I have been watching music sales here in the USA and it seems to me that the bad times are just getting worse. To be perfectly frank, listening to FM radio here in the States, it doesn't take very long to sort out one glaring reason why they continue to slump, but, I digress.... What caught me by surprise was an interview I came across the first week of June where Universal Music Group Distribution president Jim Urie was actually quoted saying "We think this is the lowest week ever, or at least of the Soundscan era". This was at the end of May 2010 on a week when sales totaled a less than stellar 4.98 million. By quick comparison, the previous year's sales total at the same point in time (May 2009) was 5.79 million units. Anybody but me notice an ugly trend here? Today, we use a company known as Soundscan to help us compile these numbers and while there is no precise way to compare the latest total against pre-Soundscan tallies, Billboard Magazine estimates that weekly album sales volume could, in fact, be at its lowest point since the early 1970s. The highest one-week tally recorded during this current Soundscan era is 45.4 million albums, in late December 2000. Ten years later? 4.98 million a week! Ouch, those numbers really hurt the bottom line...
What scares me more than these paltry sales numbers is the fact that the top execs continue to point the finger at the internet as the problem and refuse to look in the mirror. UMGD's Jim Urie had the gall to claim the drop off in sales gives "all the more reason why everyone in the industry should be focused on getting the U.S. Congress to introduce legislation that makes the Internet service providers our allies in fighting piracy. Piracy is getting worse and worse, and the government needs to focus on that." Oh dear, let's play the blame game... What had he been smoking before that interview? Did he skip his meds? I have pointed out in the past that the sales are definitely still out there, simply look at Lady Gaga (whose music I avoid whenever I can). Believe it or not folks, you actually have to be quite clever in today's market and get back to the basics, MARKETING YOUR ARTISTS. This task is quite different than it has been in the past and (apparently something lost on the top execs) you can actually use the internet as a tool today if you know what you are doing. There are plenty of examples of this, all you have to do is look around, but, if you are running a music company today, do you expect the sales this month to grow as you rely on the same tired business models that once produced 388.2 million units in 1973? Times have changed, not only in the recording studio but out on the street too. The honchos at the top better wake up to this new reality quick, because, this is the new reality and we are never going back to those heady days of the 70's, thankfully...
