On July 22, 2010 Leahcim Semaj hosted on his Facebook newsfeed, a summary and the link to www.fastcompany.com. The article primarily referenced and reported the contents of a joint address at the new music seminar in New York City, by Tom Silverman, founder of Tommy Boy Records and Eric Garland CEO of Big Champagne, on the state of the International Music Industry.

These two gentlemen revealed some grim, startling statistics, as it relates to sales of albums released in 2009. Combining physical and digital sales, “Of the some hundred thousand albums released last year, seventeen thousand of them sold only one copy; more than eighty one thousand albums sold fewer than one hundred copies. In fact, just thirteen hundred albums sold over ten thousand copies.”

Eric Garland claims that for physical sales alone, “Only two percent of new albums on sound scan sold over five thousand copies.” Austin Kerr, the author of the article adds the comment “That’s a sky diver’s plummet from the golden era of the music industry.”

While singles sales tapered off between the years 2000 and 2003, since then, there has been an almost eight fold cumulative increase in sales up to 2009. This is attributed to the fact that a higher percentage of the world’s populations now ply this trade either as an amateur or professional.

Among the reasons given for the precipitous fall in album sales is that the traditional business model which centered on production and release of albums is outmoded and presently counter intuitive to the cultural disposition of contemporary music aficionados who mostly listen to compilations or a collection of songs.

Another reason cited, is that, this phenomenon is a direct by-product of a deliberate business strategy employed by iTunes to sell every song, as a single, for ninety nine cents; as opposed to a cost closer to one dollar ninety nine. The implication is that this would have encouraged higher album sales. Here is a good example how even with the impact of globalisation and the worldwide reach and impact of information technology, the music distribution trade continues to be skewed towards serving the interests of a few monopolistic trans-nationals, based mostly in North America and Europe.

In terms of future trends, Eric Garland made a telling statement that music consumers are using YouTube as their first option, and informs that it currently has the largest catalogue of on-demand music on the internet. The article concludes with the deduction that “traditional music media is going away”, but ponders whether the music industry is ready for the change.

This unvarnished information gleaned, now warrants urgent, widespread analysis and debate within our local entertainment industry. Whereas, since the birth of our modern popular music, from Duke Reid and Clement Dodd in the sixties, through Sly and Robbie in the eighties, to the present, with companies like Jet Star and VP Records, our artistes and producers have challenged the status quo and bucked the commercial trends, in what was, back then, somewhat of an intuitive revolution in the business of marketing music. Now, finally, the rest of the world is catching up, as has been admitted in the comments above, by two big movers and shakers at the pinnacle of the industry. The promotion and sales of singles and compilations, as a main component of revenue intake for their sustenance, has always been a core feature of the Jamaican recording industry. In today’s world, with universal access and growing popularity of iTunes and YouTube, the gross sales of physical CDs have been totally decimated, along with the record/manufacturing sector.

In order to compensate for this major loss of income, live performances, concerts and tours, have now become the predominant source of income for most prominent artistes and musicians. In this sense, the music industry has come full circle to the era which predates the invention of the phonogram and the manufacturing of records and tapes. But, that’s a simplistic view, because during that time, the only means of hearing or seeing and artiste/ musician was through live performances. While the old music media is probably moribund, the new emerging media, made possible by the web-including YouTube and iTunes, gives most artistes, musicians and producers a much enhanced, dynamic advantage.

In this new dispensation, we must examine our state of readiness to maximize on our competitive advantage and potential, in the areas of online sales and performance touring. The industry has been turned on its head. Historically, tours were used mainly as a marketing tool to promote the sales of records. Today, released recordings are mainly to promote concert tours. With the enormous market penetration of the new media however, songs become an instant hit in many markets simultaneously; opening up new touring opportunities for our artistes in far flung places where traditional media might not have penetrated.

Che.campbell@gmail.com