Rolling Stone reports on a very bad year for the music industry. Overall, consumers bought 48 million fewer albums than in 2004, marking a disastrous twenty-one percent slide from the industry’s peak in 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. “It was arguably the worst year in the music business’s history,” says Steve Bartels, Island Records president. (Gee, I wonder why…)
4 thoughts on “Music Biz Lament”
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I wonder if maybe they haven’t included sales from the ZFT. Since ZFT is a cottage industry and not part of the larger music conglomeration, they might have been overlooked. Include ZFT sales and I bet the year looks a whole lot brighter.
I’ll tell you what I have for the record industry: TWO LITTLE VIOLINS, RIGHT HERE!*
*a rustic American expression of mock sympathy
nice thought…but don’t think there is already too much violins in the world?
Speaking of violins…the local symphony orchestra is playing a “tribute to Led Zeppelin” show at the basketball/hockey arena this weekend – accompanied by a “complete” rock band. THAT oughtta goose up those record sales!
Don’t fret too much. CD sales in the USA were down 7% in 2005 but download sales were up 148%. Legal download sales have topped $1 billion.
In the UK, artist album sales are increasing and had a record year in 2005 – 126.2 million units – up by 1.4% . Compilation album sales are falling dramatically – probably because of downloads which were up by 357% in 2005 – 26.4 million downloads.
Still plenty of money being made!