Bye Bye Cd's...Hello Digital World

Will there eventually be no more physical CD’s to buy? Most likely the way things have been looking over the past few years the answer is yes. People are now turning to iTunes to buy their music. With this the sales for physical CD’s has drastically declined along with album sales. According to Rolling Stone Music digital music sales added up to 50.3 percent of all music sales in 2011. The Nielsen SoundScan Billboard report that’s released every year stated that digital sales were up by 8.4 percent from 2011 and physical album sales were down by 5 percent from last year. It was the first time digital sales beat physical copies. Adele reportedly sold 1,801,000 digital copies of her album 21. According to Rolling Stone Music Rock and alternative music genres total about 38 million digital downloads by users. While R&B is the third most popular genre for digital album downloads. With digital music being available to the public worldwide it puts a big hurting on the music industry. They music industry has pushed for iTunes to raise their prices so they could make a little bit more profit. So iTunes recently raised their prices on singles to $1.29 for more popular songs 99cents for less popular songs and 69cents for old non-popular songs. In other words they are going to make it impossible to find songs for 69cents. Most consumers only buy single nowadays, that also hurts record labels too. In all actuality the artist will probably never get to see any of the price increase. It is also unfair to the producers and songwriters. With the sale of digital singles and album’s you don’t get to see the producer credits for each song. Give it about another year or two it will be impossible to find your favorite artist physical CD.   

  

Will Fashion save the Music Industry???

The Music industry is doing okay but it will never hit its prime again like it did back in late 90’s. Now in order for them to make money they are leaning towards fashion to save them. Fashion and music of all genres go hand and hand. For example Nicki Minaj is a very stylish woman when it comes to fashion, she even has her own nail polish line. Some might even call her and other big name recording artist fashion Icons. The fans might even want to dress like them because they inspire the fans so much. Since the sale of physical CD’s dropped record labels rely on the sales of merchandise to keep them afloat, if they don’t try to go crazy with the idea and overprice the merchandise. The use of Apples “iTunes” is really hurting the industry. Not only are people not buying physical CD’s anymore but they also are only buying singles instead of the whole album. Justin Bieber is a prime example they sell his name/brand on things such as toothbrushes, pillows, Barbie dolls, Christmas ornaments and many other things. Universal Music Group signed a deal with Tommy Hilfiger on May 26^th of 2011. UMG made it clear that they will not be partnering with the “Tommy Hilfiger” brand, but the deal was to create a rock-‘n’-roll-inspired clothing line for high-end boutiques and department stores. Their plan is to get with artist and bands to create ideas to have there branded merchandise that would be sold to stores. This wouldn’t be Universal’s first time experiencing with fashion. In 2007 they bought Bravado a United Kingdom merchandising company. Bravado reported sales in excess of $300million in 2010 and seen a 28% increase in sales in mid 2011. Music and Fashion will always go hand-in-hand just fashion week in New York. Whether the world is ready to start paying for it is a different story.