Back in 1980, when Blondie and Pink Floyd were rocking the charts, 59% of music sales were for LPs or EPs. Back just last year that figure was down to 1%, with 49% CD sales. Check out this glorious GIF of graphs from 30 years of music industry info.
Music industry
Apple to ban iPhone users from filming live concerts?
Cutting down use of iPhones at live concerts is a win-win situation,it’s just a shame it’s going to take the increasingly Big Brother antics of Apple to make it happen says Everett True.
Data download: lies, damned lies and piracy reports
Illegal downloading will cost the industry over $5 billion by 2016 and “8000 fewer jobs in the core content industries last year”, according to a report in Fairfax papers. But that’s not telling the whole story.
My Cup Of Tea: Day the music died (for EMI) is more trouble for industry
EMI is in the hands of its bankers after the iconic British record label was repossessed by Citibank earlier this week. The music industry’s problems are not going away.
Concert sales hit a low note
The one saving grace for the embattled music industry in recent years has been concert and festival tickets. But 2010 has seen global ticket sales fall by 12%.
ARIAs, schmarias: ‘trainwreck TV’ first, industry awards second
After the canning dished out by viewers last night, only the most hungover of music execs would be confident this morning of the continuing relevance of the annual industry knees-up.
3,600 reasons why the Oz music industry is in trouble
How many records do you need to sell to get to No 1 on The ARIA? Well this week metal band Bring Me the Horizon managed it after selling only 3,600 albums. What a sad state the music industry is stuck in, explains Tim Dunlop.
Daily Proposition: Discover the killer music app
In the new days, music charts were compiled by counting the number of units sold through online outlets such as iTunes. And then along came We Are Hunted.
The fix is in: website will pay to rort the ARIA music charts
A mysterious website claims to be able to rig the ARIA music charts by paying people to download tracks from iTunes. But ARIA says any artist caught using the site will be disqualified from charting, writes Crikey intern Alexander Hammond.
Our latest cultural cringe: dancing to Aussie R&B
So we don’t have Beyonce, but many Aussie R&B and pop artists have released pretty great tracks in the last few years. Do they need a thumbs up by the US market before we’ll admit to loving them? asks Clem Bastow.
From glass making to magazines: a classic Young Rich mix
An interview with entrepreneur Ash Hunter, owner of Just Magazines (Just Cars and Just Bikes) and Hunterfive, an investment company. How do you combine new media, publishing, manufacturing and property?
The musical history of the mp3
This decade will go down in music history, not for the tunes created but for the technological changes. Mp3s have reaffirmed that the music industry is about more than just capitalism, writes Eric Harvey.
Would you subscribe for streaming music?
As music companies struggle with what appears to be a declining market, one of the models being pursued is the idea of subscribing to a music streaming service in a similar way to which some people subscribed to cable/satellite television. Can it catch on? asks Tim Dunlop.
Australian indies and MTV
Last week, our music blog Johnny’s in the Basement published a guest post about a dispute between Australian indie music labels and the broadcasters MTV and VH1 Australia. Today, MTV has written a response.
Guy Rundle: IP, a whiter shade of property
Intellectual property is a fiction, and the way in which it is conceived changes over time, writes Guy Rundle. Just ask Men at Work.
JB HiFi: no longer smashing prices on CD singles
With downloadable mp3s making the CD single obsolete, music retail giant JB HiFi has finally bitten the bullet and dumped them from their shelves.
Brisbane band sells music for tweets
Brisbane band Yves Klein Blue are offering fans free downloads of their latest single for free — under one condition: they must tweet about the lengths they would go to see the band play at the Splendour in the Grass festival next month.
Death of the music megastore
Once an icon of the west, music super-stores are now a sad casualty of the booming digital music market and shrinking bank balances. The NY Times visits New York’s last large-scale record store — Virgin Megastore — on its final day of business.
Why file sharing will save music and movies
Pirate Bay may have lost, but P2P is still the future of distributing movies and music.
Career relief: John Farnham sniffs out a worthy cause
Sound Relief is testament to the best of what’s great about the generosity of the music industry; but there’s some financial reward for many of the big boys involved, writes Ross Stapleton.
CDs: Alive, selling and better value than a new telly
Apparently music retailers are being flooded by consumers who can’t afford a new TV or refrigerator, writes Ross Stapleton.
Music industry propaganda hits a bum note
The digitial revolution in music distribution is starting to get nasty, writes technology blogger Stilgherrian.
What would you pay for Abbey Road?
Radiohead has told fans they can pay what they want to download their latest album, In Rainbows. Mental as anything? You decide.
