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And more from the article I linked to above, specifically focused on buying music:
After remarkable growth in 2021 following the COVID-razed 2020, sales of vinyl records continued to rise in the first half, with revenues up 22% to $570 million, as vinyl’s share of the physical market increased from 68% to 73%. “Music lovers clearly can't get enough of vinyl's warm sound and tangible connection to artists and labels have squarely met that demand with a steady stream of exclusives, special reissues, and beautifully crafted packages and discs,” Glazier said. Revenues from CDs fell 2% to $200 million and accounted for 26% of physical revenues.
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It's not that their livelihoods are unsustainable, it's that they've lost one revenue stream. Admittedly, one that used to be big, but now is more like radio airplay - builds awareness but not direct income.
Live gigs and touring for artists at all levels is brings in the bulk of the money now. Across genres and formats. But there is a range of streams, including licensing, merchandising (vinyl for example), a bit of streaming, etc.
Also, Nicolai, I'm aware of a couple dozen new releases of Classical music every month, from Naxos, Chandos, Hyperion, Signum, LSO Live, Universal Music Group, Harmonia Mundi, and so on. Hyperion alone releases something over 40 new releases every year, and I believe they are all studio releases. That's hardly very, very few. (I work in Classical radio so this isn't just opinion.)
True, labels like Naxos, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi etc, still do great releases (as they did 20 years ago). I am happy to hear you see the situation first hand less dire than I perhaps do. But as I said, there seem to be way less studio recordings. Most of the newer classical recordings, especially orchestral recordings, seem to be live rather than studio recording. (There are more live recordings that are released nowadays. Note: I'm not saying anything wrong with live recordings, I have lots of live recordings I enjoy. Just an observation, and it's obviously different. There used to be lots of orchestral studio recordings every year.)
And there are artists who never do concerts or are just studio performers (like even Glenn Gould in the later part of his career), so while concerts are great, it's not a "replacement" for recording revenue. Alas, I have yet to hear from a classical label that could sustain the costs of an orchestral recording through streaming.
And more from the article I linked to above, specifically focused on buying music:
After remarkable growth in 2021 following the COVID-razed 2020, sales of vinyl records continued to rise in the first half, with revenues up 22% to $570 million, as vinyl’s share of the physical market increased from 68% to 73%. “Music lovers clearly can't get enough of vinyl's warm sound and tangible connection to artists and labels have squarely met that demand with a steady stream of exclusives, special reissues, and beautifully crafted packages and discs,” Glazier said. Revenues from CDs fell 2% to $200 million and accounted for 26% of physical revenues.
Yes, but those are short term fluctuations, I don't see a growing trend towards buying music on physical media. Vinyl has been more or less stable for a while now. If you look at the larger canvas, "bought" music (regardless of Vinyl/CD or downloads) is on its way "down" or has reached a "low level" where it will float along for a while. It is "leased" music where the revenue now is. Streaming revenue is much higher. And that revenue "used" to be revenue differently distributed when people "bought" music, now it is usually going to the most played artists. That's why you can still make lots of money with pop music on streaming services, but very little with recordings of classical music.
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Dp
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The editing and/or censoring of films to protect or for “our modern sensibilities” is what really bugs me the most. The 1984 treatments. Good discussion points.
Yes, that is definitely terrifying. As if people are unable to judge something within the context of the time it was created.
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Yes, but those are short term fluctuations, I don't see a growing trend towards buying music on physical media. Vinyl has been more or less stable for a while now. If you look at the larger canvas, "bought" music (regardless of Vinyl/CD or downloads) is on its way "down" or has reached a "low level" where it will float along for a while.
I'm just the messenger here, passing on the Inside Radio story.
As you will recall I have a whole thread about the decline of CDs and the growth of streaming, so you're preaching to the choir, baby!
https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=120591&forumID=1&archive=0
But it's still interesting that the vinyl market is a growing niche, even if in the long run it's not going to drive the bus, or a mini cooper, or a scooter, or a skateboard. Maybe a skateboard.
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Yes, that is definitely terrifying. As if people are unable to judge something within the context of the time it was created.
Most people really are unable to judge something within the original context. Or choose not to go to the trouble. Otherwise you wouldn't see movies from ten years ago described as "old", for example (which you can see all the time on Amazon reviews, for instance).
This is not a defense of making changes, but just a reality check. As with so many aspects we discuss here, we're way outside the mainstream as collectors and aficionados. We few, we happy few.
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I was just browsing Qobuz (and in double checked Spotify) and found that a lot of interesting music that is in my library is not available for streaming, and I am not talking about overly obscure stuff, but regular soundtrack releases like Morricone's MISSION TO MARS or Jerry Goldsmith's OUTLAND are not there. Lots of stuff I listen to is not available on streaming.
While doing some research, I came across this interesting article, which states, and it rings true, that one of the problems of streaming is actually that there is "too much" music. Of course, can there be "too much" of a good thing? Well, perhaps there can, if there is so much available, that individual titles have little (monetary) "value". Food for thought at least. Ironically, while there is really a lot of music that I would not be without not available for streaming (for various reasons), there is also the opinion that there is "too much" music as it is.
I want to point out that I don't really share the view expressed in the article, or at least do not come to the same conclusions, as there were always many more musicians, actors, screenwriters, book authors etc. than those that could actually make a (good) living from it, and streaming services enable just more musicians to be on there as well. But there are some good points to it.
https://rockthepigeon.com/2022/01/31/spotify-and-streaming-are-not-the-problem-too-much-music-is/
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That's a really good piece, Nicolai - thanks for sharing!
The points made reflect the kinds of things I've heard in my professional capacity from artists, managers, event promoters and the like.
I love being an amateur musician, so I can write and play my music and don't have to do the stuff I don't want to do. But also don't expect a dime, or even 3 cents per listen.
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I just came across this interesting survey from Android Authority, which asks "Do you still purchase music (e.g. digital downloads, LPs, CDs)?"
This is of course a general survey. Presumably, the more niche you get (audiophiles, film music, jazz, classical.. etc,.) the more buying music is still something of a thing. (Which is why a survey of the people on the FSM message board would have different percentages, more in favor of still buying music.)
https://www.androidauthority.com/do-you-still-buy-music-poll-results-3020513/
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https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/did-the-music-business-just-kill
Did the Music Business Just Kill the Vinyl Revival?
Some highlights:
"Last week Luminate released its end-of-year figures for the music market.
Despite all the hype, vinyl album unit sales only grew 4%. I’ve heard some people praising this in silly news stories about the continued growth in vinyl.
But those numbers are a HUGE disappointment.
Just a year ago, the industry was bragging about a vinyl market that had doubled in size in a single year. In just 12 months, demand had increased from 21.4 to 41.7 million units.
But then in 2022, the growth rate collapsed from 95% to 4%. That’s not a slowdown—that’s slamming on the brakes right before you hit the brick wall."
"But here’s an even more ominous sign. Half of vinyl buyers don’t own a record player. They apparently bought the Taylor Swift album as a kind of memorabilia—something a little nicer than a band T-shirt.
This can’t be a good thing for the record business. After all, how many records are you going to buy if you don’t have a turntable? This is like trying to sell Teslas as a status symbol to people who don’t drive."
"As these figures make clear, vinyl has stalled out around the size of the moribund compact disk market.
I guess it could be worse—but it couldn’t be much worse. The music industry took its fastest growing segment and killed it through greed and laziness.
If they had followed the standard playbook for growth industries (outlined above), they could have brought vinyl back as a mass market option. They might have easily convinced 40-50 million consumers to buy a dozen vinyl albums per year. That would create a total market more than 10 times as large as the current one.
In that kind of world, musicians would benefit. Record stores would thrive. Fan loyalty would increase. And record labels would have more cash for themselves and a legitimate way of making money that doesn’t rely on Silicon Valley technocrats and hostile streaming platforms.
In short, the culture would be healthier.
Maybe this can still happen. But once you blow an opportunity like this, you rarely get a second chance."
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Thank for sharing this interesting article! Good read.
"But here’s an even more ominous sign. Half of vinyl buyers don’t own a record player. They apparently bought the Taylor Swift album as a kind of memorabilia—something a little nicer than a band T-shirt.
This can’t be a good thing for the record business. After all, how many records are you going to buy if you don’t have a turntable? This is like trying to sell Teslas as a status symbol to people who don’t drive.
Yes, but vinyl was always "special", it's interesting for retro fetishists and people who love fumbling around with mechanical devices. There are ZERO advantages vinyl has on an audio level over CD, let alone high-res formats such as 24bit-192kHz FLAC/ALAC downloads, which are much more practical as well.
The people who buy vinyl -- and I know some of them -- buy vinyl because they love the ritual, they love the big size of it, they love putting on a record and listen to it, and for that, they accept the acoustical shortcomings of the medium.
I still have some LPs from my early days of collecting music, but I have only bought one LP in the last 35 years or so... and yes, for memorabilia purposes (I have not even opened it).
The vinyl market is a very particular niche market, that is never going to go "mainstream" any more than steam engine locomotives, simply because it would be a technical backstep.
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Posted: |
Jan 17, 2023 - 7:38 AM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/did-the-music-business-just-kill
Did the Music Business Just Kill the Vinyl Revival?
Some highlights:
"Last week Luminate released its end-of-year figures for the music market.
Despite all the hype, vinyl album unit sales only grew 4%. I’ve heard some people praising this in silly news stories about the continued growth in vinyl.
But those numbers are a HUGE disappointment.
Just a year ago, the industry was bragging about a vinyl market that had doubled in size in a single year. In just 12 months, demand had increased from 21.4 to 41.7 million units.
But then in 2022, the growth rate collapsed from 95% to 4%. That’s not a slowdown—that’s slamming on the brakes right before you hit the brick wall."
"But here’s an even more ominous sign. Half of vinyl buyers don’t own a record player. They apparently bought the Taylor Swift album as a kind of memorabilia—something a little nicer than a band T-shirt.
This can’t be a good thing for the record business. After all, how many records are you going to buy if you don’t have a turntable? This is like trying to sell Teslas as a status symbol to people who don’t drive."
"As these figures make clear, vinyl has stalled out around the size of the moribund compact disk market.
I guess it could be worse—but it couldn’t be much worse. The music industry took its fastest growing segment and killed it through greed and laziness.
If they had followed the standard playbook for growth industries (outlined above), they could have brought vinyl back as a mass market option. They might have easily convinced 40-50 million consumers to buy a dozen vinyl albums per year. That would create a total market more than 10 times as large as the current one.
In that kind of world, musicians would benefit. Record stores would thrive. Fan loyalty would increase. And record labels would have more cash for themselves and a legitimate way of making money that doesn’t rely on Silicon Valley technocrats and hostile streaming platforms.
In short, the culture would be healthier.
Maybe this can still happen. But once you blow an opportunity like this, you rarely get a second chance."
He acts like this is all a revelation. Yes, it's a niche market, yes, they're gonna make them on the cheap without investing in new tech, yes, they're going to charge as much as they can while the going is good. Yes, they are in it for the short run, and a fast buck.
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Interesting graph (I like these visualizations, you can quickly at a glance point to some interesting facts.)
It seems in the US, 2016 was the turning point, when "renting / leasing music" (streaming etc.) surpassed "buying music" (as in downloads & physical).
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The version adjusted for inflation tells the more important story. Which is that revenue is now actually below 1992 value, and steeply lower than the heyday.
Here is the source: https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-data
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Thanks for adding that, it's of course always useful to consider inflation when doing these charts (and, ideally, you habe both adjusted for inflation and direkt numbers, that's what I like about these graphs: they give you both.)
However, by and large, the core information of both graphs, adjusted for inflation or not, is pretty much the same.
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I screwed up, Nicolai - please drop that chart I shared. I can't reproduce the one adjusted for inflation.
Actually fixed it, posted it myself. Here is the one adjusted for inflation
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Let me have a shot at it...
This should be the numbers adjusted for inflation.
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We are simpatico!
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We are.
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