Digitalmusicnews.com has just released some weird and alarming numbers, but, if you are a musician, you are probably already well aware of them.
In 2011, 76,875 albums were released via major and indie labels, or even unsigned artists. At the same time, 113 million copies were sold in the US, but, this is the thing: 88.5% came from only 1,500 releases or, if you prefer,just 1.9% of the total of releases. Isn’t it depressing?
Music demography reflects social demography, the 90% get only 2% of the money!
And if you only consider physical music (CDs), mass merchants (Target, Walmart) and even chain retailers (BestBuy) are not gonna carry a lot of diversity, but mostly the best sellers, and this is where people still buy offline music.
These numbers mean a lot for all these unknown but ultra-talented musicians I get to see all the time around LA, only the top is selling, and these developing artists are completely in existent in these statistics, …and what are the odds they will be part of these numbers one day?
Nevertheless, there has never been that many bands in my neighborhood. According to some recent numbers I have found, there are at least 25,000 people trying to make music in this part of Los Angeles (Los Feliz-Silver Lake-Echo Park), and at least half of them are in a band. If all of them were in a four-piece band (average size for a group), that would make about 6,250 bands! How can they all expect to sell albums when they are already only part of these 2%?
I think musicians are now thinking differently, many of them are already giving away their music for free; it is a tough world, and I can only have admiration when I see them keeping doing what they do, writing, recording and performing music even in this die-hard situation.