CD's make comeback

Fretwired

Interesting ... download sales declining .... poor old Apple.

Revenues for physical formats have increased for the first time since 2003 as figures released by the BPI, formerly the British Phonographic Industry, showed a 2.4 per cent rise for last year to £310.5 million. It is a dramatic recovery from a long decline that was steepest in 2012, when there was a drop of 22.7 per cent.

The BPI puts the recovery down to streaming services, whereby fans buy subscriptions to listen to music rather than buy their own copies. Before streaming came along it was a straight fight between physical formats and digital downloads, which seemed to be heading towards a decisive victory for iTunes and other download services.

However, the main selling point for downloads - the must-have-it-now impulse - was also true of streaming, which cannibalised download sales. As services such as Spotify took off, downloads went into decline, falling continuously from a peak in 2013. The attraction of CDs as a tangible product remained, so fans who want to own a copy of their favourite music have come back to the discs.

Download sales wilted from £282 million in 2013 to £113 million last year. Streaming generated £388.9 million for the music industry last year, the first time that streaming revenues have overtaken physical sales. The figure is 41 per cent higher than in 2016.

The growth in streaming means that revenues are growing faster than at any time since 1995, when Britpop was in its zenith. That was the year of Oasis’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, Pulp’s Different Class, Blur’s The Great Escape and Radiohead’s The Bends.

In 2017 revenues increased 11 per cent to £817 million with the help of established artists including Ed Sheeran, Little Mix and Sam Smith and breakthrough acts such as Rag ‘n’ Bone Man and Stormzy.

SimpleSimon

Interesting stuff, what about the stats on vinyl? HMV have gone from offering 10-12 different artists to suddeny holding racks of stuff. Still way overpriced but a step in the right direction.

darthed1981

Hopefully they will invest some of that money in new guitar based bands, so we can stop having "rock is dead" threads every week.

guitars4you

interesting article @Fretwired ;; - I'm a still  CD man - never downloaded a track in my life - I want something tangible - Plus like to read the notes - who wrote, recorded, produced, etc who are the session guys etc etc

TheMarlin

I just bought the new Eels album on double pink vinyl. 
Will be listening to it on Apple Music mostly....

monquixote

It's hardly poor apple given that they own a streaming platform and have already abandoned iPods.

stickyfiddle

Apple always wanted streaming & subscriptions to take over. It's a far better business model for them. 

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

The growth in streaming means that revenues are growing faster than at any time since 1995, when Britpop was in its zenith. That was the year of Oasis’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, Pulp’s Different Class, Blur’s The Great Escape and Radiohead’s The Bends.

Classic journalistic obfuscation of reality. Revenue growth as a percentage might be the same as 1995 but total revenue isn't.  The UK record industry in 2001 hit its peak with revenue of £1.2 billion. So £839 million in revenue really doesn't come close to 1995 (and remember that's without any inflation adjustments for 2001). 

A better article would be: WOO! Look how the online world has devalued music and reduced the mainstream to a tedious lump. 

Fretwired

stickyfiddle said:

Apple always wanted streaming & subscriptions to take over. It's a far better business model for them. 

This. I tried the iTunes streaming platform and compared it to Spotify, which I've used for years. There was only one winner - Spotify. Apple will probably do well with those who love Apple but with Android and Windows the major platforms for smart phones and computers I think Spotify has already won the battle.

And I notice Amazon have been offering a buy a CD get a download immediately on many of the albums for sale. So you can rip an MP3 file for your phone while you wait for the CD to arrive at no extra charge.

richardhomer

Aparently vinyl sales are their highest since records began....

Heartfeltdawn

richardhomer said:

Aparently vinyl sales are the highest since records began....

So they had to scratch the old records then. Must have caused some needle. 

SteveF

Anyone know of an easy way to import playlists from e.g. Apple Music into Spotify.  I used to use Spotify, but hadn't done for very long, then I got 6 months free Apple Music with my phone.  I don't dislike Apple Music, but the interface isn't the best.  But now I have a shed load of playlists etc that I like and don't really want to have to redo if I decided to change. 

strumjoughlamps

Couldn’t get on with Apple Music; currently using Amazon Music Unlimited which is a good service IMO.. they just need to intergrate better with Alexa which currently is surprisingly crap. 

oaf

@SteveF

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Mac-old/Returning-to-Spotify-from-Apple-Music-Can-I-bring-my-new-Apple/td-p/1183529

Good work on the pedals btw!

SteveF

Thanks  

Reverend

Streaming makes money for people, burn it the artists. 
Spotify pay very almosy nothing. 

Philly_Q

Reverend said:

Spotify pay very almosy nothing. 

Spotify aren't alone in that though, are they?  Some other services pay more per stream, some pay less, YouTube pay fuck all, but at least with Spotify you may get more streams in total and therefore a bit more money.

I mostly listen to music on Spotify nowadays, but if I really like something I will then buy the CD because I feel I owe it to the artist (although I'll probably never actually play the CD).

darthed1981

Spotify pay 70% of their revenue direct to the labels, they pay A LOT into the industry.

Now the industry then makes agreements to pay their artists... that as always is where the robbery goes on!

exocet

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

Apple always wanted streaming & subscriptions to take over. It's a far better business model for them. 

This. I tried the iTunes streaming platform and compared it to Spotify, which I've used for years. There was only one winner - Spotify. Apple will probably do well with those who love Apple but with Android and Windows the major platforms for smart phones and computers I think Spotify has already won the battle.

And I notice Amazon have been offering a buy a CD get a download immediately on many of the albums for sale. So you can rip an MP3 file for your phone while you wait for the CD to arrive at no extra charge.

Amazon have been doing the digital download of purchased physical CDs for around 5 years. Not all CDs have that option available (rights issues I guess) but many of the CDs that I bought via Amazon had the option. Personally I find the Amazon digital copy to be very much superior to Spotify in terms of audio quality, not sure whether the Amazon version is a higher bit rate (I have my Spotify set to “highest quality”).

VimFuego

I try generally nowadays to buy CD's direct from the artist. Obviously, seeing as how my tastes are somewhat niche and the artists/bands tend to do the whole thing themselves, that is generally pretty easy.

Philly_Q

VimFuego said:

I try generally nowadays to buy CD's direct from the artist. Obviously, seeing as how my tastes are somewhat niche and the artists/bands tend to do the whole thing themselves, that is generally pretty easy.

It can be cheaper than buying from Amazon, too.