By Jack I.
Album sales are in the pits. This year, the lowest selling Number One album in United States history charted on the Billboard 200 with approximately 40,000 copies sold, numbers that would’ve been unheard of a decade ago. With the amount of formats one can listen to music with in 2015, the general public is no longer motivated to buy albums. While efforts have been made to encourage people to buy music (i.e., exclusive physical versions of albums and the revival of vinyl records), people have been ignoring the most prominent reason for the lack of album sales: streaming. Usage of streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal has skyrocketed in recent years, racking up over 18 million monthly paying subscribers in total. Besides causing a major decline in sales, streaming services force artists—who hardly make any money from such services—to expand to other business ventures that can hurt their careers. In order to save the music industry, streaming services must be defeated.
The idea of streaming music is all about making money, yet the only people not making money are the ones making the music. With paid subscribers and advertisements for unpaid subscribers, the streaming services themselves make loads of money. The artists, on the other hand, make an eighth of a cent per play on each song, which is then split between the singers, writers, and producers. After all is said and done, artists make little to no money from streaming services which in turn devalue their music. Artists such as Taylor Swift, Adele, Björk, and Coldplay have opted out of allowing their music on such services, stating that their work is worth more than a fraction of a penny. Unfortunately these are not the artists who need to fight against streaming, considering Swift and Adele’s record breaking sales, Björk’s legend status, and Coldplay’s four Number One albums. These artists are lucky enough to be making enough money to make these choices while smaller, unknown artists are suffering to make a living off of a music career. Record labels are unlikely to fulfill a small artist’s request to have his or her album restricted from streaming services when the artist is not well-known enough to sell a significant amount of albums the traditional way. Many small acts must turn to touring to make money, but one can only live on the road performing nightly shows for so long. Eventually, it takes a toll on their health and forces them to take time off, something that can greatly harm a music career.
Record labels, while supporting streaming services, make great efforts to encourage people to go out and buy albums, an act that seems outdated in 2015. Miley Cyrus and One Direction—among many other artists—have sold multiple versions of their CDs with different covers, making each different cover a collector’s item for diehard supporters. Strategies such as these have existed for years. For example, artists release exclusive content to different stores; an album sold at Best Buy may contain bonus songs that aren’t available at Target or vice versa, creating incentive for fans to purchase multiple copies of one album. In recent years, record labels have also revived vinyl records, similarly marketed with exclusive artwork, tracks, and even colored vinyl—all of which can vary depending on the retailer. But despite vinyl sales increasing, CD and digital sales continue to decrease in favor of streaming services.
Although streaming services provide little income to artists, the services are great for consumers who take in little income themselves. Most streaming services grant customers access to millions of songs for a monthly fee of ten dollars, equivalent to the average price of a single album. Spotify, one of the most popular services, offers a college discount of five dollars per month for access to the same multi-million song library, an incredible deal that is hard to pass up. It’s not hard to figure out why streaming is so popular among young people; it is clearly the more affordable choice. The underlying issue is that music is too valuable to be so easily accessible. Music is art and must be treated as such; if people cannot pay a low monthly fee to instantly have the works of Picasso and Van Gogh hanging on their walls, they should not be able to do the same to instantly have the works of Madonna and Michael Jackson playing through their speakers.
© 2016 Jack I. All rights reserved.
The idea of streaming music is all about making money, yet the only people not making money are the ones making the music. With paid subscribers and advertisements for unpaid subscribers, the streaming services themselves make loads of money. The artists, on the other hand, make an eighth of a cent per play on each song, which is then split between the singers, writers, and producers. After all is said and done, artists make little to no money from streaming services which in turn devalue their music. Artists such as Taylor Swift, Adele, Björk, and Coldplay have opted out of allowing their music on such services, stating that their work is worth more than a fraction of a penny. Unfortunately these are not the artists who need to fight against streaming, considering Swift and Adele’s record breaking sales, Björk’s legend status, and Coldplay’s four Number One albums. These artists are lucky enough to be making enough money to make these choices while smaller, unknown artists are suffering to make a living off of a music career. Record labels are unlikely to fulfill a small artist’s request to have his or her album restricted from streaming services when the artist is not well-known enough to sell a significant amount of albums the traditional way. Many small acts must turn to touring to make money, but one can only live on the road performing nightly shows for so long. Eventually, it takes a toll on their health and forces them to take time off, something that can greatly harm a music career.
Record labels, while supporting streaming services, make great efforts to encourage people to go out and buy albums, an act that seems outdated in 2015. Miley Cyrus and One Direction—among many other artists—have sold multiple versions of their CDs with different covers, making each different cover a collector’s item for diehard supporters. Strategies such as these have existed for years. For example, artists release exclusive content to different stores; an album sold at Best Buy may contain bonus songs that aren’t available at Target or vice versa, creating incentive for fans to purchase multiple copies of one album. In recent years, record labels have also revived vinyl records, similarly marketed with exclusive artwork, tracks, and even colored vinyl—all of which can vary depending on the retailer. But despite vinyl sales increasing, CD and digital sales continue to decrease in favor of streaming services.
Although streaming services provide little income to artists, the services are great for consumers who take in little income themselves. Most streaming services grant customers access to millions of songs for a monthly fee of ten dollars, equivalent to the average price of a single album. Spotify, one of the most popular services, offers a college discount of five dollars per month for access to the same multi-million song library, an incredible deal that is hard to pass up. It’s not hard to figure out why streaming is so popular among young people; it is clearly the more affordable choice. The underlying issue is that music is too valuable to be so easily accessible. Music is art and must be treated as such; if people cannot pay a low monthly fee to instantly have the works of Picasso and Van Gogh hanging on their walls, they should not be able to do the same to instantly have the works of Madonna and Michael Jackson playing through their speakers.
© 2016 Jack I. All rights reserved.