12 Disappointing facts about pop music

[Spudman***]

What I can't figure out is where those figures are coming from. Since many people are downloading music and often only downloading just a few songs that they like off albums, where do the numbers come from? In the past you HAD to buy the album. Today you can often get it free electronically. So where are the sales coming from?

Now days it's often said that if an artist sells 50,000 copies then they are doing very well. It's a mystery to me. I wonder if the numbers aren't fixed just so the companies don't look like they are going under.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

What I can't figure out is where those figures are coming from.

Considering the state of today's "news" business, it doesn't matter where it comes from, and it doesn't matter if it's accurate, or even true. The 24-hour news business, by it's very nature, needs to fill the media any way it can, whether it be hard news, fluff pieces, thinly-disguised advertising or out-and-out fiction.

[guitartango]

If you think about it, there are more people buying/downloading music today than the 60/70's, of course the record sales will be high. As for Katy Perry and Dustin Beaver, they both have talent but nothing compared to Elvis/Beatles etc. Trouble is that all the great songwriters are now dead or soon will be, the question is, who will take their place? In twenty years time the Beavers of this world will be long forgotten where Lennon\Elvis will still be remembered.

[aeolian]

What I can't figure out is where those figures are coming from.

I agree with Bookkeeper's Son that the numbers are suspect. I assume there are hard numbers from sales of CDs plus download sales from Amazon and iTunes and such. Billboard supposedly track sales numbers somehow, I wonder what information it uses?