Vinyl Bay 777 Takes a Look at the State of the Music Industry in 2016
A new industry-spanning year-end report on the by BuzzAngle
was released on January 3, detailing in depth the growth and decline of the
music industry over the last year. The report shows that even though this has
been a disappointing year for the music industry, there were still some highs,
namely the continued growth of vinyl record sales and streaming services.
Let’s start with the bad news. Music sales are down… way
down. Over 2015, 2016 saw a drop in sales of 15.6 percent. This includes
physical and digital sales, which individually saw decreases of 11.7 percent
for physical, 19.4 percent for digital albums and 24.8 percent for digital song
sales from last year.
Poor sales do not mean that people aren’t buying physical albums.
Physical mediums, like CDs, vinyl and cassettes, still account for more than
half of all music purchases. It is worth noting however, that physical sales
have shifted a bit. CD sales were down 14 percent in 2016 while vinyl records
saw a 25.9 percent increase over 2015. That brings vinyl up to a new high that
hasn’t been seen in more than two decades.
Nor does it mean that people aren’t listening to music. In
fact, music consumption rose 4.9 percent in 2016. Much of that was due to paid
and ad-supported streaming services. This past year saw a record high in audio
streaming, with more than 250.7 billion streams over the course of the year.
The report makes note that the average daily amount of streams was more than
the entire amount of songs downloaded within the year (1.2 billion streams per
day verses 734 million downloads).
And if you thought record companies weren’t making money off
of streaming, guess again. A chart detailing audio streaming shows that over
the last eight quarters, paid subscriptions to streaming services skyrocketed
past ad-supported free subscriptions. The difference is astounding, with a more
than 40 billion subscription gap between the two.
The report also details the artists who had the biggest year
in terms of sales and streaming. Drake takes home the gold as artist of the
year. His album ‘Views’ was the most consumed album of 2016, followed by Adele’s
’25,’ Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade,’ Rihanna’s ‘Anti’ and Twenty One Pilots’ ‘Blurryface,’
respectively. Adele’s ‘25’ remains the top-selling album of the year for the
second year in a row. As for vinyl, Twenty One Pilots had two albums in the top
10, including the number one spot for ‘Blurryface,’ in a market dominated by
legacy and deep catalog releases (albums 3 years or older).
The sales outlook seems a little sunnier in the UK,
where sales actually increased by 1.5 percent last year over 2015. Vinyl made
an even bigger increase over there at 53 percent, putting the medium at a
25-year high for the country, even though it accounted for a smaller percentage
of overall sales than in the US. The highest-selling vinyl album in the U.K.
was David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar,’ followed by Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black,’
which also came in at number two in US vinyl sales.
Even though the US record industry saw a decrease in sales
for the year, music consumption in 2016 was on the rise. Vinyl records
continued to make their re-entrance as a viable sales medium while we saw a
major shift in listening habits from song downloads to paid streaming services.
Looking ahead at the music industry landscape, it will be interesting to see
where music consumption will go from here; if streams will overtake every other
form of listening or if somehow album sales can make some sort of resurgence in
the coming year.
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Keep physical music mediums alive in 2017 by shopping Vinyl
Bay 777 and vinylbay777.com. The top new independent record shop on Long
Island, we have thousands of titles in store and online to choose from. Come
down and shuffle through our selection of new and pre-owned vinyl, CDs,
cassettes and DVDs, as well as memorabilia and more. We are open seven days a
week and are conveniently located off Sunnyside Boulevard in Plainview, NY,
just a short distance from the L.I.E. and Northern State Parkway.
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