jerryfaust (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jerryfaust) wrote,@ 2009-05-28 15:51:00 |
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Music industry decline: 90s contributing factors
The growth of peer-to-peer file sharing networks (starting with the original Napster) has been widely blamed for a massive sales decline in the music industry. While I don’t dispute the impact of non-licensed downloading, I do think that two other factors contributed to widespread music consumer discontent during the 1990s and thereby ‘set the stage’ for the MP3 revolution.
The killing of the CD Single format. According to year end playlist charts, the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Slide” received more radio airplay than any other song during 1998. Yet fans of the band and the song could not purchase a CD Single version; it was only available as an ‘album track’ on the studio album Dizzy Up the Girl, so buyers were forced to purchase the entire album to obtain the song.
Several other singles were released as “radio only” promotions during the decade, reinforcing my suspicion that record company executives were deliberately trying to ‘kill’ the CD Single format.
Heavy Promotion of “One Hit Wonders.” Every decade of the rock era has produced multiple one-hit wonders, but the 1990s seemed to encompass an overwhelming number of such acts: Dishwalla, Primitive Radio Gods, Chumbawumba, Donna Lewis, Dog’s Eye View, Sister Hazel, Mark Morrison, Crash Test Dummies, Lou Bega, and Blackstreet spring immediately to mind. Although CD singles were released for some of the tracks produced by these acts (such as Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars”), many buyers who purchased the full-length albums by these acts were probably disappointed.’
New artists with multiple hit singles on their debut albums, such as Alanis Morrissette, were a relative raridy during the decade, a fact that surely contributed to listener fatigue.
The growth of peer-to-peer file sharing networks (starting with the original Napster) has been widely blamed for a massive sales decline in the music industry. While I don’t dispute the impact of non-licensed downloading, I do think that two other factors contributed to widespread music consumer discontent during the 1990s and thereby ‘set the stage’ for the MP3 revolution.
The killing of the CD Single format. According to year end playlist charts, the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Slide” received more radio airplay than any other song during 1998. Yet fans of the band and the song could not purchase a CD Single version; it was only available as an ‘album track’ on the studio album Dizzy Up the Girl, so buyers were forced to purchase the entire album to obtain the song.
Several other singles were released as “radio only” promotions during the decade, reinforcing my suspicion that record company executives were deliberately trying to ‘kill’ the CD Single format.
Heavy Promotion of “One Hit Wonders.” Every decade of the rock era has produced multiple one-hit wonders, but the 1990s seemed to encompass an overwhelming number of such acts: Dishwalla, Primitive Radio Gods, Chumbawumba, Donna Lewis, Dog’s Eye View, Sister Hazel, Mark Morrison, Crash Test Dummies, Lou Bega, and Blackstreet spring immediately to mind. Although CD singles were released for some of the tracks produced by these acts (such as Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars”), many buyers who purchased the full-length albums by these acts were probably disappointed.’
New artists with multiple hit singles on their debut albums, such as Alanis Morrissette, were a relative raridy during the decade, a fact that surely contributed to listener fatigue.
