"It's up to the artists to decide what happens to it." There are those that think the album should go away and plenty of artists who still believe in the album." If albums are still selling 300m copies, it's unlikely to be abandoned. He said: "Is the album going away? People have been speculating about that forever. If consumers are tiring of buying single-track downloads – 1.1bn a year are sold at present – and turning to streaming services, up 59% on last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), is that good or bad for the album?Įd Christman, of the industry publication Billboard, said there was no definitive data to show streaming was cannibalising traditional sales, but added that in terms of revenue it took 2,000 streams to equal one album. If the TEA measure is used, Bangerz, which only sold 245,000 traditional copies in its first week, rises to 750,000 sales. To understand the shift to a market dominated by singles and streaming, the industry has introduced a new measure, TEA (track equivalent albums) which counts 10 track sales as one album. Despite opposition to Spotify from songwriters, who say streaming services pay so poorly they threaten what remains of a meagre living, streaming now contributes 16% of the industry's revenues.Īlbum sales, analysts say, are further threatened by fragmenting of genres, the poor quality of music and shopping chains carrying a limited selection of discounted releases to bring in customers.
PEARL JAM ALBUMS FORMAT DSD FREE
"Everybody's interested in the single, and no one's got time to sit and hear your hour-plus statement."Īnalysts blame Spotify, YouTube and other cheap or free streaming services for broad declines that include a 4% drop in digital downloads – the first since Apple's iTunes was launched a decade ago. "The album is dying in front of our very eyes," industry commentator Bob Lefsetz wrote. Elton John and Paul McCartney's releases failed to find any commercial footing, with Sir Elton's The Diving Board selling just 11,116 in its third week of release. Katy Perry's No 1 album Prism sold less than 300,000 copies, but that was still more than the next eight titles combined – among them Pearl Jam and Drake.ĭespite energetic twerking and taunting Sinéad O'Connor on Twitter, Miley Cyrus's Bangerz – No 1 two weeks ago – fell to fourth place with 43,000.Įven acts with loyal, older and often technologically challenged audiences are finding sales hard to come by. Last week US album sales, as measured since 1991 by Nielsen Soundscan, fell to a new low of 4.49m at the time of year when the industry typically rolls out its big acts before the holiday sales boom.
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