UK albums chart undergoing major change
STANDBY: Big chart news coming your way VERY soon...
https://twitter.com/officialcharts/status/565596194508775424
Rumors are that streaming will be included in the albums chart
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http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/uk-official-albums-chart-to-include-streaming-data-for-first-time-3479/
One thing I can think of is it may be less important to appeal to a wide market to get high album sales; as your fanbase can buy it and listen to it continually. That would be good news for artists like Lady Gaga who (seem to) have a proportionally small but loyal fanbase, or some older artists. I wonder if some much older albums will jump back into the charts now as well - LastFm for example's streaming chart consistently has artists like David Bowie, Radiohead and Red Hot Chili Peppers in its top 10 and top 20, despite those artists' peak period being some years ago now.
I think they need to differentiate between physical/ download and streaming it's great having 1 main chart but it would be helpful if they had a breakdown of the format. Also is free streaming going to be counted or just subscription based.
I don't know. I would counter-argue that album sales were almost artificially high for years when the only way you could hear non-single album tracks was to buy the album.
Now that you can buy albums for the album and tracks for the track, we are seeing a more even breakdown of the numbers of people who buy for the whole album and who buy for certain tracks. It's possible and I would say even likely that the proportion of people who buy a whole album to listen to the whole album hasn't changed much over the years; it's just that the people who used to buy an album to listen to one or two tracks off it a) now have a cheaper alternative and b) may have proportionally less money to spend anyway, since everything else is more expensive nowadays than it was. So people's 'entertainment' money is spread thinner.
Basically we've lost a lot of the people who would 'casually' buy an album, and albums are now predominantly bought by an artist's core fanbase, hence lower sales overall.
The thing is in the days of CDs you bought the album, took it home and played the songs. This was when you would hear the album tracks for the first time.
Now, you go on iTunes and click preview and you can hear the 1:30 (usually) preview and judge the song on that alone. Someone could release an epic 6 minute piece of genius that takes 3 minutes to build up. If the preview is taken from the first half, people might listen without being impressed and pass off the song as boring not knowing what happens in the second half of the song.
Previewing album tracks could be hindering people from downloading them. Like I say, when people bought albums on CD there wasn't a preview. Even if you checked an album out in a listening booth in Woolworths, you were still playing the entire song not just a random clip.
Or 1D ugh
However on the upside many Rock bands that have massive followings on the likes of Spotify will get into the mainstream chart, as well as the predicitble Beyawnonce and other rubbish. And acts like Ms Swift that have removed their material from various streaming services, will have to stick to album sales from HM Thief & Supermarkets, Amazon & iToons.
...and find you''d bought four singles and a whole load of filler.
I usually find it the other way round...the singles are released to be instant hits and tend to be the most catchiest songs in order for you to buy the album, to me the singles released are usually the filler tracks.
but how could a band have a massive following on spotify or whatever, but not have good sales too? surely the two things must tie together somehow? if the biggest selling acts are the most popular acts on spotify, surely the same would be in reverse? why would anyone enjoy a bands music so much on a streaming service, yet not buy it on itunes or cd or whatever? is that music not worth a few quid for a purchase? if people plonk down money for the shit thats in the charts, surely others would plonk down money for the type of music you refer to? i wouild have thought that rock or indie acts may have got better support from fans in that respect
I work in a company that has a good number of employers and 'spotify' spread though are company like wildfire last year - one person got it and now well over half the company are on it. I agree if music is a big part of your life then you'll prefer to stick to the physical purchases, but a lot of people like music but it isn't a major part of their lives and spotify is an easy way and simple (and cheap) way to listen to new and old music.
but if thats the case, the same issue will apply to sales regardless of genre. there are those who simply won't pay for music, and that's across the board for all genres. you would reasonably expect that the most popular artists and genres would have the greater number of people not paying. or to be more precise, it would be unlikely there is a particular genre that has a considerably higher percentage of people not paying compared to paying - apart from say comedy / parody / novelty type music perhaps. i could see the end of people paying for stuff like that as the appeal wears off much quicker
personally i store my music on my computers so if i play music it's stored locally and not streamed from online, and i can access remotely if i needed to, although i rarely find myself in that position, but i think i'm in the relative minority in regards to that
There are a lot of bands that I have never heard of but thanks to the likes of Spotify & Last FM, they have introduced me to other bands similar to my favourite bands and I have gone on to purchase their music through the bands website or Amazon.
Normally generic r'n'b bs or talentless boy groups aimed at brainless teenage girls, get endless promotion on the TV & in all major stores, where as the music that I listen to, relies on the likes of social media & the internet to get the word out that they exist. I cannot remember the last time I walked into somewhere like HMV & them having some form of promotion for one of my favourite rock bands or an upcoming release from a new Rock band. I have bought more albums since listening to Spotify as they give more promotion to the type of music that I listen to, than the likes of HMV would.
that i understand. but it's the unknown bands that are good that would benefit from streaming charts as streaming doesn't help their sales that i don't understand (something someone mentioned earlier). but then there probably aren't any statistics to demonstrate it, and it may not be true at all
there are plenty of other sites like allmusic where you can look up an artist or record and get recommendations of other similar artists, or artists who either influenced or were influenced by the record/artist. i suppose spotify let's you then easily listen to the other music, but before those streaming sites there were always ways to find and hear music by googling for the artists or tracks (ie. artists official sites or fansites etc)
Does make me wonder though if many people care about charts anymore?