Q: Why are music sales down? A: Crap music.
p2pnet view Music | P2P:- If sales of CDs have fallen, “it can be attributed to CRAP music”, says Thinker in a p2pnet Reader’s Write to Tom Koltai’s WhatIf blog post on the Terra Report.
“The music industry still thinks they can still market with radio and press payola the CRAP they produce with success?” – Thinker went on, adding:
“Who are they kidding? Want to improve sales? Start with quality control and fire all the executives that do not think long term but in this year’s sales bonus.
“Then drop all the crap music and crap artists even if it means almost remaking the industry and even if some more sales are dropped at the beginning as brainwashed kids stop buying the music they were brainwashed to buy.”
No truer words …
Now, “Music is a beautiful art first and an industry second”, says Koltai, the Australian economist with very definite views on the corporate music industry.
“There is no room for crap anywhere”, he says, agreeing with Thinker in a new WhatIf post, going on >>>
The recent, almost fraudulent nature of the composition of the Terra Report into file sharing being a major cause of job loss in the EU, has so incensed my personal logic circuits that I have decided to devote a great deal of my free time in presenting a series of articles to prove that file sharing, if at all responsible for a decrease in Music sales, constitutes such a small part of the overall reason that it can truly be dismissed as negligible and is unable to be accurately counted by any economic measure that I am aware of.
No-one is paying for or has offered to pay me for this series of articles. The output is non-partisan and I do not own any shares of any Telecommunications corporation, publishing company or software development company.
The research here-in is presented philanthropically for the consumption by anyone that can use the arguments that can be derived from my summations, to convince legislators that the claims of the music industry are completely without any basis in fact and rely on misdirection by selective quoting of statistics and an obvious lack of determinative file-sharing data.
The topic by it’s very nature is dull, boring and mostly academic. However, as this a blog, I shall wherever possible attempt to make it interesting with my usual atrocious grammar, spelling and typo’s as well as the occasional personal anecdote.
Over the next few days I will publish a reason.
Reason Number 1 The Music is Just Bad.
In our last article, we mentioned that the teenager (14-19 yo) population of Japan was decreasing at a rate of 21% per decade and the general population of Japan was ageing faster than it could replicate itself resulting in a present stagnation of the total population but leading to a dramatic eventual depopulation effect.
Japan is not the only place to be suffering lower fertility rates. Elsewhere in the world, the Baby Boomers, who created the music revolution are getting older……
Source: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/ERD/DB/data/hum/dem/dem_14.htm
“I’m 52 and I have to say the music I mainly listen to is like from the sixties and seventies man…..
Rap and Trance just doesn’t do it for me. “
In fact, since 2000, the number of persons under 50 (in the G7 countries) has increased by just 2% and the number of persons over fifty has increased by over 27%.
The richest (most comfortable well off segment of demographia,) people on the planet are in the 55-65 year age group.
I wonder if any of them want to listen to Rap or Trance?
Seen on a web page (Polomoche | March 23, 2010), http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/03/sxsw-high-points-of-the-annual-texas-festival.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a96a3aa6970b#comment-6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a96a3aa6970b the following erudite summary says it so much better then I could,
Popular forms of music have reached their nadir and degraded into the most banal, formulaic format (the real reason the music industry is suffering – the music is just bad). Meanwhile, there is an extraordinary grassroots movement afoot – a chance to move in new, fresh, innovative artistic directions, new sounds, genres, etc. – with little critical
coverage.
Where are our critics? They seem far more interested in the role of corporate sycophant or apologist, in which the latest episode of American Idol (endless renditions of cover songs???) trumps the real artists out there trying to do something new and, heaven forbid, original. Guillotine style pop culture aesthetic executions should be taking place – instead our critics are indulging in a musical equivalent of a Big Mac and waxing poetic about the special sauce!
A list of the Best Selling Albums of the last twelve years.
| ANNUAL BEST SELLERS | ||||
| 1998 | 1 | 9338061 | TITANIC | Soundtrack |
| 1999 | 1 | 9445732 | MILLENNIUM | Backstreet Boys |
| 2000 | 1 | 9936104 | NO STRINGS ATTACHED | ‘N Sync |
| 2001 | 1 | 4812852 | HYBRID THEORY | Linkin Park |
| 2002 | 1 | 7607925 | THE EMINEM SHOW | Eminem |
| 2003 | 1 | 6535809 | GET RICH OF DIE TRYIN’ | 50 Cent |
| 2004 | 1 | 7978594 | CONFESSIONS | Usher |
| 2005 | 1 | 4968606 | THE EMANCIPATION OF MIMI | Mariah Carey |
| 2006 | 1 | 3719071 | HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL | Soundtrack |
| 2007 | 1 | 3698934 | NOEL | Josh Groban |
| 2008 | 1 | 2874420 | THA CARTER III | Lil’ Wayne |
| 2009 | 1 | 3216988 | FEARLESS | Taylor Swif |
Now let’s analyse each of those albums to see if any of them made it to the Rate your Music Top 50 Albums Listing.
| RYM Rating | Album Name | Artist | Year | Avg rating: |
| 1 | Abbey Road | The Beatles | 1969 | 4.44 |
| 2 | Revolver | The Beatles | 1966 | 4.41 |
| 3 | OK Computer | Radiohead | 1997 | 4.34 |
| 4 | The Velvet Underground & Nico | The Velvet Underground | 1967 | 4.4 |
| 5 | The Dark Side of the Moon | Pink Floyd | 1973 | 4.31 |
| 6 | Wish You Were Here | Pink Floyd | 1975 | 4.34 |
| 7 | Highway 61 Revisited | Bob Dylan | 1965 | 4.41 |
| 8 | Kind of Blue | Miles Davis | 1959 | 4.4 |
| 9 | The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars |
David Bowie | 1972 | 4.37 |
| 10 | Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band | The Beatles | 1967 | 4.31 |
| 11 | The Beatles [White Album] | The Beatles | 1968 | 4.34 |
| 12 | A Love Supreme | John Coltrane | 1965 | 4.41 |
| 13 | Led Zeppelin [IV] | Led Zeppelin | 1971 | 4.29 |
| 14 | The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady | Charles Mingus | 1963 | 4.43 |
| 15 | In the Court of the Crimson King | King Crimson | 1969 | 4.32 |
| 16 | Bringing It All Back Home | Bob Dylan | 1965 | 4.39 |
| 17 | Blonde on Blonde | Bob Dylan | 1966 | 4.35 |
| 18 | Are You Experienced | Jimi Hendrix | 1967 | 4.34 |
| 19 | Blood on the Tracks | Bob Dylan | 1975 | 4.35 |
| 20 | Doolittle | Pixies | 1989 | 4.31 |
| 21 | Marquee Moon | Television | 1977 | 4.3 |
| 22 | Rubber Soul | The Beatles | 1965 | 4.28 |
| 23 | Unknown Pleasures | Joy Division | 1979 | 4.28 |
| 24 | London Calling | The Clash | 1979 | 4.25 |
| 25 | Pink Moon | Nick Drake | 1972 | 4.3 |
| 26 | Kid A | Radiohead | 2000 | 4.19 |
| 27 | The Queen Is Dead | The Smiths | 1986 | 4.28 |
| 28 | The Doors | The Doors | 1967 | 4.27 |
| 29 | Pet Sounds | The Beach Boys | 1966 | 4.28 |
| 30 | Loveless | My Bloody Valentine | 1991 | 4.24 |
| 31 | Paranoid | Black Sabbath | 1970 | 4.26 |
| 32 | Closer | Joy Division | 1980 | 4.24 |
| 33 | Electric Ladyland | Jimi Hendrix | 1968 | 4.3 |
| 34 | After the Gold Rush | Neil Young | 1970 | 4.29 |
| 35 | Songs of Leonard Cohen | Leonard Cohen | 1967 | 4.31 |
| 36 | Remain in Light | Talking Heads | 1980 | 4.27 |
| 37 | Rain Dogs | Tom Waits | 1985 | 4.27 |
| 38 | The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society | The Kinks | 1968 | 4.3 |
| 39 | Who’s Next | The Who | 1971 | 4.25 |
| 40 | Sticky Fingers | The Rolling Stones | 1971 | 4.28 |
| 41 | Red | King Crimson | 1974 | 4.27 |
| 42 | Daydream Nation | Sonic Youth | 1988 | 4.22 |
| 43 | In a Silent Way | Miles Davis | 1969 | 4.32 |
| 44 | The Velvet Underground | The Velvet Underground | 1969 | 4.26 |
| 45 | Hunky Dory | David Bowie | 1971 | 4.25 |
| 46 | Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) | Wu-Tang Clan | 1993 | 4.25 |
| 47 | Fun House | The Stooges | 1970 | 4.26 |
| 48 | Forever Changes | Love | 1967 | 4.24 |
| 49 | Let It Bleed | The Rolling Stones | 1969 | 4.26 |
| 50 | Odessey and Oracle | The Zombies | 1968 | 4.27 |
Yep one – right at the begining of the Decade was
| 26 | Kid A | Radiohead | 2000 | 4.19 |
In fact …
As can be seen, the closer the graph gets to 2010, the less the crowd (the RYM users that think wenough of their music to rate it,) like the music.
It would seem that the best music comes from the sixties and seventies. Or is that merely an indication of the preference of the age group that are interested in music?
This fact has not been lost on the music industry who in fact are re-releasing music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s in greater quantities.
Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin have all been re-debuted by the music industry desperate to increase it’s flagging sales.
The tactic appears to be working as a growing number of digital purchases are no longer chart related.
However, we thought we would analyse the data from a different angle to see if we could confirm the above findings.
We selected the number one selling record from each year :
| Year | Album | Artist | RYM Rating | N= |
| 1970 | Paranoid | Black Sabbath | 4.26 | 7608 |
| 1971 | Led Zeppelin [IV] | Led Zeppelin | 4.29 | 10,567 |
| 1972 | The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars |
David Bowie | 4.37 | 8,541 |
| 1973 | The Dark Side of the Moon | Pink Floyd | 4.31 | 14,505 |
| 1974 | Red | King Crimson | 4.27 | 4,503 |
| 1975 | Wish You Were Here | Pink Floyd | 4.34 | 11,432 |
| 1976 | Songs in the Key of Life | Stevie Wonder | 4.2 | 2,532 |
| 1977 | Marquee Moon | Television | 4.29 | 6,210 |
| 1978 | Chairs Missing | Wire | 4.16 | 2,226 |
| 1979 | Unknown Pleasures | Joy Division | 4.28 | 7,103 |
| 1980 | Closer | Joy Division | 4.24 | 6,879 |
| 1981 | Symphonie No. 4 (Wiener Philharmoniker/Carlos Kleiber) |
Johannes Brahms | 4.24 | 174 |
| 1982 | Bach: The Goldberg Variations | Glenn Gould | 4.19 | 420 |
| 1983 | Swordfishtrombones | Tom Waits | 4.16 | 3,719 |
| 1984 | Ride the Lightning | Metallica | 4.13 | 7,127 |
| 1985 | Rain Dogs | Tom Waits | 4.27 | 5,402 |
| 1986 | The Queen Is Dead | The Smiths | 4.27 | 7,424 |
| 1987 | Sister | Sonic Youth | 4.1 | 3,951 |
| 1988 | Daydream Nation | Sonic Youth | 4.22 | 7,161 |
| 1989 | Doolittle | Pixies | 4.31 | 8,132 |
| 1990 | Rust in Peace | Megadeth | 4.15 | 4,254 |
| 1991 | Loveless | My Bloody Valentine | 4.23 | 8,242 |
| 1992 | Automatic for the People | R.E.M. | 4.05 | 5,920 |
| 1993 | Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) | Wu-Tang Clan | 4.24 | 4,221 |
| 1994 | Illmatic | Nas | 4.21 | 3,748 |
| 1995 | Liquid Swords | GZA/Genius | 4.23 | 2,754 |
| 1996 | Endtroducing….. | DJ Shadow | 4.16 | 4,665 |
| 1997 | OK Computer | Radiohead | 4.33 | 16,336 |
| 1998 | TITANIC | Soundtrack | 3.38 | 209 |
| 1999 | MILLENNIUM | Backstreet Boys | 1.99 | 439 |
| 2000 | NO STRINGS ATTACHED | ‘N Sync | 1.93 | 337 |
| 2001 | HYBRID THEORY | Linkin Park | 2.87 | 3,596 |
| 2002 | THE EMINEM SHOW | Eminem | 3.22 | 2,317 |
| 2003 | GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’ | 50 Cent | 2.51 | 1246 |
| 2004 | CONFESSIONS | Usher | 2.7 | 287 |
| 2005 | THE EMANCIPATION OF MIMI | Mariah Carey | 3.16 | 333 |
| 2006 | HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL | Soundtrack | 2.52 | 92 |
| 2007 | NOEL | Josh Groban | 3.14 | 36 |
| 2008 | THA CARTER III | Lil’ Wayne | 2.86 | 989 |
| 2009 | FEARLESS | Taylor Swift | 3.08 | 241 |
And graphed the results.
So I think that for reason number one, we have proven the case that in the last decade, one of the major factors for the drop off in music purchases is probably that the music is just BAD.
Stay tuned for Tom’s next post.
And while you wait, also remember there’s the Worldwide Corporate Music Boycott in place, but it’s totally ignored by the lamescream media corpse and never referred to by the Big 4 organised music gang members, Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but controlled by a Canadian).
Predictably, there are no stats or research on this. But without a shadow of doubt it, too, is having a major negative effect on sales.
Stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – Misdirection, ambiguity, deception: Big Music stats, April 6, 2010
WhatIf blog – Misdirection Ambiguity and Deception in Presentation of Music Industry Statistics. (err, Game-on-Dude), April 6, 2010
WhatIf – Piracy or Common Sense – Top Reasons why Music Sales MIGHT be ARE down, April 8, 2010
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April 8th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
As far as I am concerned the music of the 60 and 70s was crap too with very few exception. No offense.
Frankly all these crap does not come close to what has been done during the 19th century. Some people would say that it is not fair to compare metalicrap or britney slut shit to beethoven. And my question is: why not?
I blame the music industry for that who never cared about the music itself but just about the money. When a record label CEO or a music producer never wrote any music, never play an instrument and could never even read a score, yet manage to accumulate million of dollars for themselves on the back of other people there was a serious problem.
Talent is rare and hard to find. In an economy entirely based on profit it is hard to make money with such a short supply. So they replaced talent by marketing BS and produced this mountain of crap they have the nerve to call music as as a result.
And think has been getting worst. While the early rock and rock bands were blamed for making song out of only 4 to 6 notes some went down further in the 90s with hip-hop in which the music has just be removed keeping only a beat and in which the lyric consist in a pile of garbage of misspelled copyrighted words, preferably ugly and making no sense. Since then any body without talent could do some hip-hop. Not being able to sing or play an instrument was not an issue. Still the music cartel could maintain control for a little while by controlling recording marketing and distribution, until computers became powerful enough to record and play audio files.
Computers and internet began to allow anyone to record market and distribute their stuff good or bad.
Now that the gate keepers are irrelevant talent will rise again and I am predicting a novel artistic big bang that will be as big or may be even bigger that the one experienced during the 19th century. . . without the current entertainment industry!
SORRY EMI!
April 8th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Do you have any way of estimating how much the boycotts are affecting sales and opinion? I would suppose not but it would certainly make an interesting study.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:44 am
@Paulus
Actually I do. We already know that P2P downloads of music have been decreasing in all countries from the date of iTunes shop launch (that article is in a couple of days time).
One form of evidence for that is the number of KAD and Server users on the ED2K networks, which I have been tracking since June 2004.
Using Nielsen Soundscan sales results for the chart toppers we can see if the decrease or increase of the monthly sales varies from the results of a country where the ban was not in place or being observed, die to language or cultural differences e.g.: Japan.
The results when additional factors were included (GDP/PPN) would give a strong indication of whether or not the “ban” was having an affect.
However , this method would only apply to the USA.
With physical shipments – we used to be able to count the returns.
Return numbers gave us the statistics per country of any downturn in sales patterns.
With digital, there are no returns and there are very few digital vendors that report their sales numbers.
In my article I said that it was the older, well off segments of the demography that were the music industy’s remaining customers.
As it is unlikely that the majority of these people would follow Internet memes, it is highly unlikely in my opinion that the ban would be having any real affect on music sales.
As an annecdotal insight, Rhapsody this year has lost about 90,000 customers for no apparent cited reason.
I think it’s competition related, but it could be “The Ban”.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
“there are very few digital vendors that report their sales numbers”
This has always been true, for public performance and phonomechanical products, the reason being to shortchange songwriters and artists at royalty payment time.
This is a widely believed “rumor” among artists that the (American) government never investigates, not even to make sure proper taxes are paid.
This is the benefit of the third type of payola, the political payola. The other two being radio and press payola.
As a result some of the better and smarter songwriters and artists have simply dropped out from view or became disinterested in the music business, or are not welcome (the smart ones) by the music business moguls, thus paving the way for the CRAP music that is sinking the music industry.
April 9th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
This article basis it’s entire argument on RYM, a site that I’ve never even heard of. Not that I know everything or all sites that rate music, but are you trying to imply that only the people who rate music on that site have any validity in classifying the entertainment value of music? The music selected for the top 50 albums (outside of the one Wu Tang album) is extremely homogeneous. And the rating system is flawed in of itself simply for the one fact that Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory scored higher than Lil Wayne – The Carter III. If you are willing to take sample sets for entire populations of countries to analyze age groups, why would you use music ratings from a site with such limited scope? That alone is my argument against yours. Please reanalyze with a broader data set. Thank you.
April 10th, 2010 at 4:48 am
Your numbers are crap. The last chart is skewed, I’m guessing by looking at current album sales, instead of number one albums at the time. That inheritly favors older years, because time has a way of separating good albums from bad. Billy Ray Cyrus sold more records than REM in 1992, but Automatic was the better album, which gave it legs. If you were to look at this chart 30 years in the futre, the aughts list would look a lot different.
If there is something inherit in the music industry, it’s that it’s losing money. It used to be that the industry would rely on the fluff makers to support the serious artists, that one Billy Ray Cyrus would support five REMs. Now, however, it seems like the industry is only able to support the pop stuff, because, I assume, the pop stuff is only breaking even nowadays.
The fact is, frivolous pop has always dominated the charts. The My Fair Lady soundtrack was the number one record in the country for two years. Try a new thesis?
April 10th, 2010 at 11:24 am
@ Tom: “We already know that P2P downloads of music have been decreasing in all countries from the date of iTunes shop launch”.
Oh rilly?
Cheers!
April 12th, 2010 at 2:14 am
@ Evan & @ B
The data for the article came from fourteen different sources. The frequency and voting of hits was from RYM. But cross checked with Billboard and UK charts.
The RYM site essentially appears to be the basis of all increases in music cost on Apple iTunes. (If its in the top 50… (by country) then in that country its an 1.29 or 2.20 price tag.)
Therefore, if it’s good enough for Jobs, it’s good enough for me.
Additionally, I selected top albums globally, voted for Globally. The error in this is that there is more American music published than any other country so the numbers are somewhat skewed. Therefore it’s interesting that so many english bands have records in the top 100 list. If you are interested in the numbers, you can select Top Albums Globally voted for by only persons from the USA/Canada etc. That will no doubt return a different result to the one I published.
As to me doing another analysis based on your request…. i.e.: “Please reanalyze with a broader data set.” Um, that one took me three days.
I don’t think I’ll be repeating the work for the benefit of one person. Besides, the data proved the hypothesis. On a global basis, peopple that spend time on RYM (about 370,000 I velieve) don’t think as much of the music of the last decade as what they hold ni esteem from former decades.
When you think about it, the majority of people that would use a site like RYM are the audiophiles who live for their music.
Therefore if the last decade has low ratings, your argument is that the audiophiles that appreciate that music have not yet evolved. Fine. I might tend to agree with you. But as music is a generational influence, the fact is that music sales were down because less people thought highly enough of the music to go out and buy a copy.
Comparing sales from the seventies and eighties against the population base, produces a vastly different result from the sales of the last decade.
So whether you are right or wrong (I also) the fact is that this is a valid assumption on why music sales were down for the decade.
Comments about old music being more highly regarded are not imho correct.
Music appreciation voting is about Age groups and size of age group, access to the internet and knowledge of the existence of RYM.
The music form the seventies and eighties has a higher proportion of audience with more money in their pockets than the music of … Lincoln Park for example. Therefore, it stands to reason that more people own a copy of Led Zeppelin Four than do the 1981 no 1. the Symphonie No. 4 (Wiener Philharmoniker/Carlos Kleiber) Johannes Brahms or Linkin Park.
RYM have taken the initiative and created an algorithm that appears more accurate then the Billboard top charts results that smells occassionally of commercial interference.
On that basis alone, it makes an ideal source of random data against which to test the validity of downloads versus sales. Which we did earlier in the month and will be posted soon on P2PNet.
i.e.: A comparidson of Emule Versus FM.Net Versus RYM versus Amazon availability.
An interesting comparison into what is being downloaded the most.
Coming to a P2Pnet screen near you soon……..
April 12th, 2010 at 2:27 am
@b
The fact is, frivolous pop has always dominated the charts. The My Fair Lady soundtrack was the number one record in the country for two years. Try a new thesis?
Not really. Currency of sales has nothing to do with what is selling now on iTunes. There are more copies of Led Zep IV walking off the shelves for longer than anything currently on the charts…..
In other words, who is buying the My Fair Lady Sound Track and who is buying Beethoven? I think you’ll find that more people are buying beethoven/brahms/shubert & Led Zeppelin four than are buying My fair Lady.
But you raise an interesting point. It will be interesting to see if the sales of Celine Dions Titanic music will continue or dwindle. (Same initial burst of sales enthusiasm for approximatly the same length of time.)
To me the big surprise was No 8 Kind of Blue by Miles Davis from 1959. That’s 51 years ago.
There is excellent music, there is good music, there is OK music and then there is just Flash in the Pan mathematical algorithm music.
Sorry boys and girls, but I’ve been looking at how to compare sales versus popularity and file-sharing for a long time. To me, RYM is just a statistical tool that gives me a comparitive reference point.
But if anyone has any ideas as to why music sales are down…… speak up, speak up, dont be shy.
April 12th, 2010 at 8:37 am
@ Tom:
“But if anyone has any ideas as to why music sales are down … ”
What, Tom? You haven’t noticed the seven-year-and-counting attacks by the labels on their own customers?
Cheers!
April 12th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Music formats have been changing since the beginning. I’m not talking mp3, 8-track…
The concept of the “package”, how many songs go into a package have been under constant change. During the height of Tin Pan Alley, sheet music was the hottest part of the music business and sold individual songs, Edison’s early media was single songs, by virtue of the technology. Not until very recently has the technology progressed to pack 10-12 songs onto an LP, 15-20 on a CD… The music industry model is to sell something for $20, not $0.99. To justify charging $20 they have to provide more, a bigger bag of chips. Unfortunately, there is a failure in quality control and discs are being released and not providing $20 of value. The model is broken. Not every artist is capable of releasing an opera of 10 tightly integrated songs. Many are only capable of vaudeville, 2-3 songs. Change the business model. Just my $0.02
April 12th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Sorry Tom, but your numbers are crap. Especially the data for your last graph. You say you’ve selected the number 1 selling album for each year,
but it looks to me that that’s only true of the last 12 years. You certainly didn’t pick the albums which were number 1 in the year in which they were released,
many of the albums on your list didn’t even chart when first released (eg loveless, daydream nation). You haven’t even selected the albums which have
sold the most units in total since release for any given year (jagged little pill [1996] has sold about 35 million since then, Endtroducing [1996] has not).
I suppose you might be taking the numbers from this last year only, but frankly I can’t see Megadeth selling more this year than anything else released in 1990,
certainly not, say Fear of a Black Planet, or even Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Em, which of course remains the bestselling hip hop album of all time.
The fact is it looks suspiciously like you’ve just chosen the highest rated album from every year up to 1997, and compared the ratings to the best selling albums
from 1998 on. I’d call this selection bias but to be frank it’s far dumber than that, it’s conflating your variables in the worst possible way, and
any conclusions drawn from such a comparison must necessarily be retarded.
Even if you haven’t cherry picked the older albums by rating rather than sales, and I’m pretty sure you have, the comparison is still illegitimate, because the factors
driving contemporary sales of an album released 30 years ago is not the same as those driving sales of one released last year. Recent albums are sold through
heavy marketing, touring, airplay etc, older albums must be discovered through word of mouth and review aggregators such as, oh say Rate Your Music.
This is basically the shoddiest methodology that I’ve ever seen applied to anything ever.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
@cosmopolous Very perceptive. I think we should all ring the music guys and tell them that their business model is broken. Actually, Im trying to do it a different way. By raidsing awareness of all the reasons why their model and claims about file sharing is incorrect. Sorry Jon, I don;t think file sharing damages new music releases at all. And… after I have listed all fourteen reasons why music sales are down, then I will tell people why the music industry are whipping a dead horse. I’ve done three reasons so far. They take a bit longer to do than I initially thought. but by the end of April, the CAT shold be out of the bag with a few red faces over at IFPI, RIAA et al.
But the aim is not to embarass those guys but to make legislators think about their claims.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
@Styxwade. Thank-you for your kind words. I do take exception to some o the comments you’ve made, but I would suggest that before you mouth of too much – why not check my sources.
Source no.1 http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time
Source no.2 Neilsen Soundscan Album Sales (sorry you need a login).
Source no.3 http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2000s
As a rule, Economists really dont like to ask consumer opinons on anything. It introduces a randomness that really doesnt work with our theories. However, when attmpting a Hedonic valuation, e.g.: what is the worth of an object to a purchaser, then one must rely on the consumers interpretation of value. If the consumers vote higher for something from ten years ago there can be three valid arguments.
1.
RYM does that eminently better than the Billboard top 100. (IMHO – Mainly because they are not dependent on corporate advertising to survive.)
There Im sure you feel much better now.
Ohh, I was wondering if you would do one teensy little favour… Look up the word luddite.
Ta muchly.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Damn…. Three Valid Arguments….
1.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
One more time for the technically incompetent
Three Valid Arguments
1. Everyone on RYM is over Forty.
2. Everyone on RYM has been bribed to only vote for music from ten years ago.
3. The outcome is a real analysis of what the n=???? number of voters said it is.
Ergo the dataset is valid.
Now Im finished.
April 14th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Tom, you’ve completely failed to answer my point. Go look at your last graph. Look at the albums you’ve used as data points. Up until 1997 they are the highest rated album for the year in question, from 1998 on they are the best selling album. This is not a meaningful comparison. How in God’s name is this not obvious to you?
You’ve titled the graph “RYM rating of Number One Selling Album 1970-2009″ but that’s not what’s on the damn graph. Just fucking look at it. Rust in Peace is not the number one selling album from 1990, it is the highest rated. Conversely, Millenium is not the highest rated album from 1999, it’s the best seller. YOU CANNOT COMPARE THEM. This applies to every fucking data point.
I honestly don’t know how I can make this any more plain. This error is so obvious, so critical, and so downright bizarre that dumbfounded that anyone could make it in the first place, let alone fail to see it when it’s pointed out to them. The data you’re using is wrong. You are comparing the wrong albums.
As for calling me a luddite, what are your grounds? I have no love for the RIAA, nor their archaic and decrepit business model, nor their hamfisted efforts to prop up the crumbling edifice of the music industry by using copyright law as a bludgeon to beat off the future. But just because we’re on the same side doesn’t mean I’m not going to call you out on glaring errors in your analysis.