Image via music-mix.ew.com
Now that 2014 is through, it’s time to kickstart a new year with plenty of resolutions and new ideas of what 12 more months can bring. It also means it’s time to look back at the previous year and analyze what worked and what didn’t, who won and who lost.
Last year was tough on the industry in some ways, while in many other respects, it was great. Streaming took charge, while digital sales began to really slide. Vinyl surprised everyone, while brick and mortar stores took a beating. There are plenty of ways to spin the numbers, so sometimes it’s best to actually just look at them for the data points as they are. Here’s a quick look at how the industry fared in 2014 by the numbers.
Streaming music
Unsurprisingly, streaming music saw the greatest gains of any sector of the market, and it wasn’t even close. In fact, 2014 appears to be the year in which there was a shift, and now the majority of people opt for streaming songs and albums online as opposed to buying them.
In 2014, Americans streamed an incredible 164 billion songs. Yes, that’s billion with a “b.” That number is up from 106 billion the year before, which shows massive growth. The number of albums streamed (or streaming equivalent albums, which are the total tracks calculated as if they were albums) more than doubled from 53 million in 2013 to 109.3 million in 2014. Those billions of songs sound great, but they might make more sense when put into an album-style figure.
As streaming services are now the primary way that Americans listen to music, Billboard had to change its charting methodology to include it, accepting that the old …Read the full story
Source:: SonicBids Blog