Digital Sales Vs. Physical Sales and young vs older artists fanbase..

[Playaz Eyez]

I always find it fascinating to look at rock and country music sales vs rap. Even relatively young-ish pop/country artists like Taylor Swift still sell a lot of physical copies. You'll look at an album chart and see some random country artist you've never heard of doing relatively high physical numbers, regardless of whether it's a younger or older artist. I can't figure out the demographics of all this. But I agree with the OP that for rap, when an older artist drops an album his/her fanbase thinks "ok I'm going to buy this on iTunes or in the store." Whereas when Lil Baby drops, the young fan says "ok I'm going to stream this on Spotify/Apple/youtube."

Speaking of Taylor Swift again, just last week I saw that she sold 40k in VINYL. Highest one week vinyl sales for an album since the 1990s. Pretty insane. I dunno what it is about that particular demographic of white girls that results in physically purchasing music, whereas other demographics of white girls don't.

DAMN is the last rap album to go plat off pure physical sales, and I really think it'll be the last one to do it. That was 2017.

Kendrick cleans up on vinyl too. DAMN had the second highest vinyl sales in 2018.

I think it’s just a collectors mentality. I get it.


Some people like owning things


But me, I literally don’t care. I just wanna hear the shyt. I don’t need to possess it

Even with not needing to possess it, there’s a good chance you’ve come across music and the next time you came back to it, the beat was changed, and for newer music, you’re basically shyt out of luck when that happens. There’s a Che Noir song from the past two years where the beat was changed to a worse one, and I don’t even remember what the OG one sounds like. It’s only worse for older albums. There’s a remaster of “Ready To Die” and they took the horns out of the hook and I was like
“” hearing that for the first time

 

[Sad Bunny]

U could’ve ended ur post right at the bolded. That’s my EXACT point nikka. It’s harder to even purchase music digitally than it used to be. Older people like to BUY music and be done with it. They may HAVE the streaming services and even use them. But a lot of them ain’t even listening to music enough to run that shyt up they way it needs to be. This is the point u missing.

It's a joke.

Itunes, Google play. Amazon.

Music can be purchased digitally directly from the App Stores on your phone.

 

[Larry]

Kendrick cleans up on vinyl too. DAMN had the second highest vinyl sales in 2018.


Even with not needing to possess it, there’s a good chance you’ve come across music and the next time you came back to it, the beat was changed, and for newer music, you’re basically shyt out of luck when that happens. There’s a Che Noir song from the past two years where the beat was changed to a worse one, and I don’t even remember what the OG one sounds like. It’s only worse for older albums. There’s a remaster of “Ready To Die” and they took the horns out of the hook and I was like
“” hearing that for the first time

fam, the internet exists lol


If DSP’s change a song around, I can find the version I want elsewhere 10 times out of 10. YouTube, SoundCloud, where ever.


Like I said, I don’t need to possess music, I literally only need to hear it. I remember when Travis Scott’s Maria I’m drunk got removed from streaming for whatever reason.. know what I did to hear it? fukkin Googled “Maria I’m drunk,” clicked the first link and pressed play



I do understand that I don’t speak for everyone, maybe it really is an age thing..

 

[spliz]

Kendrick cleans up on vinyl too. DAMN had the second highest vinyl sales in 2018.


Even with not needing to possess it, there’s a good chance you’ve come across music and the next time you came back to it, the beat was changed, and for newer music, you’re basically shyt out of luck when that happens. There’s a Che Noir song from the past two years where the beat was changed to a worse one, and I don’t even remember what the OG one sounds like. It’s only worse for older albums. There’s a remaster of “Ready To Die” and they took the horns out of the hook and I was like
“” hearing that for the first time

Machine Gun Funk. They took all the samples n shyt out of the hook. shyt sounds dry as fukk. nikkas gonna learn the hard way with this streaming shyt. Everything I love. I have a back up physical copy of just in case. Also full MP3 downloads as well. shyt came in handy more than a few occasions. Roc Marci’s Reloaded got pulled off streaming for no reason and just got brought back and they had to remove a track. They added a bonus track but still. Curren$y’s Covert Coup literally JUST hit streaming this year.

 

[spliz]

It's a joke.

Itunes, Google play. Amazon.

Music can be purchased digitally directly from the App Stores on your phone.

Yes it can. But like I said. Even with Itunes. It’s easier for someone without an IPhone and Apple Music to navigate ITunes than someone with it. Because Apple Music intrudes on Itunes. I can see someone who isn’t as savvy getting annoyed with that shyt.

 

[dubsmith_nz]

I'm all up on digital but I still cop vinyl and cds for collecting and sound quality.

It is harder to cop though, Coles album still isn't easily available on CD or Vinyl. It often takes a few months for the physical copies to be available in stores and on regular websites which can hurt the physical sales in my opinion.

I copped Busta and Nas's latest albums on vinyl, both sound immaculate

 

[Ziggiy]

I feel like there’s even a divide with streaming. On one hand you have younger people who use Spotify/Apple/Tidal, the curated playlists etc. On the other hand you have a loooooot of young black (and white) people who exclusively stream their music from YouTube. Part of the reason artists like NBA Youngboy have crazy YouTube numbers is because a lot of kids don’t pay for streaming.

I didn’t put one and one together until a couple years ago when I noticed my little cousin was walking around the house listening to a playlist of a Kevin Gated album on YouTube. Likewise i was fukking with a younger chick who had the new Weeknd album on YouTube while we...enjoyed ourselves. I know she doesn’t use Spotify or anything like that and whenever we hung out she’d be playing shyt off YouTube.

Don’t Youtube streams count towards sales now?

 

[Piff Perkins]

Don’t Youtube streams count towards sales now?

They do but the free YouTube streams are weighed significantly lower than streaming from a paid service, to the point they don’t really move the numbers. So artists like Youngboy, Gates, etc are more popular than their streaming numbers (which are already great) suggest.

 

[DaHNIC82]

That streaming shyt done took advantage of people laziness and now corporations are basically leasing you music. Yes its faster and convenient for the moment for some people but it also cheapens the music.

Streaming is perfect for the hot at the moment what have you done for me lately crowd but for true music fans this shyt sucks. Especially when they take away songs for either samples or censorship. I remember listen to Quiks Rhythilism and 3 fukking songs were gone

 

[Wacky D]

If you buy a CD in 2021, I’m looking at you crazy. I don’t care how old you are.. adapt to modern technology my g
shyt is like buying a vhs in 2005 when DVD’s were obviously the new normal
My whip ain’t even got a disk drive. shyt is a dead technology

stop being a sheep. new technology isnt neccessarily better.

you can do things with VHS tapes that you cant do with DVDs. hence, the reason why the two co-existed for like two decades.

physical copies >>> streaming and its not even close.
if i get rid of my streaming service, or even worse - if it inevitably goes out of business, then my whole collection is gone
so much more i can say about this, but it will fall on death ears with the trend-hoppers.

Son that’s YOU. And it’s not about CD’s. Even with digital. It’s harder to just purchase and be done with it. It’s not as simple with Apple Music being in the fold. U gotta go thru a whole nother app to even purchase the music. Not only that. Even with streaming. Older people ain’t sitting around just streaming shyt all day. It’s just not what’s happening. They may have the streaming services. But the way they listen to music and the manner that they listen to music is different than the younger gen. Which is why they don’t benefit from the streaming shyt as much. I mean the fukking proof is in the pudding man. It’s the reason why Lil Baby went plastic with actual album sales vs streaming. Someone who sells half as him in streaming is selling triple than him in actual sales.

the music industry is so out-of-touch & can never comprehend the obvious.

thats the real reason why the industry has been falling off the cliff for two decades & counting.

 

[Chris Cool]

They don't even make physical media like that. Thread is a reach. It's as easy as it's always been to cop digital. Copping cds however, that's harder than it's ever been and of course young people ain't out here copping vinyl.

 

[Rapmastermind]

Good Thread. I honestly still feel Streaming Sales SHOULD NOT be compared to Physical Sales EVER. When they mixed everything up was when I checked out of Streaming. These artist today are not going Platinum like they claim. They be saying "Every song from Cardi and K Dot album went Gold or Platinum" but we know that's all based on streaming metrics not actual sales. (Though Damn album did sell well off pure units) LOL @ them saying "So and so got a DIAMOND SINGLE" GTFOH. 10 Million people are not "Buying" These singles. Elton John got a "DIAMOND" single for that Princess Diana song that was real. I think Streaming should be it's own category and they should of never mixed it with physical sales metrics. Because of this streaming mess you got people breaking Michael Jackson, Mariah and Whitney billboard records when they albums never moved the units of theirs. Perfect example is "One Sweet Day", sorry but that's a bigger song than "Old Town Road" still to me. Mariah and Boyz II Men had one song and that was #1 for that long without any streaming remixes to keep the song on the charts. But that single is only "Platinum" and "Old Town Road" is 14x Platinum due to streaming. We know 14 Million people didn't buy "Old Town Road".

You got artist Entire LP charting when the rules always stated (Only a Single can truly chart, other songs are just Airplay charts). As for the Younger/Older Fan dynamic. It's true. I have streaming services but I don't use them like that. I like to "Own" my music and not "Rent" my music. I have a nice mixture of Physical media (CD's/Vinyl) and Digital media. I remember NaS's "Lost Tapes II" actually sold more Pure Sales than Beyonce's "Lion King" album which made "The Lost Tapes II" the #1 Digital LP that week. Sure things evolve but this Streaming ish is steroids on crack. Why should Legacy artist get punished for their Fan bases coming from the Physical era? It should be even across the board. Younger Fans listen to their music differently than people from the Physical era. because Younger fans are basically "Internet Babies" and grew up in the ditigal age. Older Fans are the OG's of the digital age, we were the first "Streamers" through the Napster Phenomenon. Low Key this whole thing is our fault, lol. But I brought the "Juicy" Single in 94. Biggie only got credit for that one sale but I listen to the song what feels like Millions of times. But again Big only gets that one sale.

When you had to "Purchase" albums, everyone was in the same boat. Plus they have devalued music. There was a time Radio could break a single. That's gone too. Previously you had multiple Different Formats to buy music (CD, Vinyl, Cassette, Single CD, Maxi Single CD, Single Cassette, 12 inch Vinyl). Now it's just Digital. One format basically. Yeah there's a lot of "Digital Platforms" but it's still basically one format. That literally shaves off several revenue streams. Now don't get me wrong. Accessibility to music is very high. But the quality on Digital isn't better to me than CDQ. I still order CD's from artist I like if it's available. But the future is here and we aren't going back. I just think streaming has made artist bigger than they are. MJ moved those units. Whitney moved those units. Whitney and MJ never had a "Diamond" single. Based on streaming, they would of had several. Every song on "Thriller" would of charted based on the rules today. "Thriller" had 7 Top 10 Singles in the Physical era. Janet's "Rhythm Nation" had 7 Top 5 singles in the Physical era.

 

[Larry]

stop being a sheep. new technology isnt neccessarily better.

you can do things with VHS tapes that you cant do with DVDs. hence, the reason why the two co-existed for like two decades.

physical copies >>> streaming and its not even close.
if i get rid of my streaming service, or even worse - if it inevitably goes out of business, then my whole collection is gone
so much more i can say about this, but it will fall on death ears with the trend-hoppers.





the music industry is so out-of-touch & can never comprehend the obvious.

thats the real reason why the industry has been falling off the cliff for two decades & counting.

I’m not a sheep, I just have the internet



why would I give a fukk about a collection of music. I can find any song in the world with one google search


The likelihood of that changing is very low chief. I listen to music. I don’t need to possess it.

 

[spliz]

They don't even make physical media like that. Thread is a reach. It's as easy as it's always been to cop digital. Copping cds however, that's harder than it's ever been and of course young people ain't out here copping vinyl.

It’s not a reach and it’s not ONLY about physical media. It’s even digital. They make it harder to buy digital than it used to be as well. U gotta go thru more hoops than with streaming. And like I said. Older people don’t even LISTEN to music as much as the younger gen. But they still can love the artist and wanna support. But now they gotta listen to the fukking songs 20 million times for their fav artist to “sell” records. It’s a disconnect in how the music is consumed. And believe it or not. I deal with helping people with tech everyday. ALOT of older people don’t truly know how to use their phones let alone fukk with all the apps n shyt like that. They would rather the shyt just be simple and purchase a physical copy. Digital will NEVER sound better than physical as well. I’m saying this as someone who deals with tech as a living and I fukking build computers for Christ sakes. I prolly know more about tech than everyone in this thread. I been streaming music since before it was the cool thing to do. I had a fukkin ZUNE fam. Streaming music back then. But I’m smart enough to know the limitations of streaming music. I always make sure I have either a permanent digital copy or a permanent physical copy stashed away for any music I really appreciate. Whether it’s on some external drives or whatever. Cause streaming done fukked me over with music plenty of times over the years.

 

[spliz]

I’m not a sheep, I just have the internet



why would I give a fukk about a collection of music. I can find any song in the world with one google search


The likelihood of that changing is very low chief. I listen to music. I don’t need to possess it.

Son I have music that u can’t even find on the net. I promise u that. shyt. If u are an Aaliyah or De La Soul fan. U fukked. That’s goes for other artists too who went thru label issues. Clearance issues. Music people forgot about. I PROMISE u I have music from artists that u either don’t remember or isn’t available on streaming anywhere. I’ve had to even upload certain shyt to the internet just so the internet can have it.