Is it the vinyl boom, or are consumers finally getting sick of the same old bullsh*t?
Nostalgia is big business. It's why companies continue to bastardize old movie classics while trying to make them relevant by today’s standards — and why new songs keep sounding like old ones. We’re all suckers for shit that makes us feel emotional things like memories and whatnot.
Adding to that industry paradigm, Nielsen released a few interesting stats about the way we’re buying music in America. As it stands, for the first time ever in the history of the album, in 2015, people bought catalog collections (anything over 18 months old) more than they purchased new releases.
Per ChartAttack’s Adam Pugsley: “Current music sales outpaced catalogue music by over 150 million albums.” Now, however, the older releases topped current by over 4.3 million physical albums sold — that number includes Adele’s competition obliterator, which has sold well over 7 million already.
Even still, digital sales of current albums maintain a short lead over older ones, which might just mean the obvious, that millennials are opting to stream newer releases than older ones.
Other outlets are pointing their fingers towards the vinyl revolution, which could very well be true, but it could just be that younger generations are increasingly discovering older bands — and actually liking them. Our position has always been that there isn’t a huge push in the industry these days to make timeless classics, and the sloppiness of it is finally rearing its head.
Why buy simplistic and exploitative garbage that Ariana Grande puts out to hold onto forever on the shelf, when The Doors’ Strange Days album is actually something to be collected and revisited over and over? Now you can see why the big three labels are being so obnoxious about copyright violations towards streaming companies — they know there’s gold in them thar forgotten hills, and today’s pop baloney isn’t going to be worth a measly shilling in the future.
This is all good news, however, and may push current recording artists to do better and create something of nostalgic and timeless value rather than clip themselves on with fading trends that won’t last past the 2020s.
One can only hope …
Leave a Reply