Death of Sales

I disagree with this. New releases make barely any difference to the overall sales figures each week. I remember late 2013 when sales suddenly started declining a lot of people said stuff like "It's just because there's not big songs out atm", but that's not the case.

 

Last week the sales were 2,516,244 compared to 2,851,548 last year. And that was with two songs selling around 100,000 last week. We could've had FIVE new releases selling around 100,000 and we still would not have matched 2014's sales. It's got very little to do with new releases, the sales of the songs outside the top 40 are much more important for overall sales than the new releases. Sales just really are falling, mainly due to people switching to streaming.

 

You'd need an X Factor single that sells hundreds of thousands released every week of the year to compete with 2014's sales. It's not just down to a lack of new releases. Also, remember a lot of weeks last year they didn't have big new releases either, yet 2014's sales have been higher than 2015's sales, every single time.

I agree with you; sales figures don't lie. The biggest factor in their decline is streaming. But what about 10-15 years ago when it was not unusual to see 13/14/15 new entries in the top 40. If only 9 new tracks entered the top 40 it was considered a light week. Granted some of these new entries plummeted quickly. Today 5 new entries a week is considered the norm. This must be a factor in the decline of sales.

As for albums, people just can't be bothered with them. Why pay £10 for 9 tracks, 6 of which you don't really like. Generally speaking, only the hardcore element of an artist's fanbase will buy their album. The casual listener will stream or download the best 2 or 3 tracks. You could argue that the Christmas period is an exception to this, but even then sales are decreasing.