US music consumers have followed the global trend of Quantity over Quality in 2019 choosing low quality streaming over hi-fi physical CD and vinyl purchases.
According to BuzzAngleMusic.com, in 2019 over one trillion songs streamed for the very first time. That is up 25% of 2018 figures. Over the same period 55.7 million albums were sold on either CD, vinyl or cassette. (Yes 104,600 album sales were cassettes in 2019).
US music consumers chose ‘Disposable’ over ‘Collectible’ in 2019, indicating if quality and collectability is no longer a choice factor, maybe the industry is producing lower quality acts.
Only one album, Taylor Swift ‘Lover’, actually sold platinum in real terms (1m+). Swift’s album sold 1,089,837.
What’s scarier is that only one more album, Billie Eilish ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’, sold Gold (500,000+). Eilish’s album sold 594,597. Every other 2019 title was “less than Gold’ in real sales. By comparison, artists were dropped from labels in the mid 90s if the best they could do was Gold.
The no 10 album, Ariana Grande ‘thank u, next’ sold 267,586 and at 20 with Queen ‘The Platinum Collection’ were are at 175,961 sales. Queen were also at no 15 with the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ soundtrack (212,943 sales) while ‘Greatest Hits’ sold 184,483.
The Beatles had the 16th biggest seller of 2019 in the USA with the 50 year old ‘Abbey Road’.
The Vinyl spin continued to be just that. While some media continue to falsely spread vinyl as the savior of music sales, only two albums Billie Eilish and The Beatles sold 100,000+ (112,798 for ‘When I Fall Asleep’ and 101,024 for ‘Abbey Road’.
No 10 vinyl was Amy Winehouse ‘Back To Black’ with 49,743 sales and No 20 vinyl was Kemdrick lamar ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ with 36,833 sales.
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