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10/04/2007: "US album sales a thing of the past?"

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Just as music sales appeared to be at least stagnating after a disastrous first quarter, (January-March) where albums like the “Dreamgirls” soundtrack and “Daughtry” were reaching #1 on the Billboard 200 with record low sales. We're hit with the lowest overall sales week in the almost seventeen year history of Soundscan, just two weeks before the fourth quarter (the biggest sales period of the year).

Now in the 4th quarter (39th week of the calendar year), the top selling album of the year is “Daughtry” by Daughtry and it has sold a little over 2 million copies, while the tenth biggest selling album “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long” by Maroon 5 has sold 1.3 million copies. Although there is still another 13 weeks of the calendar year left before we can truly write this year off as disappointing year for album sales, it’s unlikely that the top selling album of the year will sell anywhere near 10 million copies like the #1 album of 2000 (*N SYNC’s “No Strings Attached” ) or even the #1 album of 2005, which sold 5 million copies (Mariah’s “The Emancipation of Mimi” ).

At the pinnacle of US album sales, only seven years ago (2000), 785 million albums were sold in Soundscan affiliated retail outlets and according to the RIAA a total of 942.5 million albums were shipped (includes sales in retail outlets not affiliated with Soundscan, like record clubs). At the end of 2006, music sales were down 25% in Soundscan sales (to 588.2 million albums) and 35% in total shipments (to 614.9 million albums) from 2000. If there is no upward trend in album sales this year, album sales in Soundscan affiliated retail outlets are projected to be down a 35.5% from 2000 and if total shipments decrease at the same ratio, total shipments will be down a whopping 44% from 2000.

Do you think there is something that can be done to revive dying US music sales or do you think there is no saving of US music sales? Discuss here.

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Comments:

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keith | Wednesday, November 14, 2007 heres the problem music today as a whole is terrible. most of top40 sucks, and is just far to cliche. another thing is labels dont promote artist to the mature crowd either. in order to have huge sales u have to appeal to everyone. it also wouldnt hurt to have artist that actually have real talent, and that happen to be fresh and innovative. screw all the dowloading crap. labels shouldnt allow music to be purchased on those sites even if they are legal. the physical copy is much much better. and they stop making cd-singles becuz those started to decline rapidly as well. but those were really cool. i'd say rework those and sale them cheaper. also the record companys have to find someway to get rid of piracy, or atleast try to limit it as much as possible. plus they need to promote there artist as much as possible. hit songs are a plus as well. and believe it or not digital sales arent even as big as people think they are. to me digital music sucks. why buy something that i can delete just like that. people dont appreciate the cd as much anymore. from the artwork to the music to the linear notes and everything its much much better. these labels gotta step there game up. plus reissueing only seems to work if the album has a big hit on it. lastly radio needs to evolve from the same tired crap that they play all the time. i believe the cd can be revived.

ian | Monday, November 12, 2007 People are selective nowadays when buying the CDs. People only buy good quality album with a sum of good songs in it. Just compare Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway album and her latest My December album. The former included lot of hit songs, so people buy it. However, for her latest album, i cant recall any hit song title at all. Well, if the album is good, such as TEOM, people will buy it no matter what. But this album sales decline thing is happen everywhere, such Japan's CDs sales is declining dramatically as well. Based on their report, teenagers are not buying CDs now, they rather spend their money on mobile phone bill or other entertainment. As for Asian (Malaysia), youngster rather spend a few hundred to sing karaoke than buying a Cds. Instead, they buy pirated CDs here since the price is cheaper than original CDs. To save the music industry, good music and promotion is vital, people is not deaf, we decided what albums should we buy based on the sincerity of that albums. Asian music always include the "bonus things" to attract people to buy the albums, such as postcards, posters, DVDs, promo single, tickets to the fan-meet function, discount, and so on. But the sales is not encouraging as expected, cos as i mentioned, people only buy good music album. So, this kind of gimmic is not 100% working for us. Despite the die-hard fans sure will buy a dozen. A good album is not neccessary have to be a grammy favouriated style, as long as the songs (hits) are applied to the public, then the objective to huge sales of record is achieved. So, making good music is the key to huge albums sales. By the way, i did agree with Ken about the CD single release, they should release the single to push the album sales. Thanks.

Dan | Friday, October 5, 2007 These days it seems like Mariah...and maybe Avril Levigne(sp?)...are the only artists consistently putting out well-crafted songs worthy of being played, so I'm not really shocked that U.S. CD sales have plummeted, with or without downloads. It all boils down to the quality of the music. (And Justin Timberlake's commment at the MTV Awards about the lack of videos on the channels was DEAD-ON true!)

Adam | Friday, October 5, 2007 I do not think there is anything that can be done to revive music sales in today's digital era. I used to suggest the idea that music videos and DVD sales would be the answer, but with the inception of sites as Yahoo! launch and YouTube, that is no longer an option either. But, frankly, I am so unsympathetic because Music Labels & Recording Companies should not be complaining of declining music sales. With the addition of iTunes and Napster, consumers are spending MORE money than they used to. For example, an entire album/CD costs approximately $13 - $15 for a 10 - 15 song album. And consumers were buying just a few CD's to add to their collection. However, I notice that a friend of mine is spending $.99 for each song downloaded, but is downloading over 50 songs per month, because he has access to all of the old songs that he once loved. So, 50 songs at $.99 each totals $50 per month. This is way more than what consumers used to spend before the digital era. Lastly, when CD's become a thing of the past, the costs associated with producing an album will be dramatically reduced and artists will eventually only record one song at a time and try to release that song & gain compensation on a song-by-song basis, rather than album by album. Imagine the profits gained when CD's are no longer produced & packaged & shipped & distributed! For now, artists must try to make up the "loss of income" with Music Tours and live concerts proving their talent to the world.

Eric | Friday, October 5, 2007 I'm not sure if SoundScan includes digital sales from albums, but maybe that's one of the problems.

Tony | Friday, October 5, 2007 I think that the CD-format is history, ten years from now. There are new ways to sell your music, as in mp3 or something that is not invented yet. What I don't understand is why this question is asked on this site (since this isn't a recordlabel). The musicindustry has had years and years with enormous incomes, and they have done to little to evolve compared to the internet. (They should have seen this coming in 96... not post 2000)

hot_ken | Friday, October 5, 2007 Hi Michael! Nice article! Anyways, regarding your question, I'm not sure what they can possibly do with the declining CD sales, but I think the re-issue thing they do with additional songs and videos is a nice idea. I mean, I know for us, hardcore fans, anything new from a Mimi album is a plus! And i don't understand why they stopped selling CD singles? I'm sure that counts to CD sales as well, right? Well, if they can't save CD sales, at least I hope record companies find ways to profit from download sales. Ken