Al*** sales at their highest ever.
Posted by: greeny on 19 August 2003
You may have heard over the past couple of days that UK album sales are at their highest ever level (230 Million plus I believe). This somewhat flies in the face of all the moaning the record companies have been doing over pirating etc.
Does this mean the Yoof of today are finally buying albums again? As Single sales are down are we just buying albums instead? Is the Playstation revolution over? I don't know but one thing I did notice was that a couple of week ago I had 4 LP's in the top ten in the charts ( Thrills, Darkness, Kings of Leon and Coral). It must be a long time since this has happened for me. OK my taste is reasonably mainstream, but usually the top ten is swamped by Celine Dion, Robbie Williams, Westlife, Now thats what I call crap music 437, or whatever.
So are we seeing better music in the upper reaches of the chart? Is this related to higher album sales? Probably just a total coincidence. Any thoughts?
Posted on: 19 August 2003 by andy c
Hi greeny,
i read in Augusts Stereophile that sales are actually down by 13%in the first three months of this year...
I still buy Cd's tho!
Posted on: 19 August 2003 by greeny
quote:
i read in Augusts Stereophile that sales are actually down by 13%in the first three months of this year...
Does that cover wordwide sales or UK?
The figures I quoted (and heard on at least 2 news broadcasts) were for UK only album sales. 230m, this is apparently a 3% increase from last year (or could have been 9% increase, I can't remember exactly).
Posted on: 19 August 2003 by Rasher
Record companies are still whinging because although sales are up, the price war is hotting up, so their profits are still falling. Still, who said they had to pay Robbie Williams £80m?. Only got themselves to blame.
Posted on: 19 August 2003 by andy c
Greeny,
the 13% relates to UK sales. there is quite a bit more in relation to unit sales, where albums sales went down by 4.9%, but prices went down 9.4%!
It does mention sales of singles going down drastically, but thats to be expected when you can buy the albums online for £8 or £9 IMO.
Posted on: 19 August 2003 by Jez Quigley
It could be argued that the greater exposure to music via file swapping, CD copying etc has led to greater CD purchasing (ala computer shareware). So maybe David Martin, witchfinder general at the BPI ought to be sacked along with all the other myopic dullards at the BPI and the money put towards developing new talent.
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood"
Posted on: 19 August 2003 by Tarquin Maynard - Portly
quote:
Originally posted by greeny:
I don't know but one thing I did notice was that a couple of week ago I had 4 LP's in the top ten in the charts
Bloody hell you must be loaded!
Regards
Mike
On the Yellow Brick Road and happy
Posted on: 20 August 2003 by HTK
quote:
they just treat their customers like criminals by introducing copy control. Pirates? The real pirates are Sony, BMG, EMI, Warner, and Universal.
Right on! Since the age of 10 I've been buying at least one albumn a week. The industry which I have been so slavishly supporting can't make enough profit, so it's my fault. At least retailers are better nowadays - but that's mainly because of the law.
I think the major record companies (not to mention film distributers et al - although that's largely the same thing) live on a different planet and want the rest of us to move there too.
