single song sales of popular songs are just what they were before iTunes - sales of singles. the percentage of single song sales that aren't singles is nowhere near enough to support the notion that individual song sales killed album sales.
in fact album sales didn't get killed. there was a ginormous bubble in the hey day of the industry which everyone swears was normal. shit wasn't normal, and it's never getting back to that so measuring up to that is absurd. but everyone wants to do it because once the profits go up it's horrendous for them to go down.
more to the point of the post you replied to though, bandcamp purchase of full releases for $5 vs. iTunes purchase of albums will be the metric that can potentially change the industry. i think they were counting them this year but it probably only counts if your release includes isrc codes which i'm guessing the majority of diy'ers don't have. if all of the sales from bandcamp were to be tallied... industry could have a problem.
bandcamp man. it's a crazy thing. i think i brought it up in another post somewhere. but you know how all these new innanet business with new models for blah blah get their big pr blitz when they get $XM in funding, then spend the year trying to figure out how to make money? Yeah well Bandcamp didn't have to do that. They making money, in this economy strictly by selling music direct to fans. Shit is pheomenal and something the industry simply cannot account for and I'm guessing adjust to.
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
The Lesson
