By Mike Gendel.
As 2014 comes to a close, musicians can find little to be optimistic about. The decline in sales continues and it appears that the only album that will have platinum sales this year will be Taylor Swift’s 1989. By this time last year, we had only five platinum releases and according to some, none of them would have been in the top 10 sellers just a decade earlier.
The many problems facing independent musicians are growing.
The ability to break from the old record label system was seen as liberating. Many music observers saw the rise of independent releases as a chance for artists to have their music released and heard by a significant part of the music-buying public. However, this has proven to not be the case.
While it was seriously flawed, the label system was the most reliable financial and promotional source available to artists. As revenues continue on more than a ten year decline and as digital has become the predominate choice for music buyers, the label system has for all intents and purposes been dismantled.
Digital continues to grow, but the growth has not been enough to overcome the decline in sales of hard copies. Some point to the resurgence of vinyl as a bright spot, but vinyl sales account for an almost insignificant percentage of overall music sales. Of particular concern to musicians is the ever- decreasing payments to artists with each new delivery system. Streaming royalties are significantly less than those of downloads, which is less than those from CD sales.
Streaming sites like Spotify and Pandora were welcomed as a way to gain exposure as well as a revenue stream to offset recording costs. However, the growth of subscriptions to the services is relatively slow. A bigger problem for artists is the fact that the services method of computing royalties is murky at best and payments are very low. The result is that some artists, including Taylor Swift, have removed all of their releases from Spotify.
As 2014 comes to a close, musicians can find little to be optimistic about. The decline in sales continues and it appears that the only album that will have platinum sales this year will be Taylor Swift’s 1989. By this time last year, we had only five platinum releases and according to some, none of them would have been in the top 10 sellers just a decade earlier.
The many problems facing independent musicians are growing.
The ability to break from the old record label system was seen as liberating. Many music observers saw the rise of independent releases as a chance for artists to have their music released and heard by a significant part of the music-buying public. However, this has proven to not be the case.
While it was seriously flawed, the label system was the most reliable financial and promotional source available to artists. As revenues continue on more than a ten year decline and as digital has become the predominate choice for music buyers, the label system has for all intents and purposes been dismantled.
Digital continues to grow, but the growth has not been enough to overcome the decline in sales of hard copies. Some point to the resurgence of vinyl as a bright spot, but vinyl sales account for an almost insignificant percentage of overall music sales. Of particular concern to musicians is the ever- decreasing payments to artists with each new delivery system. Streaming royalties are significantly less than those of downloads, which is less than those from CD sales.
Streaming sites like Spotify and Pandora were welcomed as a way to gain exposure as well as a revenue stream to offset recording costs. However, the growth of subscriptions to the services is relatively slow. A bigger problem for artists is the fact that the services method of computing royalties is murky at best and payments are very low. The result is that some artists, including Taylor Swift, have removed all of their releases from Spotify.
