The State of Music: 2008

Figured that I would start my 2008 Year in Review on a musical note this time around. Let’s take a more global view and examine the top ten best selling albums of the year and figure out what that tells us about our pop culture tastes and the music industry in general. Sales volumes are in millions of units

10) Beyonce “I Am….Sasha Fierce” 1.46M
9) Jack Johnson “Sleep Through the Static” 1.49M
8) T. I. “Paper Trail” 1.52 M
7) Metallica “Death Magnetic” 1.57M
6) Taylor Swift “Taylor Swift” 1.6M
5) AC/DC “Black Ice” 1.92M
4) Kid Rock “Rock N Roll Jesus” 2.02M
3) Taylor Swift “Fearless” 2.11M
2) Coldplay “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends” 2.14M
1) Lil Wayne “Tha Carter III” 2.87M
Source: Nielsen SoundScan via The New York Times

My opinions on all this

Apparently my music tastes are popular again: It surprises me that I own one of these discs and really don’t have a good reason why I don’t own a second. I picked up the Jack Johnson disc the week it came out and while it is rather underwhelming, even for a Jack Johnson record, it is perfectly fine music. Not as good as his earlier work and his fanbase has become filled with Abercrombie and Fitch wearing douchebags but I’m not upset that I bought it or anything. I haven’t picked up the new Coldplay disc mainly because I haven’t heard anything that made me feel like it was a priority but if I saw it at a store for ten bucks I’d probably grab it. Given that I am now a 35 year old male and therefore completely worthless from a marketing perspective I’m surprised that anything I listen to made the list.

People really like Taylor Swift: How she got two albums in the top ten is beyond me. Especially given that her self-titled debut was released in 2006 (and I know this because I was very vaguely involved in the music biz at the time). It is perfectly harmless, vaguely country music in that American Idol / Carrie Underwood vein. Meaning that there is absolutely no talent behind it other than a pretty face and a voice that works well under the influence of ProTools. While not a horrible indictment on the state of our culture it isn’t exactly what I would send on the next probe to outer space.

Old People Sell (and Buy): Two of the top ten acts (AC/DC and Metallica) have careers that span nearly thirty years or even more. While Kid Rock doesn’t have nearly that long of a span of work most would say that he is also well past his expiration date. So what does this tell us? First off, people immediately know what they are going to get with these artists. They are so well established that it is almost a knee jerk reaction to pick up their music. I mean, it’s a new AC/DC record; you know it is going to rock. Kid Rock will put together a rock / rap hybrid that is surprisingly decent.

Second of all, what do you think the average age of a AC/DC or Metallica fan is? Let’s say you got into Metallica when they broke huge in 1991 when you were 16. You’d be 33 now and a huge group of the old school fans would be even older. I would bet good money that the majority of these purchases were made by guys in their thirties and forties trying to prove that they still are hardcore metalheads. Even the Kid Rock stuff probably landed in the late 20’s demographic. Teenagers aren’t buying this music because teenagers don’t buy music. They steal it like petty thiefs (more on that next).

Finally, how the hell did Chinese Democracy not make the Top Ten? If people bought AC/DC out of nostalgia you would think that Guns N Roses would benefit in a similar fashion.

New Artists Can’t Catch a Break: The only debut album on the list is Taylor Swift’s and that is not really a debut given that it is two years old. Everyone on this list is solidly established with bestselling discs already to the credit. In the history of music that is insanely rare. Music is built on fads and one hit wonders and groups that come out of nowhere and catch the cultural zeitgeist and then disappear.

The disappearance of the big, new breakout star is a serious issue. (I’m discounting the whole Miley Cyrus / Jonas Brothers world at the moment.) Since record labels no longer exist in any real form the ability to grab a new artist and market them down our throats has vanished. With no universal cultural outlet like MTV around it is also tougher to get an artist in front of enough people to become a phenomenon. What we now have are a lot of new artists breaking out slowly with few superstars appearing, which makes one wonder what this list will look like 5 years from now.

The Curse of the Long Tail (which will be my sociology master’s thesis if I ever get around to writing it): The top selling album this year sold 2.87 million copies. Here are some other numbers for reference: Jewel’s “Pieces of You” sold 12 million copies as did Pearl Jam’s “Ten” while Hootie and the Blowfish sold an insane 16 million copies of “Cracked Rear View”. Now I know that many people will scream that I am comparing two totally separate timeframes here, which is true. But can you honestly tell me that 14 million people downloaded the new Coldplay album illegally? Are any of the artists on this list a part of the pop culture world like Hootie and the Blowfish were in 1995? Of course not. I truly feel required to explain who Taylor Swift is but I feel no need to explain Jewel even though she has been meaningless for more than a decade.

And this is what I call the curse of the long tail. The idea of the long tail is this: thanks to Amazon and iTunes and the like we now have an almost infinite amount of music at our fingertips. Whereas before all that was available was what you could find at the record store (and that universe could be limited if your only store was in a mall) now any type of music is there for purchase. What happens is that you have less hits (as shown by the stats above) but more of the lesser known artists get purchased. Basically I am no longer forced to buy a Hootie and the Blowfish CD because I find that I can get a greater level of enjoyment by purchasing a techno bluegrass disc. But this has had one huge impact on the music industry that no one discusses, which is that it causes people to buy less music than before and be happier for it.

Take my Hootie purchase (hypothetical as I never did buy the disc). Now if I can buy something else (say the incredible disc by She & Him featuring Zooey Deschanel on vocals) at the same price and be happier (or have higher utility in economic terms) then that is by all effective measures a good thing. Expand that to the idea that I intend to receive so much happiness from buying music over the course of the year. In a long tail world I’ll need fewer new CDs to reach the same level of happiness. This is great for me because I save money but bad for the music industry because they moved less product. But that still doesn’t match the damage caused by the second part.

Because you have to ask yourself the following question: Why did 16 million people decide to buy a Hootie and the Blowfish disc. That is more than 5% of the U.S. population and when you take out the elderly, small children and the Amish it becomes an even greater portion. What drives that purchase decision? I contend that it is not the music itself that drives it but the sheer fact that other people are buying it causes a herd behavior to form. Since everyone you know has a copy you buy one. The people who only own ten or twenty discs just purchase these mega hits and they do so only because there is a cultural imperative to do so. They don’t want to be left out so they make a purchase.

But now that we don’t have hits and nothing is super popular those people have no need to purchase music (or even steal it). Do I feel less a part of popular culture because I do not own the new Coldplay disc? No and I am someone who prides himself on being in touch with the music scene. There is not a single disc on the top ten where I feel that I was left out on a conversation because I did not know about it. When people talk about the long tail they assume that those 15 million copies that Hootie sold but Lil’ Wayne didn’t goes to the techno bluegrass purchases that I make. Except they don’t. Those purchases aren’t made anymore because the people who used to buy those discs don’t even need listen to music anymore because they can be culturally safe without it.

That is why the music industry is stuck in the curse of the long tail at the moment. It is bad enough that people steal music (and yes it is theft. I have too many friends who are musicians for me to think anything else.) but their overall market has shrunk but is happier as a result. I don’t have a solution for it yet but I do worry about whether my favorite new acts will ever get a chance to be heard.