Ever since the introduction of illegal downloads and free streaming websites, music sales have seen a massive change in figures. Obviously if there is a free way for the public to download the music they like – they are most likely to go for that option.
However for the first time since 2004, music sales figures have seen a huge rise due to an increase in the purchases of vinyls and digital distribution streaming websites (via NME). In 2014, the retail value of UK music totaled at £1.03 billion and this rose to £1.06 billion in 2015 partly due to the increase of vinyl sales which jumped by 64 per cent. Another factor that contributed to the rise in music sales figures was the rise in the amount of songs streamed online which totaled at 26.8 billion songs – this saw a 82 per cent rise from 2014 where less than 15 billion streams where seen according to the trade body BPI.
The rise in music streaming sales and vinyl’s has outweighed the decline in the sales of physical CDs meaning that improvements have finally been seen in the music industry when it comes to sales. BPI Chief executive Geoff Taylor stated:
The soaring popularity of music streaming and the burgeoning vinyl revival mean that UK music consumption rose again in 2015,
Services such as Spotify and Apple Music are going mainstream as more people discover how wonderful it is to have all the music in the world to listen to, whenever and wherever you want. Millions of fans also continue to build treasured collections of favourite albums on vinyl, CD or downloads.
Even though some artists in the industry such as Adele and Taylor Swift are skeptical about the sustainability and consistency of streaming websites such as Spotify, estimated revenues from subscription streaming services like this rose by 50 per cent last year to £251 million. These websites allow users to listen to music for free by continuously showcasing adverts in hopes that the users will upgrade to the advert-free monthly paid subscriptions which clearly proved successful in 2015.
In recent years we’ve seen many iconic UK artists emerge to success which are driving the growth in sales such as global icons Adele, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and One Direction and also newer British breakthroughs and newcomers such as Jess Glynne, Little Mix and James Bay.
Adele managed to break records by selling almost 2.5 million copies of her third album “25” since it’s release in November which on it’s own contributed to the rise in sales figures since 25 is solely purchasable physically and digitally and is not available to stream yet. Other successful UK artists this year include Ed Sheeran with his album “X” and Sam Smith with “In The Lonely Hour” as they both ended the year with almost 1 million album sales each.
So does this mean fans are actually starting to see that actually purchasing music instead of illegally downloading has more of a sentimental value to the artist and the fan itself? Let’s see what the statistics say in 2016.
