Mashable has recapped for us how the internet has changed the music industry forever. We are in the middle of a crisis, or rather an evolution which could be summarized in three rounds.
First round: the disappearance of the record store.
Between 2000 and 2009-2010, record store sales have declined by more than 76%, CD album sales by 50%; record stores are dying faster than you can say Spotify: in 2004, HMV pulled out of the US market, in 2006, Tower Records and Sam Goody’s were gone, and Virgin Megastore closed its last store in 2009. In less than a decade, all the music chains had disappeared, and in January 2012, digital sales surpassed physical sales for the first time.
Second round: the streaming revolution:
iTunes was created in 2001, and people were first listening to digital music on their computer, then music became portable with digital audio players, iPods. Now Spotify is growing very fast, allows us to stream music, and it’s much cheaper than buying songs on iTunes. Another consequence is the death of the album as people download/stream individual songs instead of entire albums.
Third round: the vinyl (indie) store survival:
During any major crisis, there are major extinctions (the CD, the album) and survival of other antic species (vinyl, the independent store), which have found a vacant lot. Vinyl album sales have increased by 39% in 2011, and 10% more in 2012
What about the predictions? We can safely assume that physical sales will continue to go down, digital sales will continue to go up,… till Spotify and other streaming services will surpass everything.
Record store sales may be dropping another 77.4% by 2016,… but will the current vinyl craze be sufficient to guarantee the survival of the last indie stores? And for how long? I am not sure.