The digital album may ultimately win this race, though cumulative 8-track sales are still much larger than digital album sales to-date. And here's a scary thought: at current growth rates, the brick-like 8-track could actually be hailed the victor. Take a look at these shipment totals, based on RIAA figures dating back to 1973 (the format was actually introduced in the mid-60s, though we don't have reliable figures for that pre-1973 period).
Comments Closed
Jonathan McMillan Tuesday, March 01, 2011
I think digital can grow but not in it's current format. My idea is we need a new super hi fi format. Would love to hear others thoughts:
http://jonomc.com/2011/02/we-need-a-new-format/
Econ Tuesday, March 01, 2011
I mildly agree with this although it would take a long time to change perceptions. And it would have to be in conjuction with "free".
Meaning the labels/artists should make a 96kbps download or stream available for free. The other 20% or so that care about/love the music could buy a hi fidelity copy AT A LOW PRICE. The problem with hi fi is it is ually at an exhorbitant price which turns people away. But LP's are selling to some people, and if a low-grade free download is available it may discourage people from putting high-grade stuff on torrents.
What people have to realize is that even "free" is overpriced to people who don't like the music. If iTunes charged nothing, the top tracks charts would remain the same. People can download so much for free already, they realize they don't listen to stuff much and delete the files anyway.
If iTunes or Rhapsody offered an "on-demand all you can stream" for $1.99 a month, there'd be no need to go to torrent sites anymore. And they'd probably love to if the labels and other copyright holders didn't price their licenses so high. The fact is consumers value video more than music - when the choice is streaming music for $9.99 a month and streaming videos for $7.99 a month, the consumer picks video every time.
There's a reason Netflix isn't and wasn't interested in buying Lala, Thumbplay, etc. Look at Sony's Qriocity - their value proposition for the consumer of video is reasonable and their value propostion for music looks like a ripoff in comparison.
bassdood Thursday, March 03, 2011
Very interesting analysis.
It has seemed to me for some time now that the folks pricing the licensing for music have completely ignored elasticity of demand, and marginal unit cost. You can indeed compete with free; the bottled water business has demonstrated that very well.
The hassle of cleaning-up free illegally-downloaded files, and getting bad ones, and the time all that takes, when compared to a well-run site charging very low prices and adding good ID3 tags, lyrics, etc., would make many illegal downloaders gladly switch to paid downloads. The question is, what is the better service worth to the majority of these folks? At a price of a dollar per track, a lot of people will go to the trouble of dealing with often-crappy illegal downloads.
With an almost zero marginal unit cost (other than licensing), tunes could conceivably be sold at a profit for 20 cents each. If that made present paid download demand rise ten-fold, they would probably have a hugely profitable model. My guess is that a 20-cent price, with good ID3 tags and bit rate, etc., would almost dry up illegal downloads.
Cathy Friday, March 11, 2011
As much as I love economics, this just doesn't work in practice. Most independent musicians already sell music on sites for whatever anyone will pay, sometimes for much less than $.20 a track. It's been going on for years. Demand on those sites is not 10x more than on iTunes, or physical CD sales. And the sites that sell them need venture funding to cover costs, because the gateway costs for each customer can be way more than $.20 a customer, excluding licensing costs! Sorry. I'd love for the data to be different. People who want to pay, do. Those who don't still have ways around it and use their hard earned cash to buy something they can't get for free.
Dayna Richards Tuesday, March 01, 2011
So... these charts are interesting and all but I would love to read HOW this data is compiled. Where are they getting the digital sales? iTunes only or an aggregate? What about the mass of artists that sell independant of any large digital distribution house? Those guys aren't reporting numbers. Also: where does piracy fit in.
...another chart that leaves me with more questions that answers. :-/
Vail, CO Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Danya,
You'll never get to the bottom of this one hate to say! Digital may have even more problems than physical if you think about the fact that sales reporting comes from the stores themselves ,not a central tracking system controlled by the labels (unlike CDs or even in this example 8 track tapes) - ie a black box!
BUT, one thing is good which is that almost every artist is on iTunes so there really isn't "independent o f any large distribution house"
gabbleratchet Tuesday, March 01, 2011
With 8-track shipments versus digital sales, are we comparing apples to oranges? For one, digital albums can't be shipped, per se. There is also the old saying that an album shipped gold and got returned platinum: shipments to records don't necessarily translate into actual sales.
gabbleratchet Tuesday, March 01, 2011
I meant shipments to record stores...
@PatrickTrojman Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Patrick Trojman
?!?!
@jfedor Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Jeff Fedor
I for 1 welcome our single overlord
@SynchTank Wednesday, March 02, 2011
SynchTank
Fascinating tidbit...
@tylermazey Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Well, if the 8 track was introduced around 1965-ish, and the earliest numbers are from 1973, that means the first year you can really compare the two would be 2012 (2004+8=2012) in order to really get a similar comparison.
trevor Wednesday, March 02, 2011
by that logic 9 trks win, esp. if dig. dloads peak in 1-2 years (by my calculations).
are there any ways to get the earlier years - does this exist anywhere?
@DwightDP Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Dwight D Petersen
WOW! Some great perspective here
@richard_sussman Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Richard Sussman
Crazy to think that digital album sales still eclipsed by 8-tracks...
wheeler98 Wednesday, March 02, 2011
This shouldn't surprise anyone. The numbers as presented are completely ridiculous. Don't forget that millions of illegal downloads are occurring per day. All a straight line comparison illustrates is that the total revenue for the Music Industry is abyssmal these days.
Owen Pellegrin Wednesday, March 02, 2011
I think it's a silly comparison. When 8-tracks were released, there wasn't much choice. If you wanted to buy music, you bought an 8-track or you listened to the radio. It's not as cut and dried today. I've started buying digital music as often as I buy physical media, but 85% of my music was purchased on CD then converted to digital media and I still buy discs. It's not a fair comparison.
@theciphe Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Decipher
INTERESTING
Lee Fox Wednesday, March 02, 2011
The elephant in the room...
Digital albums aren't "albums". They are several mp3's sold at the same time.
The album experience is Dead until we get a new non-CD that does what CD does: Allow for a seamless, continuous experience of one song flowing into the next.
As an artist, I put a huge effort into making sure my songs on CD transition smoothly between each other and that the ups and downs that each song represents are balanced in an evocative way.
I even create segue pieces that introduce songs but that on their own are too small to warrant being included as a song on a "digital album" and would make the intro too long if included as part of the following song.
It rips a little hole in my heart each time I have to strip all that away and package each song individually to be sorted indiscriminately on somebody's mp3 machine.
Blake Thursday, March 03, 2011
I'm not sure what you mean...I can still listen to an album seamlessly in iTunes or on my iPod. All you have to do is not have it on shuffle. It's pretty simple.
Lee Fox Monday, March 07, 2011
Mp3's (besides their other abysmal artifacts) introduce gaps at the beginning and ends of songs.
They cannot be strung together seamlessly without manual intervention.
@prrosado Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Pedro Rafael Rosado
8track?!?
Casual Observer Wednesday, March 02, 2011
I couldn't agree more that the music business should insist on high fidelity, and digital music needs an environment where 24bits, at minimum, is the norm. But ISP bandwidth limitations and costs, particularly in non USA regions, appear to be closing this window.
While I don't have much time for niche audiophile arguments, the fact remains that the dominant digital music stream consumer is using an ipod, which simply isn't a decent music device, and it degrades the clarity and subtlety of a great music recording. Ditto for most computer based audio systems. Musicians ought to be concerned about this type of entropy.
But I don't want to extrapolate too far - the 8 track is another example of regressive, poor quality tech foisted on the consumer, as are mp3s. Neither format deserves a consumption base.
@punkdafunk Wednesday, March 02, 2011
neil harris
why we're fucked, part 8,222
lanningpaul Wednesday, March 02, 2011
During the 8-trk era, returns averaged 20-30%.
@swick07 Wednesday, March 02, 2011
swick07
As much as I like ELO it's hard to believe 8-tracks have outsold digital music so far....
@Rogboy Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Roger Kent
Hard to believe I know, but - WTF!
@EmilyJNovak Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Emily Novak
Realy??
@JoyceLeeMusic Thursday, March 03, 2011
Joyce Lee
This doesn't surprise me at all...
@Ben_Cline_Esq Friday, March 04, 2011
Benjamin Cline Esq.
...fun fact
@marisagallagher Friday, March 04, 2011
marisagallagher
surreal - the beegees bigger than the biebs?
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