Will music subscription services eventually lose their appeal because of greedy artists? Yes I’m looking at you Adele.
Returns from streaming tracks seem to vary and have been controversially low for many artists. Good old fashioned album sales on the other hand are much more immediate and lucrative.
I’ve heard a few incredible (unconfirmed) facts and figures about sales of the ’25’ album on the radio over the last few days – 42% off all music bought or consumed in the last week was Adele’s, and ’25’ outsold the next 83 albums in the charts combined.
Smart decision then on Adele’s part to sell not stream. And if you or I were in her position would we have done anything differently?
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From an Apple Music subscribers point of view, thankfully not all new albums are the same. Jean Michel Jarre’s long awaited collaboration “ELECTRONICA 1: The Time Machine” was released last month and I was able to stream it from Apple Music straight away.
But now there’s that doubt about every up-coming new release. Will the new Coldplay album due on Friday stream or will it be another purchase only affair?
Despite my mischievous question, of course I believe all artists should be free to decide themselves what they want to do with their own works and congratulations to Adele on her huge success.
But if you’re currently weighing up the idea of renting your music instead of buying it, justifying the cost by telling yourself you’ll never have to purchase another album again, then just be aware that’s not quite working out the way we’d all hoped.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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Let’s be honest, services would be nothing without people making and writing music, you could make an inverse argument about Musicians but…
Footballers get “obscene” amounts of money, but ultimately, “obscene” amounts of money are put into football, why shouldn’t they be the ones getting the benefit of that, same for musicians, if lots of people want to hear a piece of music by someone, and they’re willing to pay money for that, why shouldn’t the Musicians benefit?
Streaming services are free to make their own music, and make it available…not sure it’ll be quite as popular…
And, buying music isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, almost all music bought nowadays is licensed (rented) to users, you no more own the tracks you buy from iTunes than you do streaming from Apple Music.
Personally, I think it’s fraud to say “Buy this album on iTunes”, when “buying” connotates “ownership”, and I’d prefer they had to say “License this album on iTunes”, which would make people think about what they’re actually getting…
I’m sure once the Album sales tail off she will open it up to the various streaming services.
I dare say that half of Adele’s fan base still wish the could go to Andy’s Records on a Saturday afternoon. Conversely, I can’t see Jay Z making much money if he pulled out of Spotify. My point being that the consumer will always decide how they want to consume, and I personally think it’s only going one way.