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Are Records Obselete? The Retro Revolution

Right now, any music we want to get is already right there in our homes, ready to be downloaded with a click of a mouse. If somebody wanted to listen to that music – they would just have to add it to their iTunes library or search for it on YouTube. It’s hard to think that less than thirty years ago, vinyl records were the way music was most widely consumed. Now, it seems they are obsolete – with the digital revolution why would they still be around? Well, sales records show that they are actually on the rise – gaining more profit than they did in the late 90’s.  So, why are they still so big, and what can actually be gained by such an old form of listening to music?

So, first we should look at some statistics. According to the RIAA end of year statistics, 71.8 million dollars of profit for vinyl sales were being made worldwide in 1995. This was broken down into 47.6 million in singles, and 25.1 in LPs. In 2011, however, the figures were quite different - as shown in this infographic.

So, the question left to ask is why? Here’s a video from Sky News (2009), explaining the whole phenomenon.

Music Sales Infographic

Sourced from here

Top Selling Artists

easel.ly

Evolution of the Online Music Industry

Sourced from musicdownloads. Browse more data visualization.

Comparison of Sales between Albums and Digital Albums in 2011

YouTube - What Has It Added to Music?

 

It is something we use to catch up on our favourite TV shows, watch music videos and an array of other things; which makes it hard to believe that YouTube only began eight years ago. The history of YouTube dates back to February 2005 when the domain name of youtube.com was registered.

On the 23^rd of April 2005, the first video was posted featuring Karim (co-founder of YouTube) at the elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo.

 

In October of 2009, YouTube reached more than one billion videos per day but still after four years remains unprofitable.

Some of the most viewed YouTube videos (as of September 2012):

1.     Justin Bieber, Baby ft. Ludacris; viewed 777,240,044 times

2.     Jennifer Lopez- On The Floor ft. Pitbull; viewed 592,450,651 times

3.     Eminem- Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna; viewed 492,907,293 times

4.     Shakira- Waka Waka (This Time for Africa); viewed 491,196,696 times

5.     Lady Gag- Bad Romance; viewed 485,167,166 times

6.     LMFAO- Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennet, GoonRock; 497,731,335 views

7.     Charlie bit my finger-again; 478,436,912 views

8.     Michel Teló - Ai Se Eu Te Pego - Official (Assim você me mata); 428,206,129   views

9.     Don Omar - Danza Kuduro ft. Lucenzo; 383,570,633 views

10.  Eminem - Not Afraid; 359,692,834 views

Not only has YouTube enabled celebrities and public figures to reach a wider audience, it has also enabled upcoming people (e.g. young entertainers) to gain exposure on an international level. For this blog post we have looked at cover versions of popular songs by relatively “unknown” people.

Jaymee Dee is from Los Angeles and joined YouTube in April 2007. She has produced many covers of popular songs including somebody that I used to know, We Found Love and Toxic. Jaymee Dee was featured on the 2012 film, The Hunger Games, soundtrack singing Rules. Jaymee Dee’s most viewed cover is of Foster the People’s, Pumped up Kicks, being viewed 2,003,723 times.

 

 

Another artist who has found YouTube style fame is Noah, a singer/songwriter from South Carolina. Noah goes by the name of Only1Noah on YouTube and posts covers of popular songs as well as original songs. Noah’s rendition of LMFAO’s, Sexy and I know It, has attracted 13,123,467 views since it was uploaded to YouTube in May this year. 

The following data shows the trends of YouTube, including the differences between people’s consumption of YouTube and radio, as well as examining the most popular genres on YouTube.