In a nation of 317 Million people less than 4 million buy a record album on average, Around 1% of the population, according to Billboard. what does this mean? It means the album is no longer functioning as the music currency of choice.
The music business, which has found itself uniquely incapable of keeping up with technological mayhem over the past 20 years or so, seem to have reacted to streaming services by buying shares in em while throwing their roster to the wolves. Yet another missed opportunity.
After reacting to file sharing by suing college kids, they forced Apple to overprice albums and songs despite no longer having the huge expense of distribution and manufacturing, and then watched their sales switch from albums to songs and did nothing to offset. This is was exactly where they should have dropped the price of an album to five bucks and scooped up the money, instead they raised the prices.
It isn’t too late to fight streaming services through lowering prices till the threat is extinguished, instead record execs are doing their usually hand wringing bullshit, “Sales have been going in the wrong direction all year. I guess its overdue, when you look at the growth of streaming.”
Artistically, the death of the album has been a disaster for popular music. Financially it hasn’t been that great either.
