There is an article over at Variety on the continued decline of music sales, both CD and digital (http://variety.com/2014/music/news/music-sales-fall-albums-digital-downloads-losses-1201257795/). Streaming music is up, but the money is not there like with sales of music. The other interesting thing in the article is the continued rise of vinyl sales. Granted it is a small part of the overall sales, but who would have thought vinyl would be making this type of inroads.
 
Lots of ideas about why music sales are declining - music isn't as important as it use to be, it is just background noise, incomes too low for luxury purchases of music, etc (a combination of these factors and more). While I don't think music is ever going to go away, I begin to wonder if too much effort was put into the 'making' of the hit music stars of today, and not enough effort into the music. I look back at the 60s and 70s with guys like Hank Williams, Jim Reeves, Willie Nelson, Bill Monroe, Conway Twitty and others. They had good music, good voices, and good songs, all without the flash you see today (the flashiest thing was probably the Nudie Suit they wore). I think that if these same guys were to start in the music business today, none of them would ever get their foot in the door. What do you think? Has style overtaking substance in the music world today? Or am I just too old?

Pretty good synopsis I'd say. Music is just not important today. It's definitely true that if the stars of yesteryear were going for it today they wouldn't have a chance. Today "packages" have to get the biggest bang for the buck and talent or musical integrity etc. has nothing to do with it. 

When everyone can "make music" it becomes virtually worthless. At least economically. Folks still like listening to it though...go figure.

I suspect there is about the same proportion of musicians in the population as there ever was, but before today's technology no-one knew about them, except in their local area.
 
Now we can see and hear just about every musician there is, so it's just a tsunami of music that has an inverse effect.
 
Watched a show last  night, 'The 10 Richest Songs' (those that have been calculated to have made the most money over the years). They included 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling', 'Stand By Me' 'Every Breath You Take', 'Unchained Melody', 'White Christmas' and of course 'Happy Birthday'.
 
* Interesting footnote in that documentary - all the popular secular Christmas songs, 'White Christmas', 'Winter Wonderland', 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' etc - all written by Jewish songwriters...
 
The show was about 6 years old and they were suggesting that Adele's 'Rolling In The Deep' may join the list in the future..I have my doubts. I think the days of writing a 'classic song' has well and truly gone.

Honestly the only "new" music I've bought over the past five years has been from our forum members.
 
DEMORGAN - HUMAN INCAPCITY (Miggy from the Philippines)
Bob Oister - Face The Fire
Batsbrew - (first release?)
Frank Tanton - bought two of his IIRC
 
Maybe Juan or Too more

The future money is clearly in streaming, but like I've said before, to make good Spotify cash you have to release albums that are consistently good all the way through. In the past, you could shift millions of albums full of crap tracks on the strength of one or two hit singles. Now, an album like that on Spotify is going to have all of its streams concentrated on those hit tracks while the other ones don't generate. I think that's a good thing. The pressure is on artists to release great albums full of great tracks which get played over and over. I did a little rough math in an earlier post and worked out that for an artist to earn as much from an album on Spotify as they would from a CD sale (presuming an average $2 royalty from a CD), it has to be played all the way through something like 29 times. I have favorite CD's that I've listened to more times than that since I've had them, and thus if I had done that listening on Spotify it would have earned the artist more than they would have gotten in royalties off the CD. 
 
Part of the reason why the "money isn't there" with streaming is that its (paying) user base is still comparatively tiny as a market. I think that when streaming services have a user base that is comparable to the CD market of yore, artists are going to have less to complain about. 

sharke
I think that when streaming services have a user base that is comparable to the CD market of yore

Therein lies the rub?
 
That could take tens of years.

bapu

sharke
I think that when streaming services have a user base that is comparable to the CD market of yore

Therein lies the rub?
 
That could take tens of years.

I'm a little more optimistic. These things have a way of ballooning very quickly. Look at Netflix.

You know, even Paul Stanley recently admitted in an interview that KISS couldn't happen in this day and age - and if band ever knew what style and visuals were about... So it's not just a matter of flash and style.
 
Why do music sale continue to plunge? Well, because when people don't need to pay for it, why would they? 
 
When I was a kid, even though you could always make a copy of an album, it wasn't the real thing. Sound quality wasn't as good, you didn't have the album artwork and the lyrics...
 
I remember waiting for months for the release of Ozzy Osbourne/Randy Rhoads Tribute, anxious to finally hear my favorite guitar player live for more than a song or 2. And when the album came out, I remember listening to it in its entirety regularly, spending hours gazing at those never-seen-before pics.
 
All this contributed to make the record "sacred" - I couldn't imagine being satisfied w/ a copy of that record. I wanted the real thing. All that stuff was precious, it was rare. But not anymore. 
 
It's quite simple, IMHO. Reminds me of when I was a kid, envying those spoiled brats who used to have all the cool toys, who didn't even appreciate what they had. And my mom would try and make me understand how much more I'd appreciate something if I earned it.
 
Now that we all have access to everything, everywhere all the time, I guess it's hard to appreciate it. And if it has no value to you, why would you pay for it?

By then (tens of years) you'll be "streaming" songs right into your brains by cleverly implanted wireless receiving chips that can pick up a variety of signals near and far. The music biz will be out of biz. All music will be free and previously famous rock stars will become nothing more than rocks.
 
If you go for the package deal which includes a TXmitter you can also transmit those songs to other people. The technology will quickly escalate to the point where any random thought can be Txed or Rxed. True telepathy will be the norm.... my thoughts are your thoughts, etc.... scary!