2014 Music Sales: Thoughts and Predictions

We’re fresh into a new year and it’s time to not only look forward to what 2015 will bring, but to reflect on what 2014 brought to the table. This article that hypebot.com released got me thinking…

The music industry saw an 11% decrease in overall album purchases, but I don’t think this really surprised anybody all too much. It makes sense with the 54% increase in audio and video streams – also not all that shocking.

So what can we expect for 2015?

There were still 257 million album sales in total, so with a number like that I would consider them far from irrelevant. They have a solid place on every band's merch table and are readily available at every major electronics enterprise. Surely those CD sections will dwindle in size, but I don’t see their hold on the merch table going anywhere, at least for the next several years.

After that who knows – one prediction comes to mind, and it will make more sense to briefly touch on vinyl first.

A 52% increase… wow! An increase wasn't all that surprising, but that’s a rather large jump. Now, why is this happening?

I've heard numerous audio professionals express opinions on both sides of the “it sounds better” argument. For me, in a lot of situations, it’s simply a preferred sound – a slight crackle, more organic, a unique type of deepness. On top of this, vinyl provides a larger canvas for the accompaniment of visual art, and lastly, appeals to “vintage” tastes.

Well CD’s have some tonal advantages over streaming music digitally from the internet, they still provide a physical means for graphic art, and are maturing relatively rapidly.

A continued decrease in album sales seems inevitable, but for this to be followed by a comeback against digital music in the more distant future, similar to the current progression we’re seeing in vinyl, does not sound impractical.

Now for the real question – should we invest in a storefront for a “vintage CD shop” is 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?

Nick Minicucci, Account Executive @PARMALicensing