Well, it is the ultimate in old school and new school growing, with everything else shrinking. Neilsen Entertainment and Billboard magazine issued their report on the state of the music industry for the first half of 2014, and the trends we saw last year not only continued, they accelerated.
Well, it is the ultimate in old school and new school growing, with everything else shrinking. Neilsen Entertainment and Billboard magazine issued their report on the state of the music industry for the first half of 2014, and the trends we saw last year not only continued, they accelerated.
The two big stories were the growth in sales of vinyl and in digital streaming via services like Spotify, Pandora and YouTube. Vinyl continues to be the little musical engine that could, increasing a whopping 40% during the first half of 2014. Scoffed at as a fad a few years ago by music executives, vinyl continues to grow in popularity among both audiophiles and college students seeking the "warmth" of its analog sound. On the other end of the spectrum, streaming services grew at an impressive 42%, almost all at the expense of CD and mp3 sales, which dropped 14%. This continues the CD sales slide that began nearly a decade ago and the more recent phenomenon of mp3 sales declines. A majority of the streaming occurs via YouTube, but pure audio streaming is growing more quickly, and given the royalty disputes occurring between YouTube and record companies, it is expected that audio streaming will surpass video this year.
The most streamed song so far in 2014 is the Katy Perry/Juicy J collab, "Dark Horse," followed by John Legend's beautiful ballad, "All of Me."
Two months ago we discussed our ambivalent feelings about the shifts in the music industry and its effect on artists, but there appears to be no stopping the changes happening. Adults over the age of 30 are the last bastion for sales of physical CDs, and artists are increasingly adjusting their plans to either reach those adult audiences for music sales or push for dramatic increases in the number of streamed songs going to their fans (for which the services pay, on average around $0.005 (one half cent) per stream). Either way, it is a landscape that has changed dramatically over the past few years, with a trend that appears to be heading unabated toward a new normal.
By Chris Rizik
See the full report below
Nielsen Music 2014 Mid-Year US Report