“Global sales of digital music are continuing to rise, generating revenues of $1.1 billion US for record companies last year and softening an overall slump in music sales, the industry said Friday,” The Associated Press reports. “The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, said that revenues from digital sales almost tripled from $400 million in 2004. The total number of digital single tracks downloaded online or to mobile phones rose to 470 million units, up from 160 million.”
“However, overall music sales continued their decline of recent years, dropping another three per cent in 2005, largely due to a 6.7 per cent drop in the value of CD purchases,” AP reports. “Single-song downloads dominated global online sales, accounting for 86 per cent of purchases. Apple Computer Inc.’s ITunes Music Store remains the market leader. ‘When you can buy just the songs you like in a digital format, you don’t have to buy the album,’ said Phil Leigh of Inside Digital Media, a U.S. market research firm.”
Full article here.
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is there any other service that sells single-song downloads???
@ j
That is what I was wondering also.
“When you can buy just the songs you like in a digital format, you don’t have to buy the rest of the truly wretched garbage and aural phlegm on the ‘album’ that utterly makes you want to puke,” said Average Joe Consumer, the ultimate decision-maker as to what is and isn’t valuable.
Songs will get better. Competition… Good. Fire…. Bad.
No the rest of them rent there songs.
YAY! Go Apple!
http://musobs.blogspot.com/
I see that someone else has already commented on this quote from the article, ‘When you can buy just the songs you like in a digital format, you don’t have to buy the album,’ said Phil Leigh of Inside Digital Media, a U.S. market research firm.”
May I add that all of the music industry’s problems can be traced back to this single issue. For every one song they produce, that people desire to buy, they produce another 14 that people don’t want.
Artists and industry execs aren’t going to make the same profits in the future, as they have in the past, because they can’t force the consumer to buy 14 crap songs ($15.00), in order to get one ($.99).
Chunky Munky, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Perfect!
Please take this as it is intended – I am NOT MacDude or his lawyer.
I’ve got to say something in his defense: Lots of MacDude haters here – fine, but, personally I don’t have a problem with him. Why? Because, although he does go on tirades quite a bit, he does post some interesting information. Like the link to the story about OS X machines being used in BotNets. I want to know about things like that, and although it wasn’t a threat to the average user, I only found that out after READING the article HE linked to. Now, posting the link to the page that crashed Safari was not cool – he should have warned people before hand. But, quite a few times he has posted links to relevant info. You can hate him all you want – I’m not stopping you. But if you don’t like what he has to say, then just simply don’t respond. It’s that simple. I’d much prefer to sift through his posts to get to the relative info he has to say than to have to sift through 20 “MacDude go away” posts anyday. If you’re sick and tired of MacDude then simply ignore him. The little gems he does post are well worth it to me.
This isn’t a kissy-kissy let’s all make-up with MacDude post. Continue to hate him if you wish. And if you do hate him then don’t waste time posting about it (unless of course you are counter arguing something he has said).
I did not write this in a self-righteous manner and I DO NOT intend it that way. Flame all you want – I neither know MacDude personally and for cryin’ out loud I am NOT MacDude either.
“music sales continued their decline due to a 6.7 per cent drop in CD purchases”
No… sales declined because the quality of music declined!!!
Shut up, MacDude
Go away, Macdude. Nobody likes you.
To J:
Actually, eMusic.com sells songs by track, sorta. You pay X amount per month and they give you a number of tracks to download (40 tracks for $10, 65 for $15, and 90 for $20). You can get booster packs if you run out. The songs are in mp3 format and at a higher bitrate than iTunes. It’s a good alternative if you like searching for great music instead of eating spoonfuls of what MTV and radio feed you. In other words, they only have independent labels (personally I actually find that to be a good garbage filter).
If I can’t find an artist there, then I hit up iTunes.
I was under the impression that the subscription services also had the option of buying individual tracks to keep. And here in Oz we have several a la carte download services.
“generating revenues of $1.1 billion US for record companies last year”
Wow, if those goddamn hippies at Apple (I don’t know whether it’s Corp or Computer that sells the songs because I can’t tell the difference between a granny smith apple and a design apple with a bite in it) would allow the record companies to have higher, er, “more creative” prices, that number would be higher!
goddamn hippies…
Just a thought here:
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“Everyone says singles are what they want, but to play devils advocate here…what YOU may like and what I may like and what Johnny may like might be 3 totally different songs on one particular album, now imagine IF the lables only sold per single, it could kill the ALBUM offering, so now where is Johnny gonna get his song? How about if the song YOU like isn’t available because the lables stopped selling complete albums? It could happen if people continue to complain about the labels and they decide to listen to you all. I think it’s fine the way it is on iTunes. Complete albums with the option to purchase individual tracks and incentives to buy the whole album via restricted singles. It works for everyone this way don’t force it to change. The labels can (and have proven they are willing) to pull the rug out from under your feet.
Just a thought, could be wrong but would rather not KNOW it…