What have we learned about the digital music business?

We released all our Oblivions* digitally (and internationally) on an experimental basis over the past year, and you might be interested in the results. There was absolutely no analytical methodology involved, and we didn’t promote the launch in any way. (We sure didn’t tell any of you —our biggest fans— about it.) But Tunecore, our digital distributor, gives us very detailed sales numbers and we’ve extrapolated these results. 

The overwhelming hit in every category —albums, individual tracks, songs streamed— was our first album, Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York. It’s not surprising, Fred was the most famous artist we released. Fred’s version of Big Joe Williams’ blues standard “Baby Please Don’t Go” is the top track seller, and while Joe Lee Wilson’s “Jazz Ain’t Nothing But Soul” surprised me as our top jazz, “God Bless the Child” was right behind it. But, it’s completely gratifying to me that our virtual unknowns, Blues From The Apple and Marc Cohen Copland’s Friends, got a few sales too. That’s interesting from the perspective that “search” the most likely way one finds tracks is less likely to pop up results for these two albums.

Here are this year’s percentages, by store. 

55%  iTunes  
 (Australia 27%, US 18%, Europe 5%) 

27%  Amazon  
 (7%  On Demand)

15%  eMusic 

  1%  Spotify 

  1%  Napster 

>1%  Nokia, MediaNet, Zune, VerveLife, MySpace Music

Our conclusions? 

It’s obvious that iTunes is the big winner. They’ve clearly done a better job in more territories (North America, Europe, Australia, Japan) than any of the other digital stores.

And, just as obvious, the stores that sell downloaded files are, as of now, delivering far more in revenue dollars than streaming sites. It’s clear to me that as more and more music is readily available costs to consumers will come way down, as will return to artists. But, no matter how much the business struggles to hang onto the surplus income of the last 50 years, that era is over, and is the idea of making a killing with recordings.

(By the way, that’s what happened to books after television became the primary entertainment medium. Once wealthy publishers, and well off authors, and in the clover book companies, tumbled to fractionally lower returns. Today —and digital hasn’t really transformed publishing yet— book publishing is a financially paper thin business, with only the top of the top making money. Everyone else uses books to promote their “brands.”)

Surprises? 

My biggest shock is that Zune and MySpace are still in business. Small business, but still around. Napster too; I guess well known brands can hang in there. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s still amazing to me that given the sheer of the United States that relatively small Australia delivered more absolute dollars from iTunes. As we’ve known for decades, other countries appreciate American blues more than we do on home territory.

And, I suppose it’s not a shock, but Spotify has surely out marketed all the other streaming services, even though, in my humble opinion, it’s currently an inferior product. It’s the only streaming service that gave Oblivion any returns, small as they are in absolute dolllars. MOG (my personal favorite), Rhapsody (the longest lived streamer), and the other’s barely made a dent.

Lastly, I was astounded that anyone used Amazon’s On Demand service (where Amazon will burn a physical product for a customer for music that’s otherwise only available digitally) to buy some of our albums. But, I suppose some folks just have to have something in their hands to feel like they own it. Or they haven’t entered the 21st century of music consuming yet.

I think that’s about it. If anything else occurs to me I’ll update this post.

…..
* Except Tom Pomposello, where we don’t have access to the original master tapes.