Album Sales

So, I think I promised this post back in March...sorry it took so long! Got a little side-tracked since then, with school and all. Anyway, this probably won't be too long, because it's a pretty straightforward topic: album sales are down the crapper. So why are they? I mean, just ten years ago albums were flying off the shelves, and there was alot more selection too. But before we go to the reasons why, I feel the need to inform you on just how low sales have gotten.

Let's start with Nelly Furtado's second album "Folklore". It was released in 2003, you know, when album sales were high, and it sold 68,000 copies in its debut week. This was enough to make it debut at number 38 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart. In 2013, Gary Allan's "Set You Free" sold 68,000 copies and debuted at number 1. Then again, this isn't that surprising seeing as how "Folklore" was release in November and during Thanksgiving weekend, obviously sales were going to be pretty tight as compared to the January release date of "Set You Free". Still, it's pretty amazing how Nelly Furtado couldn't even make the top five and Gary Allan had no trouble claiming the pole position.

Another situation I'd like to bring up is Gwen Stefani's album "L.A.M.B". It was released in November 2004, a year where basically all albums were selling like wildfire, and it sold 309,000 copies in its first week, and it debuted at number 7...number seven. Those kinds of sales would get you to number one no problem now, but back then the music market really was that competitive. To get to the top ten in 2013, you need to sell around 20,000-30,000 copies. In 2004, you needed at least ten times as much to get into the top ten. Even January sales weren't as low as they are today, and that's saying something because January is always a wasteland of sales. Although, there is one plus side to minimal competition: now an artist doesn't need to do a tired promotional cycle to get the album to the top of the charts. If you just generate a little buzz with a single or a video, you're basically guaranteed a top ten album. Lana Del Rey lucked out in 2012 when her debut "Born to Die" sold 77,000 copies and debuted at number 2. Another beneficiary of this was Kacey Musgraves in 2013, when her debut "Same Trailer, Different Park" sold a bismal 43,000 copies and also debuted at number 2. Now, the only album keeping it from number one was Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience", which sold 968,000 copies that week. If it wasn't for Justin, Kacey would've claimed the top spot, with a record sales low in the US. Currently, that honor goes to John Mayer's "Born and Raised", which sold 65,000 copies in its second week and kept the number one position.

But back to Justin Timberlake for a moment: his massive sales figure proves that an album can still sell a crap ton of copies, but only very high profile names can do so. Remember when Taylor Swift's "Red" sold 1,208,000 copies in its debut week? It outsold the rest of the top ten, twenty, and thirty combined. And of course we have Adele's "21", which is so far the only album to go Diamond in the US in the 2010s (it's actually the only album that's been able to surpass the 5x Platinum mark too), and it sold a staggering 26.5 million copies worldwide. That's an impressive feat in any decade, but especially now, when 99% of artists would be extremely lucky to go Gold in any country. So now we go on to the big question: why is so hard for albums to sell now-a-days? There's obviously something that's keeping people from going to the stores and purchasing one. Now, the economy really isn't an excuse. Why? Because first of all, albums are cheaper than they've ever been in the 2000s millenium. Albums are $9.99-$11.99 and in most stores. In 2003, albums were $13.99-$14.99, so yeah, buying one album isn't going to put a big dent in your wallet. And the economy isn't so bad to the point of everybody living at the poverty level and we can only afford the bare essentials. All of your iPods, iPads, iPhones, MacBooks, mini-fridges and flat-screen TVs prove that point very well.

Indeed, there are a few new services that are severely hurting album sales. The biggest culprits, however, are these little streaming sites known as YouTube and Spotify. Since we live in the digital era, the internet is now how we consume music. There's no more getting together with your friends and hearing each others' CDs, instead we all send YouTube links to each other. In turn, everybody is now posting full albums on YouTube, making it very easy with someone who has a video converter to get the music for free. It also helps that iPods and cell phones have YouTube access now, so we can play a song, or album, for free and not have to pay a single penny. But an even bigger hindrance of album sales is Spotify. It's a service that's free, there's no catches or hidden fees or anything, you just have to put up with intermittent ads as you can listen to any song or album ever made in existence for free and not have to drop a dime. iPods and Cell Phones also have Spotify access, so you don't have to pay anything to listen to your favorite music wherever and whenever you want. Like I said in an earlier blog post, why would anyone use gas to go to the store and get a $10 album, when you can just stream it on your music playing devices for free?

Now, I'm very old fashioned, and I spend the $10 to get an album. I mean really, it's just a CD and it doesn't cost as much as an iPod or a TV, so I really don't see the problem in just getting the disc. Don't you like the feeling of opening the plastic, breaking the seal, opening up the case and putting the CD into a CD-ROM drive or a CD player for the first time? I love that feeling, it's like Christmas! But anyway, that's just me, I just use Spotify and YouTube to tide me over until I can get the actual copy of the album in my hands. I do miss the days when CDs were a novelty, they sold rapidly because it was just that cool to say "Yeah, I have the new 'Insert Artist Name Here's' CD, wanna listen?" Remember when NSYNC's album "No Strings Attached" sold 2.42 million copies in its debut week? 2.42 million people didn't get an individual copy, there were actually girls who bought multiple copies, because it really was that awesome to have more than one. I'd like to get back to those days, but sadly, with all these new luxuries, most people are going to take the easy way out and just stream the albums. I'd rather listen to an album with no ads and no stopping, but like I said, that's just me.