Next week is normally a time for food comas, 2nd (and 3rd and 4th) helpings of turkey, and braving the the crazies to get the best deals on Friday.
But, Thanksgiving is going to have some competition this year and Black Friday shopping is about to get a whole lot scarier.
Why?
Queen Bee
Beyonce is releasing a platinum box-set collection with exclusive new songs on November 24th and people are already freaking out.
In honor of the Queen herself and the upcoming week spent in a food coma, here is a Destiny’s Child TBT of how you be feeling after all that turkey and stuffing next week:
Today we’re throwing it back to 2011, when digital music sales surpassed physical sales for the first time, with 50.3% of all music purchases.
For the first time since 2004, total album sales were actually up in 2011, totaling 330.6 million. Helping to achieve this feat was Adele, who’s hit ‘Rolling the Deep’ had over 5.8 million downloads. Her album 21 also sold over 5 million copies. The last time an artist sold more than 5 million albums? Usher, in 2004. Lady Gaga also had a huge year, earning the title ‘Most Streamed Artist’ with 135 million streams. And Nicki Minaj’s ‘Super Base’ became the most streamed song of the year, with almost 85 million audio and 71 million video streams.
In 2011, the Music Industry Report released by Nielsen and Billboard, it was clear that digital album sales had steadily been increasing. Nearly 1 in 3 album sales were digital in 2011, compared to 26% in 2010, and 20% in 2009. In 2006, only 5.5% of album sales were digital.
Today, it seems like no surprise that digital is the norm—only dedicated fans and those who want to truly support an artist make the effort to go to a store and actually buy a physical CD.
Interestingly enough, the massive success of Taylor Swift’s latest album, 1989 (she sold 1.287 million copies in ONE week), has raised questions about an artists physical versus digital sales. Swift sold slightly more physical copies (647,000) than digital copies (640,000) of her album.
Do the number of digital sales depend of the artist? When was the last time you bought a physical CD?
Although the music streaming website Rhapsody is still around, it has been recently been facing many challenges, so let’s throwback to the company’s better days. Rhapsody started in 1999 as streaming audio engine called TuneTo.com. In 2001 the company was acquired by Listen.com and Aladdin, the name for the audio engine, became Rhapsody. It is considered a pioneer in the industry as it was the first music streaming service that had a monthly fee for unlimited access to a library of music. By mid 2002 Rhapsody had managed to add all of the five major record labels to their library. In the past, the site also offered the option to buy downloadable songs but has cancelled that service.
Flash forward to today, Rhapsody is struggling to compete with flashier startups such as Spotify and Apple’s Beats Music. With the recent hire of a new interim CEO the company hopes to make a moves to regain a strong position in the industry. However, Rhapsody has only 2 million paying subscribers, where Spotify has approximately 10 million paying subscribers so the company is going to have to seriously step up its game to reach the success that it had in the past.
In honor of Taylor Swift’s album release titled “1989” our #tbt is to 1989 and the Walkman.
In the year 1989, these were the top songs:
and they were listened to on walkman players. These
the Walkman was cool and portable music was born. Having some of your personal music collection with you was definitely the “it” thing. We all had them. Do you remember your top Walkman jam? Share below!
Remember these? Yes, many of us 90s kid had a walkman or an MP3 plater, but many of us also had HitClips – a mini-audio device that played 1 minute clips of pop songs when you inserted various ‘clips’ into the player. HitClips launched in 1999, and released ‘clips’ by popular artists such as Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, N’Sync, and Hillary Duff.
HitClips were first distributed through a partnership with McDonalds, and later sold in retail outlets as the devices became more popular. The players sold for $20, and each song clip sold for $3.99. By 2002, over 20 million had been sold, and HitClips made over $80 million gross – more than any audio company had ever made on a single product. Music artists even began to incorporate HitClips in the marketing plans. Having songs on HitClips often boosted CD sales, and served as a low-cost promotional item. Some saw HitClips as an additional source of revenue for musicians.
It turns out HitClips weren’t able to revolutionize the music industry to the extent that most people originally imagined. By 2004, HitClips stopped producing new clips, as the introduction of the iPod crowded the digital audio market. Yes, HitClips may be obsolete today – but the memories of jamming to “Oops I Did it Again” and “Bye Bye Bye” will always live in the hearts of all kids who grew up in the 90s.
J.J. Jackson, Martha Quinn, Alan Hunter… names that our generation, the Millennials, probably don’t recognize but they used to be the faces of MTV. Before MTV featured programs such as Jersey Shore and 16 and Pregnant, which many parents now consider “trash tv,” MTV actually featured music – shocking I know. The first music video was aired in 1981 and was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Later the channel introduced “video jockeys” or VJs who introduced the music videos and did interviews with artists, who became celebrities in their own right. The first ever Video Music Awards (VMAs) occurred in 1984 and are about the only part of MTV that is still around. Granted Madonna singing ‘Like a Virgin’ is a little different than Miley twerking on Robin Thicke. So MTV may still exist but #tbt to what it used to be – music.
For today’s #TBT, let’s throw it back to a product that has transformed the way the world listens to music: the iPod. Here are some facts about the history of the iPod.
-In 2001, iTunes digital jukebox for Macintosh launched at the start of the New Year, and the first iPod launched about 9 months later in October with the tagline “offering 1,000 songs in your pocket.”
Original iPod
-The next year, Apple launched the second-generation iPod that was compatible with Windows and held 4x the amount of songs of the original model. 600,000 iPods were sold through that year.
-By 2003, Apple officially launched the iTunes Music Store, with 200,000 songs priced at 99 cents a pop. Can you believe iTunes sold one million songs in the first week?
-Halfway through that year, the millionth iPod was sold and by the end of the year that number doubled.
One of the original iPod ads
-In 2004, the iPod mini launched with five bright colors to show off and a slimmer shape.
Original iPod mini
-In the next year, the iPod shuffle was introduced and the iPod Nano replaced the iPod mini. Did you know that the iPod Nano is the best selling music player ever?
Original iPod Nano, to replace the MiniOriginal iPod shuffle
-The iTunes store sold its one-billionth song in February of 2006. And in 2007, the first iPhone was introduced.
-iTunes passed Wal-Mart to become the USA’s #1 music retailer in April 2008.
-By September 2010, 275 million iPods had been sold
Wow, it’s been a long way. iTunes has since expanded to include iTunes “U” to stream educational lectures, sell & rent movies and TV shows, and feature popular electronic games. My first iPod was the blue iPod mini and the first song I purchased was “Don’t Phunk with My Heart” by the Black Eyed Peas. What was your first iPod purchase and your first iTunes song purchase?
Hey Sound Archive! This week’s #throwbackthursday is everyone’s favorite pre-teen attempt at the music scene—Napster. The original peer-to-peer music sharer, Napster allowed users to share MP3 files with each other. At one point, Napster had almost 80 million users! The founder, Shawn Fanning combined a search engine, file sharing, Internet relay chat and a semi-user-friendly interface. Que mass Internet music and early death of the CD. Eventually, Napster ran into some (you guessed it) intellectual property rights issues and was shut down by a court. Back up and at it, the site eventually re-launched as a pay-per-download site (pre-iTunes). Nowadays, Napster is owned by Rhapsody. Stay cool, Napster.
The Sound Archive 