Spotify gets blamed for decreasing album sales - again!

[beachy]

Once again spotify are being blamed for decreasing album sales whilst Spotify believes it us actually increasing album sales by promoting more music to a wider audience.
However, having said that the new arguement that spotify targets a younger audience which doesn't have any disposable income is a new one on me.

Check out the full article here

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3ifa3e60e2b52e22814838355c7b9ba5f3

[James]

Geez, what is it with these industry dinosaurs, they really are prepared to stand in the way of modernisation and think they can stop the digital age (for want of a better expression)?

I find this constant attack on the future of music really irritating as I know my music taste has grown exponentially since the coming of free music services. Admittedly the early years of it weren't that helpful, services like Napster (in its free, not so legal days) and AudioGalaxy just allowed straight forward theft of music, and creating your own copies... that I admit isn't very helpful, and I don't for one moment suggest that that is the future.

Services like Spotify though open peoples eyes to music they'd never listen to otherwise... as an example, Lady Sovereign went into the Big Brother UK house in the last series of here.... I, and probably many others too, couldn't help but look her up on Spotify and see what her music was like, listen through a few songs and see what you think.... this is unthinkable in the CD age, I'm not going to go and buy a CD to see what I think, and as is turns out, that's good, because it's not my type of music.

On the other hand, there are groups that I'll listen to, and seriously consider getting their CD, or legal download, to listen offline or in the car.... in this way, Spotify, and services like it, open the doors to audiences of people who wouldn't otherwise consider such a group... the ability to listen to similar artists is a powerful potentially seller for the industry. They really shouldn't miss the opportunity... the digital age is here, if songs can't be legally streamed, they'll be illegally streamed or downloaded... best that the industry makes some money out of it.

[dodger_moore]

I'm totally with you James. Spotify is like a radio station that you control, and radio drives sales. I also agree that the industry need to capitalise on the new way of shopping as you rightly point out. If I may add to your comments, I feel we are very much on the same page.

The way people (and I don't like this word, it always reminds me of swigging from a carton of orange juice for some reason, maybe because of 'consume within 3 days') consume music and video has undergone a seismic shift. Nowadays, the most expensive device in a household after the car and fridge is likely to be the computer, and then the TV - and since the TV has music channels and good speakers as standard, and the computer plays all known audio files and has speakers as standard...guess what's gonna get the boot? The CD Player.

I used to be an 'audiophile' way back in the early 90's with a stack of hi-fi seperates and reference speakers (sure, I was at the very, very, budget end of things but still I cared a lot!) and my music did sound banging through that set up. I still have all that stuff, but as the TV got bigger and flatter and the computer got better, it just became redundant. I don't have a space set aside in my house for CDs anymore, much less a CD player. There is space, but I don't want to put that stuff there.

I did just download David Devant and His Spirit Wife from Amazon however, and now I think of it looking at my downloaded purchased albums I'm still buying a couple a month which I didn't even realise.

I think that people who point the finger at Spotify and so on forget how it was in the past. I used to tape the ENTIRE top 40 chart show every Sunday and hit pause to cut out the dj's voice. Any music that I wanted that wasn't in the charts, well someone at school would have it for me to tape off of. People have been bootlegging and avoiding paying for music ever since the technology to do so has existed. Sometimes you just want something NOW, and if your mate has it, be that on C90, vinyl, or p2p share, you're gonna take it. The rest of the time, you'll buy it.

Unless you live in a town with NO record shops, such as I do. Newquay in Cornwwall, no record shops. Just a wasted town centre full of charity shops and kebab shops. Everything is going online these days, the era of an enjoyable stroll round the shops of a Saturday arvo has long gone because there are no shops and our town centres are not nice places to spend our leisure time. We'd rather be at the beach, park, the pub or driving somewhere else better.