When Kanye West launched his latest album, the focus was on his protective approach to distribution. The strategy was controversial at best, especially given the immediate wave of piracy the title faced. But in the weeks following the official release, West has been less obviously changing how his fans perceive the very idea of an album in the streaming age. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Sony’s future sans sales; another metadata service joining the mix. Continue Reading
The RIAA has decided that streaming counts will be included toward albums’ gold and platinum certification. On-demand audio and video streams will be a factor in measuring performance effective immediately. Gold certification is awarded to an album with 500,000 sales, while platinum is 1 million sales and multi-platinum is 2 million. Continue Reading
Nicki Minaj weighed in on the role of streaming in an Instagram post celebrating one year of her album The Pinkprint. She called for streaming performance to be accounted for in sales figures. “The music business doesn’t really seem designed to reward our culture with the sales & accolades we deserve,” she wrote. Continue Reading
The British Phonographic Industry and the Entertainment Retailers Association have investigated the crossover between streaming music patrons and CD purchases. The UK organizations found that 66% of its survey respondents use streaming as a discovery tool, then buy physical copies of their favorite works. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Streaming may mean the end fall blockbuster albums; a data scientist finds the most timeless songs; Wired on Internet radio comeback. Continue Reading
Germany’s music sector posted gains from streaming and sales in the first half of 2015, according to a report by the Federal Music Industry Association (BVMI). Streaming services now account for 12.8% of the country’s music revenue, up from 7.7% in the first half of 2014. “The 87 percent increase in music streaming even exceeds the forecast contained in the streaming study we published back in March,” the group’s managing director Dr. Florian Drücke said. Continue Reading
The British Phonographic Industry released half-year data about music sales in the UK. The report showed that there have been 11.5 billion tracks played in the first six months of 2015, compared with 14.8 billion plays in all of 2014. Dedicated audio streaming services see about 480 million streams a week. Stream Equivalent Album consumption for the first half was 11.49 million, up 79.5% from the year-ago period. Continue Reading
CDs are having a tough time of it on the sales charts, and some retailers seem to be throwing in the towel. Starbucks announced that it will no longer have discs for sale at its counters. Grocery chain Whole Foods may be considering the same move. Continue Reading
The Official Albums Chart in the UK announced that the beginning in March, it will incorporate data from streaming services into its calculations. The equation it will use for determining rankings is designed to reflect the success of a whole album rather than seeing boosts due to a couple popular singles. The unique formula will downweigh the top two singles from an album to the average of the rest of the top 12 most-streamed tracks. Continue Reading
One of Spain’s music charts announced the launch of a new Top 100 Songs list that will incorporate streaming numbers as well as downloads and physical sales. PROMUSICAE (Productores de Música de España) will use the new joint chart to replace its weekly Top 50 Songs and Top 100 Streaming charts. Several charts organizations worldwide have made shifts to include data about streaming. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: The return of cassettes; the return of vinyl; Nielsen on marketing to millennial men; more on Merlin/Pandora. Continue Reading