Record Store Day May Have Peaked

Since 2008, Record Store Day every April has been a huge hit. In fact, many in the music industry feel that it's been a big reason for vinyl's resurgence, calling attention to a side of the business that had been essential dead and buried and has now returned to a level of surprising growth. Even though the latest Record Store Day a couple of weeks ago was proclaimed the biggest ever, there's evidence that we might've seen its peak.

One of the best things about RSD was that the small Mom & Pop record store was celebrated, but this time many of these stores refused to join in the festivities because they now feel it's been totally co-opted by the major labels.

The reason is that in order for a store to officially participate in the event, they are forced to purchase a slew of "official" new vinyl releases, which they're not able to return if unsold. This has imparted an undue financial burden upon already cash-strapped stores which many are now unwilling to take.

While many vinyl fans do look for new or re-released titles, most record stores make their living on used or early edition releases, and find that new vinyl just doesn't sell in the quantities that the labels require them to take for the event (the big indies are complicit here too).

Small indie labels and artists are also upset too, in that the major labels tie up all the vinyl pressing plants for months prior to RSD, so they're not able to have new vinyl ready for the event.

So like with so many other movements that start off with the best intentions, Record Store Day has been co-opted by big business, and as a result will soon cease to be the event that it once was. Let's hope that the indie record stores find other ways to maintain their visibility so they can still stay in business.

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England's Music Retail Outlets Actually Growing In Number

While music retailers in the US are getting more and more scarce, just the opposite is happening in merry old England. In fact, the number of retail outlets are up 20% from last year!

It's hard to believe that the UK now has 10,391 retailers selling music physical products, as compared to only 4,206 in the US, according to IBISWorld market research. And this from a country that has about a fifth of the population.

Even though there's more places to buy CDs and vinyl, that doesn't mean it translates into increased sales. In fact, physical product sales in the UK were down 5% last year. Just as a comparison, US physical sales were down 14%.

What that seems to indicate is something that many in the industry (including myself) have been saying. If music is more available, then there's more opportunity for an impulse or gift buy.

That doesn't mean it would stem the tide of digital music services, but it could slow it down a bit, just like in the UK.

Nonetheless, if you're in the US or the UK, cherish your local music retailer and do your best to keep him in business. You may regret it someday when he's not around.

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How Soundscan Works

Many artists, bands and musicians have heard of Nielsen SoundsScan, but they're not sure how it impacts their musical lives. The fact of the matter is that if you want to be included in Billboard's charts, then you need to know about SoundScan because its at the basis of how their charts, and many others, work.

In the early days of the record business, the charts were mostly derived from a phone survey of record stores and radio stations to determine what people where buying or listening to. Obviously, this survey could be easily gamed and regularly was by a variety of methods. This changed with the introduction of SoundScan in 1991, when the company began to track sales through the inventory barcodes that each record, cassette and CD had printed on it for inventory control. As a result, a more or less accurate count of actual sales could be counted.

I say more or less because the system wasn't perfect. The data was originally collected from about 14,000 retailers, but many smaller stores chose not to be included in the survey because it required a Point-of-Sale inventory system and electronic access to SoundScan, which could be expensive at the time (it's less so today, but still too much for many of the 2,500 retailers left).

In an effort to somehow include the sales of the non-reporting stores, SoundScan introduced a weighting system where a single sale at a large chain store in a major area like Chicago could be counted as multiple sales. A sale a certain stores could be counted for as many as 10 or as few as 2, while a small mom & pop retailer's sale would be counted only as 1.

SoundScan was always careful about revealing which stores where weighted, but many record labels made intelligent guesses about which were large weighted stores and found ways to inflate their sales and therefore, the chart position of an album, which kind of defeats the purpose of SoundScan in the first place.

That said, SoundScan is still in use today, which is why it's essential that any physical product that you release has a barcode on it. You can purchase one from Tunecore or CD Baby, if you're using them to release your product, or use any of the online barcode generators like this one.

The Billboard charts use the input from SoundScan less these days, as they now also value digital sales and social media as well as radio airplay when determining airplay. That said, if you want a chance at the charts, make sure you include that barcode so SoundScan knows you exist.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

The World's 10 Best Record Stores

Amoeba Music in Hollywood

While it's true that record stores are sadly dying, they're not dead yet. To prove the case, Buzzfeed Music posted a great article on the best record stores in the world. Here's what they considered to be the top 10.

1. Amoeba Music - Hollywood, CA. (I've been there, since I live near Hollywood - it's fabulous!)

2. 12 Tonar - Reykjavik, Iceland

3. Aquarius Music - San Francisco, CA

4. Tower Records - Tokyo, Japan

5. Princeton Record Exchange - Princeton, NJ

6. Spacehall - Berlin, Germany

7. The Thing - Brooklyn, NY

8. Waterloo Records - Austin, TX

9. Forever Young Records - Grand Prairie, TX

10. Mabu Vinyl - Capetown, South Africa

The article mentions 17 additional great record stores, so for all of you vinyl aficionados, consider this your bucket list.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Old Records Outselling New For The First Time

Here's a twist in music sales that I think everyone saw coming, but didn't want to admit could ever happen. For the first time since Nielsen Soundscan has been keeping track of sales since 1991, older catalog records are outselling current albums. A catalog album is one that was released more than 18 months ago.

Catalog sales were at 76.6 million for the first half of the year, compared to 73.9 million current albums. The top selling catalog items include Guns 'n Roses Greatest Hits, and four by Whitney Houston (no doubt boosted by her untimely death).

There seems to be a couple of reasons for the turnaround:

1) There hasn't been a blockbuster hit by a superstar act during the period (although Adele's 21 still continues to be strong seller, though it was released last year).

2) Record labels and retailers have dropped the prices on catalog items to $4.99 to $7.99. Compared with a current CD price of $13 to $18 and a digital album from $7.99 to $10.99, catalog items are a bargain.

3) The buyers of albums are predominantly older and purchase more albums, especially catalog items.

All this signals an uptick in business for brick and mortar retailers, which is good for the industry. Let's see if this trend continues until the end of the year.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.