So, where does the news that Adele’s “21″ has now outsold Pink Floyd’s legendary “Dark Side of the Moon” leave the idea that downloading is killing music?
It’s increasingly looking like a big lie.
While I have no figures in front of me (and distrust any numbers quoted by Big Music), there is a lot of evidence that overall music sales aren’t declining at all. What has really been happening is that the major labels have been losing market share. During the boom years they made huge profits selling overpriced CDs, and eventually grew lazy and complacent. Too much of the music they released was formulaic cookie-cutter “product” that took few risks, aimed at people who buy all their music in supermarkets, and by controlling access to the mass media they prevented anything else from being heard. The coming of broadband internet radically changed the way people discovered and consumed music, and the majors were very slow in adapting their business models to take advantage of new methods of distribution. The lost out to those that did, and the likes of iTunes ate their lunch.
Rather than develop newer business models, they screamed “piracy!” and lobbied corrupt politicians to pass draconian protectionist legislation.
I’m now starting to believe that laws like America’s Stop Internet Piracy Act and Britain’s Digital Economy Act were never really about “piracy” at all. The way such laws have the potential to cripple parts of the net used by independent musicians to promote and distributed their work wasn’t just an unfortunate side effect, it was the whole point. “Piracy” was never more than a smokescreen, a lie spun to people like Peter Mandelson.
Just think about it. Which of these two activities hurts the major labels more?
- “Illegally” downloading an album you probably would never have bought, listening to it once and thinking “meh”.
- Paying 10 quid for an independently released record, leaving you with less to spend on the majors’ music?
I rest my case
They certainly can’t claim that the music market is fundamentally undermined if it is possible to sell historically high numbers of albums.
In 2011, not only did “21″ outsell it’s nearest rival by more than 2-1 but the earlier album “19″ was 4th best seller. Old albums can piggy-back on the success of later releases – but to that extent and when the earlier album went to number 1?
It suggests people buying who hadn’t heard of it before. Which suggests finding an audience who had not been in touch with the chart.
And this is mainstream music – if the majors aren’t keeping these fans interested then what are they doing?
Significant that Adele’s record label isn’t one of the majors. It’s actually an indie label, albeit a very successful one.
There’s a Swedish metal band about at the moment called Katatonia. A friend of mine told me they were good so I downloaded the 2 albums they had out at the time.
As a result my ‘theft’ I’ve not only paid money for subsequent albums that I wouldn’t have done otherwise, but I’ve also seen them in concert 3 times (twice as the headline act and one as a support band) and even bought a T-Shirt at one of their gigs. Thanks to piracy this band has actually made money from me.
And I’ve heard that story many times, and there’s plenty of evidence that “piracy” doesn’t hurt most smaller bands. Trouble is, it doesn’t work for too many of the over-hyped major label acts. The typical “firework act” (one big flash-bang and it’s all over) doesn’t have subsequent albums for people who torrented their first to buy.
From the music fans perspective, this is a feature rather than a bug; it might encourage the majors to stop signing and hyping bands who aren’t really very good. But I can understand why the majors don’t see it that way.
Further evidence comes from a recent all time top 40 chart for the UK. The breakdown by decade is as follows:
1 album from the 1960s
5 from the 70s
8 the 80s
11 the 90s
14 the 2000s
and 1 from the current decade.
On this evidence alone, you would conclude that the music industry is a thriving and profitable place. And no sign of the more recent top sellers being hit by piracy compared to earlier releases. Plus the older albums have had a chance to sell to people who were too young when they came out, and multiple times on different formats.
I’m increasingly suspicious of many internet posters claiming to musicians or working for small labels, who keep repeating the corporate line. If they won’t name their band or their label, it’s hard to prove their not paid astroturfers,