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Album sales hit a new low

RollWave35

RollWave35

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As streaming gathers momentum, the U.S. music industry keeps breaking sales milestones -- the wrong kind.

This week's 3.97-million album sales tally is the smallest weekly sum for album sales since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. It's also the first time weekly sales have fallen below four million in that time span.
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As more and more consumers transition from purchasing music to streaming tunes, it's natural to see album sales shrink. This year, there have only been five weeks where album sales were above 5 million.

Larger retailers of CDs, vestiges of an older record business, have been hit the hardest. Through August 24th, CD sales are down 19.2 percent year-over-year while sales at mass merchants and chains have fallen 23 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively.

Record label sales executives are not surprised by the latest downturn. "Sales have been going in the wrong direction all year," says one label sales head. "I guess its overdue, when you look at [the growth of streaming]." This year, label executives finally conceded something there were reluctant to acknowledge last year: Streaming is cannibalizing digital sales.
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http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6236365/album-sales-hit-a-new-low-2014

Any Pit posters still buy CDs?
 
I'm shocked there were almost 4 million albums sold last week.
 
Me and RSF still buy cds, though he buys way more than I do.
 
I typically prefer having CDs in the car over using the aux input, so I still buy CDs. Also I like buying the CD on Amazon since it often has the Auto-Rip feature, it's basically an extra buck or two over the cost of the MP3 album and you get the physical disc too
 
smallbigtall said:
I typically prefer having CDs in the car over using the aux input, so I still buy CDs. Also I like buying the CD on Amazon since it often has the Auto-Rip feature, it's basically an extra buck or two over the cost of the MP3 album and you get the physical disc too
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it'd be cool if they did this with Kindle
 
smallbigtall said:
I typically prefer having CDs in the car over using the aux input, so I still buy CDs. Also I like buying the CD on Amazon since it often has the Auto-Rip feature, it's basically an extra buck or two over the cost of the MP3 album and you get the physical disc too
Click to expand...

This, though my CD buying has gone way down. At work, it is Spotify and at home, it is Spotify or other apps played through Sonos.
 
i do as well. use amazon for the cd and download a digital copy to mobile devices.
 
I'm curious to know if there are any particular genres that are more dominant in cd sales vs digital. I bet country music is still going strong
 
Total sales in the first figure, sales by genre and medium in the second one.

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I rarely buy CDs anymore. Just this week I did get the Led Zep remasters, but that was a rare event, like when I bought some Beatles remasters. If I buy CDs, it is usually some kind of blu ray or SACD surround mix, or just something from a band where I really want to supporot them with a CD purchase.

I'm not sure what this means for the future of music. It might be more wise to just start going the singles route. Release one single at a time every month or so and at the end of the year, consolidate them onto an album of some sort.
 
Shocker that Bon Iver shows up twice on the vinyl list.
I think that older cars phasing out is a big driving force in the death of CDs. Almost all new cars now have full iPod interfaces or playable bluetooth, so there is really no need for physical CDs in any situation once you have that accessibility.
 
I buy a lot of CDs, yeah. It is one of the many reasons that I am poor.
 
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