All this talk about Music Sales and Hiphop vs other genres, etc. Got me Thinking...

[Nostalgic]

IYRTITL was the hardest album to get for free in recent years when it came out

I swear whenIYRTITL dropped EVERYONE was tryna download it

Key word is download it...Not buy it.

As I said before, hiphop fans don't get off their azz to go buy albums anymore.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

This might be a legitimate theory if rap was the only genre that was struggling with sales, but there's a hand full of artist in any genre that are doing huge numbers.

Exactly. I don't know how people keep glossing over the fact noone in any genre is selling albums by the millions like that outside of Adele and Swift

 

[hex]

Eh....

The mixtape point makes sense but I kinda disagree. Unless you're specifically talking about the last decade or so. 50 Cent and G-Unit partially blew up off their mixtape grind.

The major, #1 reason hip-hop sales are is because it's the only genre where fans are willfully, gleefully ignorant and dismissive of anything over a few years old. Wayne was going 4x plat less than a decade ago, now the same dudes that used to stan him are mocking him for struggling while dikk riding Drake and Young Thug. shyt is low key weird as fukk.

A few years from now the cycle will repeat. And this generation will be trying to tell everyone why their music is the shyt and nobody will give a fukk.

It's like rap is a tree and fans are constantly sawing off the branches.

Fred.

 

[mr. smoke weed]

Adele has a much broader fanbase (40-50 age demographic) who have more disposable income

You think the disposable income ($12) is the real reason? It's the combination of internet, and a distant second, mixtapes. Threadstarter breh has a point. Why would you buy their content when they just give it away?

 

[IllmaticDelta]

You think the disposable income ($12) is the real reason?

hell yeah!

It's the combination of internet,

that's the biggest reason

and a distant second, mixtapes.

this would only hold true if not for the fact sales in ALL GENRES are down


Album Sales Continue Decline, Music Streaming Rises in 2014

Streaming continued to be the big story in music consumption during 2014, as sales in both physical and digital formats experienced ongoing flattening, according to year-end figures from Nielsen Music.

Breaking out the year’s strongest numbers, Nielsen Entertainment senior vp of industry insights David Bakula said in a statement, “Digital music consumption continues its robust growth, with on-demand streaming up 54% over last year and 164 billion song streams being played by music consumers in 2014. Although overall music sales are showing declines, vinyl album sales were up 52% in 2014, shattering last year’s record-setting total by more than 3 million LPs. In 2014, Vinyl album sales accounted for more than 6% of all physical albums sales.”

On the digital album front, Taylor Swift’s “1989” and Disney’s “Frozen” soundtrack were the only titles to move more than 1 million, shifting 1.41 million and 1.26 million respectively.

The steep decline in digital song sales was reflected in the fact that just one track sold more than 5 million units during the year: Pharrell Williams’ “Happy,” which tracked 6.45 million units. In 2013, three songs passed the 5 million mark: Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s “Blurred Lines” (nearly 6.5 million), Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” (6.14 million) and Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” (almost 5.5 million).

The continuing alteration of the way Americans consume music was reflected in Nielsen Music’s decision late last year to reconfigure its weekly ranking of the nation’s top albums by compiling data comprising streams, physical sales and so-called “track equivalent” digital albums. Since its initiation of music tracking in 1991, the metrics firm’s SoundScan unit had used physical album scans to formulate its chart.

Streaming was the most important growth slice of the music pie, which a big year-over-year gain above 2013, when streams increased 32% to 118.1 billion units.

LP sales saw the largest lift since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales, and showed year-over-year growth for the ninth consecutive year. However, as Bakula noted, vinyl albums still claim only a small percentage of music sales; the format had been entirely supplanted by the compact disc when Nielsen started up.

In the big picture, consumers continued to take to their computers and mobile phones, as the purchase of music in both physical and digital form predictably slumped for yet another year.

Total album sales (including CDs, cassettes, LPs and digital albums) slipped another 9% to 257 million, down from 289.4 million in 2013 (when an 8% decline was registered). Digital albums witnessed a 9% drop last year, down to 117.6 million, after a flat performance of 118 million the preceding 12 months.

As previously reported, Taylor Swift’s big fourth-quarter pop hit “1989” was the year’s biggest-selling release at 3.66 million, wresting the crown from “Frozen” (3.53 million) in the last week of the year. Just two other albums sold in excess of 1 million during the year: British pop singer Sam Smith’s “In the Lonely Hour” (1.21 million) and a cappella act Pentatonix’s Yule package “That’s Christmas to Me” (almost 1.14 million). The compilation soundtrack “Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1” rounded out the top five with total sales of 898,000.

Three of the year’s bestselling albums – “Frozen,” Beyonce’s self-titled release and Lorde’s “Pure Heroine” – were issued in 2013.

Album Sales Continue Decline, Music Streaming Rises in 2014

 

[KathleenJohnson]

You think the disposable income ($12) is the real reason? It's the combination of internet, and a distant second, mixtapes. Threadstarter breh has a point. Why would you buy their content when they just give it away?

most people age 15-25 (including you based on your screen name) smoke weed, drink and pop pills.

Dime bag of loud = $10 a day
Newport Menthols = $10 a day
Bottles of Ciroc = $100 a week
Lean + Pills = $100 a month

You can't afford to pay for music, when your already paying close to $1,000 a month juggling your various habits.

 

[mr. smoke weed]

most people age 15-25 (including you based on your screen name) smoke weed, drink and pop pills.

Dime bag of loud = $10 a day
Newport Menthols = $10 a day
Bottles of Ciroc = $100 a week
Lean + Pills = $100 a month

You can't afford to pay for music, when your already paying close to $1,000 a month juggling your various habits.

Well that's all bueno. I personally, don't use lean/pills and definitely don't drink enough to spend $100/month of liquor, also don't smoke cigs. I get what you're saying --the kids have a bunch of bad habits that we'd rather waste money on, but I don't think that causes us to buy less music. 29/30 here breh

 

[Maschine_Man]

Exactly. I don't know how people keep glossing over the fact noone in any genre is selling albums by the millions like that outside of Adele and Swift

its not about selling millions though.

There are lots of artists that are selling. No one is selling liek they did before.
But hiphop by far has taken the biggest hit.

Guys like snoop, and Rick Ross, and 50 Cent can't even break 100K anymore

The Official Top 40 Biggest Albums Of 2015 are...
1 X ED SHEERAN
2 IN THE LONELY HOUR SAM SMITH
3 1989 TAYLOR SWIFT
4 WANTED ON VOYAGE GEORGE EZRA
5 CHAOS AND THE CALM JAMES BAY
6 HOZIER HOZIER
7 TITLE MEGHAN TRAINOR
8 WILDER MIND MUMFORD & SONS
9 CHASING YESTERDAY NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING
10 HOW BIG HOW BLUE HOW BEAUTIFUL FLORENCE & THE MACHINE
11 A PERFECT CONTRADICTION PALOMA FAITH
12 ROYAL BLOOD ROYAL BLOOD
13 1000 FORMS OF FEAR SIA
14 NEVER BEEN BETTER OLLY MURS
15 I CRY WHEN I LAUGH JESS GLYNNE
16 COMMUNION YEARS & YEARS
17 CHAPTER ONE ELLA HENDERSON
18 THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION PAUL SIMON
19 DRONES MUSE
20 AMERICAN BEAUTY/AMERICAN PSYCHO FALL OUT BOY
21 LIQUID SPIRIT GREGORY PORTER
22 MOTION CALVIN HARRIS
23 THE BALCONY CATFISH & THE BOTTLEMEN
24 V MAROON 5
25 + ED SHEERAN
26 SMOKE & MIRRORS IMAGINE DRAGONS
27 THE VERY BEST OF FLEETWOOD MAC
28 IF YOU'RE READING THIS IT'S TOO LATE DRAKE
29 CAUSTIC LOVE PAOLO NUTINI
30 UPTOWN SPECIAL MARK RONSON
31 III TAKE THAT
32 THE DAY IS MY ENEMY PRODIGY
33 THE MAGIC WHIP BLUR
34 FOUR ONE DIRECTION
35 THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION LIONEL RICHIE & THE COMMODORES
36 COMPTON DR DRE
37 TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY KENDRICK LAMAR
38 DIRECT HITS KILLERS
39 LISTEN DAVID GUETTA
40 COMING UP FOR AIR KODALINE

Damn that came out bad. But every other Genre is doing much better than Hiphop
(this was as of sept 29th and only for 2015 albums)

 

[Maschine_Man]

Eh....

The mixtape point makes sense but I kinda disagree. Unless you're specifically talking about the last decade or so. 50 Cent and G-Unit partially blew up off their mixtape grind.

The major, #1 reason hip-hop sales are is because it's the only genre where fans are willfully, gleefully ignorant and dismissive of anything over a few years old. Wayne was going 4x plat less than a decade ago, now the same dudes that used to stan him are mocking him for struggling while dikk riding Drake and Young Thug. shyt is low key weird as fukk.

A few years from now the cycle will repeat. And this generation will be trying to tell everyone why their music is the shyt and nobody will give a fukk.

It's like rap is a tree and fans are constantly sawing off the branches.

Fred.

I'm not saying mixtapes are bad
Creating mixtapes when you are trying to break in the game is cool. Its your demo. Its your way to get your name out there and get ppl to check for you. Alot of ppl don't wanna pay for an unknown, so giving it away for free is how you get them to listen.

Its when established dudes that are on labels that just create mixtapes and give them out for free then turn around and ask you to buy their next one.

it don't make sense.

Dudes are creating mixtapes like albums.

When 50 and the dudes were doing mixtapes in the 90's and 00's they weren't creating albums. They were creating remixes, and jumping on other ppls beats, sprinkled in with a few originals.

 

[Suleiman Bey]

Well that's all bueno. I personally, don't use lean/pills and definitely don't drink enough to spend $100/month of liquor, also don't smoke cigs. I get what you're saying --the kids have a bunch of bad habits that we'd rather waste money on, but I don't think that causes us to buy less music. 29/30 here breh

WHo would buy something they can get free in seconds with no real consequences. Plus stores are phasing out real media. There are no more local mom and pop shops. FYE is the only dedicated media store and they don't even carry that much media. Walmart only sells clean hip hop albums. Nobody is buying from them.

 

[be back in a bit]

If the mixtapes are as good as the albums, then yeah its a problem and I can see why people wouldnt buy the albums. Personally none of the artists I like put out mixtapes, shyts are usually trash anyways.

 

[Suleiman Bey]

I'm not saying mixtapes are bad
Creating mixtapes when you are trying to break in the game is cool. Its your demo. Its your way to get your name out there and get ppl to check for you. Alot of ppl don't wanna pay for an unknown, so giving it away for free is how you get them to listen.

Its when established dudes that are on labels that just create mixtapes and give them out for free then turn around and ask you to buy their next one.

it don't make sense.

Dudes are creating mixtapes like albums.

When 50 and the dudes were doing mixtapes in the 90's and 00's they weren't creating albums. They were creating remixes, and jumping on other ppls beats, sprinkled in with a few originals.

They have to create mixtape like albums for a buzz and for more material to perform for show dates. It's great promotion. They are not selling what they used to. It's harder to get a release date. People hate Rick Ross but what he has accomplished is amazing. He released 3 albums in less than 2 years. 4 if you count "Black Dollar" . He may not have done well at retail, but he will have fresh material to perform at show dates. Yo Gotti can't get a release date and he's a "hot rapper".

 

[Maschine_Man]

most people age 15-25 (including you based on your screen name) smoke weed, drink and pop pills.

Dime bag of loud = $10 a day
Newport Menthols = $10 a day
Bottles of Ciroc = $100 a week
Lean + Pills = $100 a month

You can't afford to pay for music, when your already paying close to $1,000 a month juggling your various habits.

ppl were doing the same thing 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago,etc.























But for real though, if you spending that much money on your habits, you need to get your life checked over for real.

you smoking and drinking up down payments on houses every year?

 

[Maschine_Man]

If the mixtapes are as good as the albums, then yeah its a problem and I can see why people wouldnt buy the albums. Personally none of the artists I like put out mixtapes, shyts are usually trash anyways.

alot of times the mixtapes are actually better (see French and Rick ross for example)
don't have to worry about sample clearances and politics.

but who do you listen to that doesn't have a mixtape or even free music up on soundcloud,etc?

 

[Maschine_Man]

They have to create mixtape like albums for a buzz and for more material to perform for show dates. It's great promotion. They are not selling what they used to. It's harder to get a release date. People hate Rick Ross but what he has accomplished is amazing. He released 3 albums in less than 2 years. 4 if you count "Black Dollar" . He may not have done well at retail, but he will have fresh material to perform at show dates. Yo Gotti can't get a release date and he's a "hot rapper".

they don't have to create those mixtapes for buzz.
the model hasn't changed in any other genre so why are they doing that in hiphop?

singles/videos/features. Thats how you keep your buzz up without oversaturating yourself or giving away free albums.

Rappers have done this to themselves. This generation of trying to be the next big thing or be the latest trend is making these rappers post up music immediately. Instagram, soundcloud. These dudes record a song and throw it up online.
Ppl consume it like fast food. take one listen and on to the next one.

I can't think of more than 4-5 albums that came out this year that I listened through more than once.