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| Anji Sami and Jeremy Toy of She's So Rad |
Last week I saw on Facebook a post from musician Jeremy Toy of the band She's So Rad, lamenting the low CD sales of his band's second album (he subsequently took it down).
The story has been picked up by Lydia Jenkin at NZ Herald... with some interesting numbers round the declining sales for physical and downloads, and rising streaming sales. Also features comments from Anthony Tonnon.
"Despite very strong reviews for their album Tango (including a 5-star review in TimeOut, as well as other major New Zealand print publications, and on Radio NZ), and despite having two songs on A-rotate on Radio Hauraki, plus good support from student radio across the country, they've sold 20 CDs, 20 digital copies through Bandcamp, and 30 digital copies through iTunes since they released the album in May.
They had 300 people at their album release gig at the Kings Arms, and sold 1 CD.
But when you look at their streaming data, they've had 90,000 streams on Spotify in the last month, and something in the realm of 80,000 individual song streams on Soundcloud.
The revenue from their online streaming has been about $130....
Toy: "Basically it's just much worse than we expected. I expected it to be bad, but this far surpasses it."
"Of course we're not doing it for the money. But [this situation] is something that has been in the background churning away. It was an interesting Facebook post, because a few people started talking to me about it, other musicians, and said, 'No one's actually talking about it, because the industry is scared to talk about how bad it is'. I mean, I know I'm a small fish, but I think our situation reflects what's going on, on a wider scale...."
"The best revenue streams for artists in terms of profit - digital and physical sales - are no longer as appealing to consumers as they once were."Of course we're not doing it for the money. But [this situation] is something that has been in the background churning away. It was an interesting Facebook post, because a few people started talking to me about it, other musicians, and said, 'No one's actually talking about it, because the industry is scared to talk about how bad it is'. I mean, I know I'm a small fish, but I think our situation reflects what's going on, on a wider scale...."
"The idea of owning a digital file is not appealing to anyone and fair enough" Toy adds. "I pay for digital content not because I want to own a digital file, but because I want to show support to the artist which in turn helps make their art sustainable" Toy. "Streaming doesn't help to keep music a sustainable resource.
"It's tricky to work out what that means in the future. It just seems a pity that music can't thrive because it's an important part of our culture. I mean, I guess everyone could just be making it for free, which is essentially what a lot of us are doing, but everyone will burn out I think."
1 comment:
I'm keen to buy this album, bought the last one, and their 12". I wonder though, if like me, those who want a physical copy are waiting for the vinyl release they said was coming.
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