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Record sales or music sales are activities related to selling music recordings (
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...
s,
singles, or
music videos
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
) through physical
record shop
A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...
s or
digital music store
A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings without ...
. Record sales reached the peak in 1999, when 600 million people spent an average of $64 in buying records, bringing a total of $40 billion sales of recorded music. Sales continued declining in the 21st century. The collapse of record sales also made artists rely on
touring for most of their income. By 2019, record sales had accounted for less than half of global recorded music revenue, overtaken by
streaming. Following the inclusion of streaming into record charts in the mid-2010s, record sales are also referred to as traditional sales or pure sales.
According to ''
Guinness World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'',
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
's 1982 album ''
Thriller'' remains the best-selling album in history, with an estimated 66 million copies sold worldwide.
Elton John's "
Candle in the Wind 1997
"Candle in the Wind 1997", also known as "Goodbye England's Rose" and "Candle in the Wind '97", is a song by English musician Elton John and songwriter Bernie Taupin, a re-written and re-recorded version of their 1973 song "Candle in the Wind". ...
" is the best-selling physical single of all time with 33 million copies sold. Although an accurate worldwide sales figure is hard to determine, it is widely acknowledged that
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
have sold more records than any other artist in the history of recorded music.
History
Before the existence of
recording medium
Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are con ...
and its player, the music industry earned profit through selling
musical compositions on
sheet music. The very first sales chart published by ''
Billboard'' magazine in the United States was the ''Sheet Music Best Sellers'' chart. Following the invention of the
phonograph by
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
in 1877, the music industry began hiring
singers
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
to record songs made by composers. Due to the length limit of recording media,
singles were the only available commercial releases. In 1900, the US record sales is estimated at about 3 million copies. The music industry continued its growth, and by 1921 the value of record sales in the US reached $106 million with 140 million records being sold.
Album sales were first reported by ''
Billboard'' magazine on March 24, 1945.
An album was then defined as a box containing a set of singles, such as ''
Glenn Miller'' by
Glenn Miller, as well as ''
Selections from Going My Way
''Selections from Going My Way'' is a studio album of phonograph records by Bing Crosby released in late 1945 featuring songs that were presented in the American musical comedy-drama film ''Going My Way''. This was the first release of one of Cr ...
'' and ''
Merry Christmas'' by
Bing Crosby. Technological developments in the early 20th century led to the development of the vinyl
LP record as an important medium for recorded music. In 1948,
Columbia Records began to bring out 33 rpm twelve-inch extended-play LPs that could play for as long as 52 minutes, or 26 minutes per side.
Musical film soundtracks, jazz works, and thematic albums by singers such as
Frank Sinatra quickly utilized the new longer format. ''Billboard'' launched its first regularly published weekly albums chart,
Best Selling Popular Albums, on March 24, 1956.
During the 1950s and into the 1960s, 45 rpm
seven-inch single
In music, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. One can be released for sale to the public in a variety of formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separa ...
sales were considered the primary market for the recording industry, while albums were a secondary market. The careers of notable rock and roll performers such as
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
were driven primarily by single sales. Album sales reached its peak in English-language popular music from the mid 1960s to the mid 2000s (known as "
album era
The album era was a period in English-language popular music from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s in which the album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption. It was primarily driven by three successive music recording ...
") in which the album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption. From the early 1980s, the
CD became the dominant format for both albums and singles, due to factors such as higher audio quality, durability, ease of use, and longer playing time. In 1986,
Dire Straits' ''
Brothers in Arms'' became the first album in history to sell over one million copies on CD.
In October 2005, "
Hollaback Girl
"Hollaback Girl" is a song by American singer-songwriter Gwen Stefani from her debut solo studio album, '' Love. Angel. Music. Baby.'' (2004). It is a hip-hop song that draws influence from 1980s hip-hop and dance music. The song was written ...
" by
Gwen Stefani was the first single ever to sell one million digital downloads. Downloads have been in decline since 2013 as consumers have moved away from a purchase/ownership model towards a
subscription-based model (
streaming). By 2018, total sales were at their lowest point since the 1970s, and continue to fall. In 2020, major UK retailers such as supermarkets started to stop selling music.
Marketing
![Dusty Groove Record Store Day 2014](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Dusty_Groove_Record_Store_Day_2014.jpg)
Aside of paid advertising in print or broadcast media,
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
airplay
Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in n ...
is one of the most important tools to sell records. A research commissioned by one of major label groups stated that "four out of five music purchases can be traced to radio airplay.
In 2007,
Record Store Day
Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...
was inaugurated to bring together fans, artists, and thousands of independent
record stores across the world.
The 2013 event of Record Store Day was credited with the highest U.S. vinyl sales, and the 2014 edition resulted in independent retailers recording the highest percentage of physical album sales, since the
SoundScan
Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...
system was introduced in 1991.
Merchandise bundles
In 2004,
Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...
became the first major artist to bundle his album, ''
Musicology'', with tour ticket purchases, giving copies of the album to each audience upon entrance to the venue. Those copies were counted as sales for the album on the
''Billboard'' 200 chart during its corresponding week of each concert. This strategy led ''Billboard'' and Nielsen SoundScan tighten up their policy on how tickets bundled with albums would count for charting purposes.
Travis Scott bundled his 2018 album ''
Astroworld'' with his 28-piece merchandise line, which contributed to first-week sales exceeding 270,000 traditional units and a number-one debut on the ''Billboard'' 200.
RIAA summary by format, in million copies per year.
Financial loss
At times, labels overshipped records to retailers with too high expectations of commercial response. Records not sold to consumers may be returned to the label. In January 2008, media reported that over one million unsold copies of
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...
's album ''
Rudebox
''Rudebox'' is the seventh studio album by English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams, released on 23 October 2006 in the United Kingdom. It features two guest appearances from the Pet Shop Boys. The album was produced by a variety of producer ...
'' were sent to China to be crushed.
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
owner Guy Hands said, "Roughly 85% of what EMI does get to release never makes a profit, in part because of the cash spent signing bands and partly due to ill-made bets on the number of CDs the market requires for particular acts."
In 2011,
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
sold an estimated 440,000 copies of
Lady Gaga
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...
's ''
Born This Way'' in its first two days at a price of 99 cents. This promotional campaign caused a loss of over $3 million for the company. In 2014,
U2's album ''
Songs of Innocence
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...
'' was released for free on
iTunes. Apple's deal with U2 and the band’s label, Universal Music, which stands to lose more than a million full-price sales because of the free download offer, guarantees $100m worth of high-profile marketing for the album.
Second-hand
The sale of
second-hand
Used goods mean any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps.
Risks
Furniture, in particular bedding or upholstere ...
albums and singles continues into the 2020s, with many record stores having a used section, as well as pawn shops such as
CeX,
Cash Generator,
Cash Converters
Cash Converters International Limited (Cash Converters or Cashies) is an Australian ASX-listed personal finance and secondhand retail company headquartered in Perth, Western Australia.
History
Cash Converters was founded in Perth, Western Aust ...
, and the emergence of
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
,
MusicMagpie
musicMagpie is a British owned online retailer buying and selling refurbished electronics and second-hand computer games, consoles, books, films and music.
History
musicMagpie was founded in Stockport in 2007 by Steve Oliver and Walter Glee ...
,
Alibris
Alibris is an online store that sells new books, used books, out-of-print books, rare books, and other media through an online network of independent booksellers.
History
Martin Manley founded Alibris in 1997 with the team behind early o ...
and other dedicated websites.
See also
*
Record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
*
Record collecting
Record collecting is the hobby of collecting sound recordings, usually of music, but sometimes poetry, reading, historical speeches, and ambient noises. Although the typical focus is on vinyl records, all formats of recorded music can be collect ...
*
Music recording certification
*
List of best-selling music artists
*
List of best-selling albums
This is a list of the world's best-selling albums of recorded music. To appear on the list, the figure must have been published by a reliable source and the album must have sold at least 20 million copies. This list can contain any types of al ...
*
List of best-selling singles
This is a compendium of the best-selling music singles. The criterion for inclusion is to sell at least ten million copies worldwide. The singles listed here were cited by reliable sources from various media, such as digital journalism, new ...
*
Album-equivalent unit
The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditio ...
References
{{Music industry
Recorded music
Sales
Music industry