's revenue back in 2013. Last year? About 11%.
Meanwhile, that drop in sales has resulted in a lop-sided reality that harkens back to the pre-iTunes days. Sales of physical media including CDs and vinyl, according to the RIAA's new report, were down 23 percent but totaled $1.15 billion, thus edging out digital download sales. Another interesting takeaway from the new report: Music fans bought almost $420 million worth of vinyl in 2018, which Cult of Mac notes in a piece today is almost as much as people spent buying album downloads from iTunes last year.
The RIAA reports that "virtually all the revenue growth" for 2018 came from streaming music platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal, which last year collectively added 1 million new subscribers every single month, and now have a record number of more than 50 million subscribers.
"By the way, don't be fooled into reading something positive about CDs from the title of this post," adds BGR. "While physical media sales were down 23%, CD sales themselves slipped 34% for the year to $698 million. That's the first time CD yearly revenue has come in below $1 billion since 1986."
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, total download sales in 2018 -- for which iTunes led the pack -- dropped almost 30%, to a little more than $1 billion. Purchases of full album downloads likewise fell, by 25%. To put that in context, download sales represented more than 40% of the music industry's revenue back in 2013. Last year? About 11%.
Meanwhile, that drop in sales has resulted in a lop-sided reality that harkens back to the pre-iTunes days. Sales of physical media including CDs and vinyl, according to the RIAA's new report, were down 23 percent but totaled $1.15 billion, thus edging out digital download sales. Another interesting takeaway from the new report: Music fans bought almost $420 million worth of vinyl in 2018, which Cult of Mac notes in a piece today is almost as much as people spent buying album downloads from iTunes last year.
The RIAA reports that "virtually all the revenue growth" for 2018 came from streaming music platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal, which last year collectively added 1 million new subscribers every single month, and now have a record number of more than 50 million subscribers.
"By the way, don't be fooled into reading something positive about CDs from the title of this post," adds BGR. "While physical media sales were down 23%, CD sales themselves slipped 34% for the year to $698 million. That's the first time CD yearly revenue has come in below $1 billion since 1986."
Indie music, indie platforms. (Score:5, Informative)
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For some reason, the big labels seemed to have dropped some of the bands that are not big, but are worth listening to. Thankfully, Bandcamp has picked them up.
The closest analog to Bandcamp is the old mp3.com. There is a lot of mediocre stuff there... but there is a lot of very good stuff that is worth a listen. Worst case, if you don't like a band, go to another page.
The fact that I can download in a high quality format (WAV, FLAC, ALAC) makes it worth it. I can keep the uncompressed or lossless compre
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I always buy CDs from my local music shops because online shops only carry mainstream or indie garbage.
So you only like music that is not extremely popular, but not quite so esoteric as to be considered indie?
It's about preservation (Score:5, Insightful)
If I love a piece of music enough that want to preserve it in my library, I want a CD for backup, even if most times I listen to it as bits on a device
I trust my backup abilities way more than I trust the cloud or streaming services
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I think some people just like the physical package. Feels more substantial and permanent than a download. Also an opportunity for he band to go beyond just music and do other forms of art.
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Remember the controversy of the "longbox"?
What's with the CD longbox? -- We look into the wasteful packaging of CDs [ew.com] (published April 20, 1990)
In honor of Earth Day on April 22, how about a clean thought: The music industry could eliminate more than 18.5 million pounds of trash each year if it only would change the way it packages compact discs. That is, roughly, the same amount of garbage created daily by a population the size of Missouri’s.
Daily Missouri Garbage Creation is apparently a unit of measurement we should all be familiar with.
Since April 1, when Canada stopped using longboxes, Americans have been the only people in the world who have to pollute for their music. The United States is unlikely to follow Canada’s lead in the near future. None of the major forces in the American retail market for music, the world’s largest, want to bear the costs of changing the way CDs are sold.
That bolded part seems a bit unfair given that as you point out the case alone has an environmental cost.
Here's an example of "good presentation" in CD packaging:
Spiral-Bound Booklet Format [mule.net]
Of course it's not going to fit in a whole lot of CD shelves and since it's thin
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I have perfectly playable CD's from 1983. That is 35 years ago. What do you think the odds are that your streaming service will be around in 2055? Oh, and I have never lost a CD or had one stop working and I used to carry them in cars when cars had CD players.
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With rare exceptions my experience has been similar.
Except for crappy CD-Rs, I've only managed to scratch fewer than a half-dozen enough to affect their playability.
I can't remember which album it was, but one of the early ones I bought had a scratch right out of the case that caused it to skip. I tried to exchange it and they stonewalled me claiming that Sony wouldn't put out a faulty product or some such nonsense and I guess I was too young and stupid to raise hell about it.
Let's all have a good laugh at
Buy then digitize (Score:5, Interesting)
CDs get lost, burn up in fires, get scratch, lots of things happen. streaming services generally are a much better way to preserve the files.
You think that right up until your streaming service of choice suddenly drops some music you listen to often. There is more music than you think that can drift in and out of music service coverage... this has happened to my wife before.
With a CD, as long as you can read it once you are golden. Just digitize it yourself - using a service like iTunes Match even means you can still listen to it even if it's not on the streaming service the company offers. (not sure what companies besides Apple offer something like iTunes Match).
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Pedantry for the win!
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You got me thinking. Would a music box be considered the first digital music? Either it plucks something to make a sound or it doesn't - it's a simply off or on.
Same thing with a player piano.
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A digital signal is just the limit of an analog signal as gain goes to infinity.
An analog signal is just the limit of a digital signal as frequency goes to infinity.
Re:It's about preservation (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowingly spewing BS like should be a crime. I've got 30 year old CD's that I've taken care of, which isn't that difficult at all. If a CD get's burnt up in a fire that's one CD, when a cloud service goes belly up, which happens often, that's millions of virtual CD's.
There are 1001 ways streaming services are NOT better. Let's not even talk about what happens if the electricity goes out or how a person can convert all their CD's to MP3's.
So I apologize, but you're full of it.
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What I do (and I suspect I'm not alone):
Insert CD into PC.
Rip CD to mp3
Remove CD, store in case in CD library.
Listen to mp3 forever. ...
What is the issue here? What are are you failing to comprehend?
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What I do (and I suspect I'm not alone):
Insert CD into PC.
Rip CD to mp3
Remove CD, store in case in CD library.
Listen to mp3 forever. ...
What is the issue here? What are are you failing to comprehend?
And iTunes provides the ability to convert their music to a CD, so for people who are concerned about iTunes removing music, there is a solution.
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iTunes music is DRM free nowadays. Download it, make a copy of it, and play it anywhere. Anything that can play an AAC file can play an iTunes file .
Even if iTunes deletes the file, you still have your backups, and they'll still play because there's no DRM on them.
The only time you're screwed is if you leave your iTunes music "in the cloud" and down't bother downlo
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So you're claiming that iTunes is a better way of preserving music than CD because you can use iTunes to convert your music to a CD and store it so you don't lose it when it disappears from iTunes.
My only question about all that is "how high were you when you posted that?
Which part of my post said anything was better? I'm just stating that there is a drm free backup method in iTunes for those who's primary concern is iTunes will remove their music. Personally, I just don't like having a bunch of physical CDs sitting around anymore so went digital with everything.
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Ha ha, yeah, it's lossy compression, certainly.
But I'm listening when driving a car, with all the attendent road noises while I'm concentrating on staying alive, avoiding accidents and arriving safely. Lossy compression is fine for that. And... my car doesn't have a CD player, that's on the more expensive model (!!) Mine just has usb, SD card or radio, oddly. I use a 16 gig SD card.
Or I'm at work, concentrating on making my 'clients' unhappy. Or happy, though that's not the common outcome. So again, it's ba
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CDs get lost, burn up in fires, get scratch, lots of things happen. streaming services generally are a much better way to preserve the files.
This claim - that it is silly to cache stuff locally in media that you control, that the "net will provide" - is something I've heard ever since before the Internet went public.
As the half-life of digital services is a few years at most, over the course of a decade or two, access to lots of things disappear. Any sort of service providing access to copyrighted material at a reasonable cost is one lobbyist-written piece of legislation, or lawsuit under existing law, away from being taken away. That is if the
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Go ahead, I'll wait....
No surprise (Score:2)
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Most folks steam their music.
Yes, we call them "steamed jams." It's an Albany expression.
Owning vs. Streaming (Score:2)
See, that's the advantage of OWNING your media vs. RENTING it through streaming services. When you rent it (which is all streaming services is) you are at the mercy of their policies, including raising their monthly rates and/or removing items for whatever reason they see fit to give, or no reason at all. Let's see them do that with my physical copies.
And did I ment
cheaper to spotify (Score:2)
$10 a month, why would anyone want to pay $1 for one song?
Re:cheaper to spotify (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I only pay for that song once. I can listen to it for the next 50 years without paying anything more, and it can't be "discontinued".
I have vinyl going back 70+ years. It was paid for once, and generations of our family can still listen to it.
If you want to rent your music and have its availability subject to the whims of someone else, that's your choice. Some of us, however, prefer ownership.
Re:cheaper to spotify (Score:4, Interesting)
I spend a tiny fraction on music compared to in the past. I discover music on YouTube or some other free streaming service and only buy when I really, really like it and want to listen repeatedly. In the bad ol' days, I'd hear one good song and buy an entire - sometimes terrible - album. Now I can try before I buy.
I'm also older, so there's that. Old people don't spend as much on music.
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I have to disagree that there is little good music/TV over the last 20 years. It's all subjective, of course, but we are in something of a golden age with TV in particular. With music, I used to spend half a day at the record store flipping through albums - trying some if I happened to be at one of the downtown places with the listening stations. After all that, I'd come away with an album or two, spending around $20-30. Now I can get an even better experience just sitting at my computer and not spend a dim
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I've filled an Ikea Billy bookcase with CDs.
To be accurate, two half height Billy bookcases.
They are all ripped to mp3 and that's what I listen to.
And they are all insured (house and contents policy).
Sure, YouTube is ok for music vids, but for driving, or at work, a usb stick full of 1,000s of mp3s that I like is far superior.
And FREE.
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I spend a tiny fraction on music compared to in the past. I discover music on YouTube or some other free streaming service and only buy when I really, really like it and want to listen repeatedly.
Until YouTube pulls it for copyright complaints and it's no longer there. It happens a lot more than you think. It happend to some of my pre-1971 music files I posted BEFORE the copyright laws on audio recordings changed.
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If something I like disappears, then yeah I'll need to buy it.
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Spotify costs 5 EUR per month here. For that amount, you can buy 5 songs you own forever, and listen to them endlessly for free. I can listen to thousands of songs through the whole month, allowing me to pick the ones I love most, and whose albums I would buy.
Streaming services and CDs work together, they complete each other. I pick the best of both worlds.
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Because I only pay for that song once. I can listen to it for the next 50 years without paying anything more, and it can't be "discontinued".
I have vinyl going back 70+ years. It was paid for once, and generations of our family can still listen to it.
If you want to rent your music and have its availability subject to the whims of someone else, that's your choice. Some of us, however, prefer ownership.
And that's fine, to each their own.
I just can't be bothered anymore. I have too much crap as it is. And I don't feel like adding ripping, storing, backing up, format fiddling, etc. to my responsibilities.
It's also nice whenever someone even mentions a song, or I think of one, or hear a bit of it, that I can pull up any song, anytime, and listen to it in good quality. (Yeah, I could YouTube for that part, if I wanted ads and not really knowing what I'm getting. No thanks.)
All for less than the price of on
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$10 a month, why would anyone want to pay $1 for one song?
Because I buy way fewer than 10 songs per month. Heck, I doubt if I buy 10 songs per year. I mostly listen to oldies, and I got nearly all I wanted back when Napster made them all free.
Also, by having my own copy, I will be able to listen to music in my fallout shelter after civilization collapses, while you streamers will be SOL.
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I keep a wind-up gramophone in the basement with a stack of shellac 78s for just that eventuality.
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Yeah what's missing from the discussion is that this statistic is sales by revenue. So sure streaming is >75% of revenue (wtf is that 3% synch amount I saw? https://www.macrumors.com/2019... [macrumors.com]) and digital sales are 11%.
Vinyl and CDs is 12% (ok mainly just vinyl) because a record costs $20. A CD costs $10. iTunes store is $9.99. My favourite band launched preorders of their newest album coming at the end of this month and they had 500 limited edition coloured vinyl for $22 which easily sold out within a da
50 million people are financing the whole industry (Score:2)
Can confirm, bought lot's of physical media in '18 (Score:3)
Believe it or not, old school is back in my house.
iPods, with Sound Docks (check, 30-pins are cheaper than dirt, good sound quality, easily repairable)
iTunes library on a NAS (check)
Plex Home Media Server on a NAS, (check)
Rasperry Pi with Hi Fi Berry as a player (check)
I love going on Ebay or to a local CD resale shop, finding media, bringing it home and putting it on the home media server then storing the media in the basement.
Streaming is great, but you can never seem to find what you want when you want it, or you have to rent/but it.
Streaming doesn't work it in the car, but the 128GB iPod works just fine with voice controls and playlists.
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I buy a lot of used CDs, (Score:5, Informative)
you can seriously pick them up anywhere from a few bucks, to a few bucks for a box full, to free sometimes.
When you want to buy music new on Amazon sometimes it's cheaper to buy the physical disk with "Auto-Rip" than it is to buy just the digital album.
Either way, I rip the disk to Ogg/Vorbis and keep it on my phone, and everything else I own. They still sound awesome, and unlike vinyl and tape media they still sound just as good today as the day the original owner bought them fifteen years ago even if they were played hundreds of times. (unless you bought from an ogre that didn't take care of them, then you can still sometimes run the polisher)
As far as I'm concerned buying a few used disks a month is cheaper than a bandwidth draining subscription service, and in time you'll have a better selection than they do anyways. Unless you like pop, in which case the cost and storage of your music isn't the first serious contemplation you need to make about your music.
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This will probably always be the case because physical media can be sold second hand, which keeps prices down. There is no effective way that the music industry can control used CD prices.
Downloads tend to stay full price or at least very over-priced. Audio books especially - you can buy them used for very little, but a digital version is often 20 to 30 bucks.
PROTIP, don't waste your time ripping. Just head over to The Pirate Bay and grab a copy, complete with all the tagging and artwork done for you. The r
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How long does it take to compress a single disk these days? My ripper/compressor looks up the disk with CDDB, downloads the info, fills it in and I have a fully ready to go disk in what? Five minutes?
I think that by the time I figure out where the pirate bay is today and find what I'm looking for I should already have it ripped and compressed with all the data filled in - in the format of my choice.
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Well if you want to do it to scene group release standards...
You need to rip with a known good drive that can detect and re-read errors, and the compare with an online checksum database to make sure that the data is perfect. Then add tags in the standard format, not whatever crap CDDB has in it. Then add album artwork. Add a .cue file and metadata for gapless playback. Compress as FLAC or MP3 with specific settings in LAME. Finally rename all the files in the correct format.
Of course for your own use you do
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perhaps
Then again my hearing sucks. I like great sounding headphones, but if you give me ones that aren't the best I can't tell, as long as they don't outright suck. By the time I compress it to Ogg a lot of that checksum stuff is blown. Net result - it's probably quicker on my own, and I've heard the terminology "scene" before aimed at some sort of sub-culture, but I'm not sure my over 40 self really comprehends it.
iTunes doesn't work on my... (Score:2)
...10 year old smartphone.
Known for a while... (Score:2)
Rent e-stuff, buy real stuff (Score:3)
Get with the times (Score:2)
No one uses iTunes anymore, its gone the way of CDs. And with modern technology, rightly so. There is no reason why music is so expensive when so many people want to play and there is nothing in the way of distribution anymore. The most you would need to pay for a reasonable setup for music is probably a few thousand dollars to make something half way decent that is good enough for most people.
Re:Um... not to be too picky, but. (Score:5, Informative)
The music files are sitting on your local machine, in AAC format, and are all DRM free. I'm not sure how you consider that "renting."
You can argue whether or not you care about having the data in uncompressed format, but beyond that, the argument seems a bit weak. They're both just digital bits on a physical medium.
Re:Um... not to be too picky, but. (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, I bought the songs, except when I updated my Mac, several songs were deleted without my consent or knowledge. I only found out after six months when I synced my iPhone and it reported that some of the songs were no longer available. Apparently this is a bug that goes back at least 2016 that has never been fixed. The songs are no longer associated with the albums that I bought, and the advice online was "you should have backed up your songs." Not very helpful advice after the fact. I have TimeMachine set up, but I wasn't able to go far enough back to restore the missing files. Now I have an album that jump from track 13 to track 16 because of the missing songs.
Yes, you buy the songs from Apple, but Apple can modify your iTunes library without informing you of the changes or requiring your consent. And despite Apple causing the files to be deleted, they are not responsible for any damages.
I regret making purchases through iTunes and having an iPhone, and an AppleTV, that is controlled by an external entity who can change the terms of service at any time.
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the advice online was "you should have backed up your songs." Not very helpful advice after the fact. I have TimeMachine set up, but I wasn't able to go far enough
Apple Time Machine is version control, which isn't quite complete as backup. A reliable backup strategy needs to incorporate offline storage.
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If you can't sell it, you don't own it.
Dollars-to-donuts there's something in the TOS disallowing you from loaning, selling or giving the files away. The same terms would disallow inheritance, so your "purchase" dies with you.
It's got your fingerprint (account information) embedded so it can be easily traced back to you if you dare to loan, sell or give it away.
Even if the TOS
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You buy songs on iTunes, are you retarded?
No to both.
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If you go to iTunes and buy a song, you bought it. So yes, you have some mental problems. I have hundreds of songs from iTunes.
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So yes, you have some mental problems.
Being incorrect about something doesn't mean one has mental problems -- you judgmental ass. Several people pointed out that, while iTunes used to lock consumers in with DRM, they no longer do this. Sure, correct me because I was wrong -- that's fine -- but there's really no need to be a dick.
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And what would DRM have to do with owning a song you bought, or not owning it?
iTunes music has been DRM-free for a decade (Score:5, Informative)
you don't really *buy* songs on iTunes, you rent them.
(Same as with any service that doesn't provide you with physical media.)
To be fair, music purchased on iTunes Store since 2009 has been delivered as DRM-free M4A (MPEG-4 AAC audio) files that play on numerous devices. You can back up these files to CD-R, DVD+R, or whatever other physical media you prefer.
But I use Amazon instead of iTunes for one reason: Amazon makes a downloader available as a web application that works in Firefox for X11/Linux. It thus runs on an x86-64 desktop or laptop computer or on an Arm-powered Raspberry Pi computer. Amazon also publishes a native downloader for Android. iTunes Store, on the other hand, relies on a native downloader application available only for macOS, Windows, and iOS, and the Windows version was incompatible with Wine last I checked.
Re:iTunes music has been DRM-free for a decade (Score:4, Informative)
Well that is just great for everyone who started buying digital music after 2009. What about us old fogies?
At some point there was an option available to "upgrade" previously DRMed music to tracks without DRM, I think for an extra fee. One can also do some tricks with "iTunes match" to get higher bitrate, non-DRM versions of music from Apple. However, this only works for music that is in Apple's current catalogue - I think if your have DRM versions of music that Apple no longer sells, you can still re-download it, but it is still the old DRMed file.
Anyhow, here are some directions from Apple on how to upgrade tracks to "iTunes Plus" - https://support.apple.com/en-c... [apple.com]
Radio selection (Score:2)
Because of bandwidth limits and payola, the selection of music streamed on FM radio tends to be noticeably inferior, particularly of less mainstream genres or recording artists not on major labels. Your favorite genre might not fit into the "format" (genre set) that existing stations follow. And even if you do find a station you enjoy, it won't follow you when you travel even domestically. In addition, paid plans for Internet streaming music services also lack ads and have on-demand functionality, as oppose
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I give you this radio station, website and promoter of NEW artists:
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej... [abc.net.au]
Check out their site, including Unearthed, and their streaming sites (JJJ an JJ).
You're welcome.
Sloppy writing (Score:5, Interesting)
The headline says "More people bought physical CDs and vinyl than songs on iTunes" but the numbers given are "total download sales in 2018 [were] a little more than $1 billion", "Purchases of full album downloads likewise fell, by 25%", and finally "Sales of physical media... totaled $1.15 billion".
So are we talking about number of people, as said in the headline, or song sales, or album sales, or money?
I clicked through to the report and the most shocking thing to me was that people spent $25 million on ringtones and ringbacks in 2018.
As far as I can tell, the numbers don't account for any second-hand sales of physical media at all, which may not be a thriving market but also isn't trivial, at least in terms of unit sales. Money-wise, it's probably pretty low, due to high supply and low demand resulting in low prices.
Regardless of what they counted or how, I'm pretty sure most artists are still getting fucked.
any platform, if the song was released in Vinyl (Score:3, Interesting)
If you take a "Modern" song, and try to put it in Vinyl, the moder equalization would make the needle jump out of the record. This is termed "Loudness Wars", and was made possible by the introduction of Digital Music (CD, DCC, MiniDisk, etc).
If the song you want was released in Vinyl AND the same mix was used for Vinyl, CD and digital download, you can feel free to get it in the media most convenient to you.
If, on the other hand, there are different mixes dependeng on the media, go for Vinyl, you will not get the most acurate reproduction, and there may be noise, but at least, you will get a hell of a lot better dynamic range in your song.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]
Old people who don't understand tech (Score:2)
It's impossible to hold a "streaming" file. (Score:5, Insightful)
But a record, ahhh... that's tangible. Feel it. Smell it. The smell of library. The smell of history. The smell of many rounds of weed cleaned with licenses on the folds of an LP cover.
Run the Hunt EDA carbon fiber along the surface.
Brush off the dust bunnies off the stylus.
Hear the ker-thunk *plop* as the stylus settles into the groove.
Watch the the filaments in the KT-88 power tubes run their cheerful cherry orange. Ditty for the 12AX7s in the preamp. Smell it. Dust on hot glass.
Amaze yourself at the total lack of snap-crackle-pop, because you have a real turntable, not some made-in-china massmarket unit. No, you're running something German, from the mid-70's. When vinyl was the only game, really.
Streaming for convenience. Physical, tangible, for the foreverness.
I'm going to say this very carefully, very deliberately: Fuck... this modern world and its 100% fakeness. Fuck it long and hard, dry, with a very splintered phone pole.
There's *nothing* like that which you can hold, and store, and cherish, and long for, lust for. Fuck this fake digital modern world.
But truly, nothing beats the sheet music in front of you, with your barely-able fingers poised over the ebonies and ivories.
Fuck this modern world and those who worship at its altar.
There's still room for the old ways.
Re:It's impossible to hold a "streaming" file. (Score:4, Funny)
*Sent from my iPhone
Physical media (Score:3)
Who wants to find their digital music fully curated due to politics?
Are the Results Drvien by Demographic? (Score:3)
The linked article doesn't break down their headline numbers in to demographics, but when this topic is covered elsewhere, there is a stated generalization that download sales are driven more by milennials, whilst legacy formats are driven mainly by older consumers. [It's tempting to take this one step further and observe that there may be a direct correlation between the age of the buyer and the format purchased, but I'm less convinced by that].
So perhaps the data quoted is telling us something else, which is that maybe milennials cut back significantly on their music purchases last year? That, if substantiated, would be a much more interesting angle to cover, because that one element marks a significant change in trend. Then the question becomes: is that a one-off, or is that something deeper?
In a way it's a shame that formats like SACD and DVD-A didn't catch on in the same way that the video industry has managed a more successful transition from tape to DVD to BluRay to 4K. Perhaps this says more about our lifestyles [you actually have to sit still and watch a movie, whilst music can now be enjoyed "on the move" far more easily than ever before] than it does about our desire for higher quality music.
Last point - on the slip of CD sales... I still purchase physical CDs and will continue to do so for as long as they are available. However, if I can obtain it, I now prefer to purchase high definition audio (say 192-bit, 96kHz) if the mastered copies are being offered for sale. It would be interesting to know whether the data underpinning the bgr.com article includes these "hi-def" sales in their download numbers (given they are almost exclusively offered by specialist retailers). I know several music-enthusiast friends who are making the same switch when they can.
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only iTunes? (Score:2)
They only look to iTunes to come to this conclusion?
Maybe +5 years ago this was a somewhat ok-ish approach, but these days?
So many more and better (and cheaper) sites are available to purchase & download music from.
Um (Score:2)
Simple... (Score:2)
When I buy a CD or Vinyl album the music is mine. I can make backup copies of it. I can lend it to friends. When I "buy" a digital copy of the music I am subject the terms and conditions or Apple or Amazon or whomever I get it from. They dictate the terms of usage. In that sense I don't really own the music. It's more like a local rental of the songs.
Given the choice I will either just stream the music or buy a physical copy of it.
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Bingo. I "bought" a movie on Amazon a while ago. Percy Jackson or something. Watched it a couple of times with the kids. No one has any interest in it anymore.
So what can I do with it? Can I resell it? Nope. Can I give it to a relative who now has young kids? Nope. Can I leave it to my children? Uh uh. The "sale" of that item to me was fictional. It was a perpetual license that I have to keep track of. If Amazon "loses" that somehow, I have to remember that I had it, I have to provide some form of proof tha
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I recall some time ago that Amazon removed books from the Kindle library that they deemed to be offensive for some reason. All well and good...except that some people had actually purchased them and woke up one day to find them gone. Even if Amazon gives you a credit for the book I don't feel it is their right to reach in to my library and remove something. I will determine if the book is offensive, not them.
This stuff happens all the time. I read the other day where there is a movement to rename John Wayne
Well duh (Score:2)