When I was a pimple faced teenager downloading "rare" 2Pac freestyles off of Limewire in the early 2000s, it occurred to me that the music industry was going to die as soon as I got something faster than a 56K modem. As the years progressed—and my Internet speeds increased to the point I could get 2Pac's entire discography in the time it once took to get a freestyle—the death of the industry seemed certain as sales kept declining and fans kept downloading.
Even though sales of CDs went down every single year, the CD itself just wouldn't die. Every year over a million people would buy certain albums even though all music essentially had become free. However, so far, 2014 has been the exception. Last week, Forbes pointed out just how bad this year has been for album sales with an article titled "Not One Artist's Album Has Gone Platinum In 2014." The article does point out that the Frozen soundtrack did go platinum, but also that by this time last year, five albums had gone platinum. While 2014 has been a super shitty year for quality albums (especially in rap), the year tends to end with a bang with high profile artists releasing albums in the 4th quarter.
Which bring us to Taylor Swift and her new album 1989 which hits stores today. If anyone is going to sell some damn records, it's going to be Taylor Swift. Homegirl went to No. 1 on iTunes Canada with eight seconds of static. Her last album, 2012's Red, sold 1.21 million copies in its first week. She's sold over 30 million records in her career despite her first album dropping in 2006 (i.e. when everyone I knew had DSL). Can Taylor buck the trend? She probably will, considering her massive fanbase and superstar status. But just because Taylor Swift's career is alive and well, that doesn't mean the music business isn't still dying an ever so slow death.
[via Forbes]
