Country Music sales drop 10% in 2003

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

Fox news reported tonight that country music sales dropped 10% in 2003 over the previous year. Its the highest percent drop of any music genre reported. When will the music execs realize that Kid Rock is NOT country, neither is Sheryll Crow. Most of the music coming out of Nashville down right sucks for people who are real country music lovers. Is this a wakeup call?

Tom Olson · From: Spokane, WA

In all seriousness, I have a theory for this -- change in demographics.

Specifically, I heard recently that the population of the U.S. topped 300,000,000 (three hundred million) in the year 2003 (last year). If you recall, the census of the year 2000 was around 280,000,000. That means in less than three years the population of the U.S. grew by just shy of 10%. In reality, the population growth was probably larger than actually reported, so my guess is that the growth in the last 3 years was actually right at 10%.

That means, at this rate of population increase, the total population will just about double in 30 years. Some may say that's not really that different from the growth in the past. The average total population of the U.S. has doubled about every 50 years or so.

However, what is important about the current population growth is that it's TOTALLY made up of minorities. In fact, this situation has been occuring over the last several decades. I might be wrong, but I don't know of too many minorities that really dig country music.

The big growth area is (naturally) Latino music.

So, my theory is that there is a declining fan base of country music which at least partially accounts for the decline in sales of country music. Just a theory.

JB Arnold · From: Longmont,Co,USA (deceased)

If nashville switched to just selling what real country music fans like thier sales would drop to statistical zero. lets keep in mind that there are plenty of acts that make the kind of stuff traditionilists call real country. George Strait, Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Randy Travis et al. One thing noted in that survey is that with the EXCEPTION of the Dixie Chicks and Shania, the girls didn't sell as well as in the past-and they're saying that means a swing towards more traditional country influenced buyers, who usually pass on female artists in general. (I'm not sure I like what that says about traditional country fans, but it's bad for overall sales) Also, I'm not sure all the big guns had product out this year. Garth is out of the picture, and no matter what you think of that, it's bad for the big sales number. (Fine, I'm not a huge garth fan either, but there's no 3 male singers combined who can replace his annual sales when he had new product out, which I believe he did in '02. And no one on the horizon to replace him either.)
Plus, lets add to that the fact that the typical country fan probably fits into the demographic most likely hurting the worst from the current economy, and a 10% drop may be a pretty good performance all things considered.

But no-it's not the signal that will send them back to the 60's. REAL country is a niche market, like jazz, and the sooner we realize that and accept it the better. 100 new real country releases wouldn't even show as a blip on the Nashville sales charts.

Why? Well, there's not enough of us, for one. And 2: The ones of us that are left are mostly all hat and no cattle. We talk a lot, but when it's time to go to the hip, we vote with our feet, and head for the exit. See the Sara Evans threads for more evidence of that. Part of the problem lies in the mirror, my friends.

JB

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Fulawka D-10 9&5
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"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel
www.buddycage.net

http://www.nrpsmusic.com/index.html

[This message was edited by JB Arnold on 13 January 2004 at 06:11 PM.]

Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

Tom, your theory explains why country music is not attracting new fans; it doesn't explain a decline. If immigration was the only factor, sales would have remained fairly static unless 10% of the fans died. That the fans are buying less product could be attributed to the bad economy. Of course, the record companies will blame downloading. I wonder how country-radio listenership has fared? If it has dropped, then the product is being rejected.

John Macy · From: Rockport TX/Denver CO

Golly gee, do you think downloading might have anything to do with the sales decline??...

Rich Weiss · From: Woodland Hills, CA, USA

I just saw the crawler on Fox. Country music sales down 10% while the rest of the music industry was only down 1%. The rebuttal from 'country music' was that there was simultaneous releases from all of the blockbuster acts, or some kind of lame excuse like that. Anyway, I'm hardly surprised. I think this vindicates many of us, regarding 'modern' country.

Tom Olson · From: Spokane, WA

Dave -- you're right. After I thought about my theory, I realized my reasoning was flawed.

However, I still think changing demographics could have something to do with the "overall" decline in the popularity of country music (if indeed there is such a decline).

I believe that I've also read that, not taking into account immigration, there is a significant shift in cultural/racial and age demographics going on. Specifically, the size of the middle-aged, White population is shrinking.

Here's another example -- I've noticed that in many rural agricultural communities all-Mexican radio stations are changing over where there had been none before. I believe that such rural "farm" communities used to make up a big part of the country music fan base.

If there are now enough Latinos in such areas to entice a radio station to change their formats to total Latino, then I believe this is evidence of such a demographics shift going on.

Of course I might be wrong about this, and of course there must be other factors effecting the decline also such as those mentioned above -- downloading, file-sharing, etc. etc. as well as a change in the music itself.

Chris Lasher · From: Blacksburg, VA

Well, in good news, at least for me, Atlanta is now apparently the #1 market for Country music, and I believe sales have not declined in the greater Atlanta area. This likely explains why Brad Paisley (woohoo!), Martina McBride, and most recently, Trace Adkins all decided to show up for autograph signings of their new albums within the first week of their releases. Martina actually came down from Tennessee the same day of the release of Martina to sign in McDonough.

Martina also did her "Joy of Christmas" show here in Atlanta for I believe the second year in a row.

Not to mention George Strait's tour schedule got reshuffled because, in a "last minute decision", it was determined that he would start out here in Atlanta at the Gwinnett Civic Center.

The suits and the artists aren't that stupid--they know where the money is...

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

I think the industry's conception of maintaining sales figures is flawed. Sales of computers is way down, but it's not because people are "pirating" computers! Put quite simply, the sales of CD's rose dramatically after their introduction about 15 years ago. Now, the market is approaching saturation, just like it is for computers. Once everyone had a decent computer or two in their house, and once businesses had adopted them, their sales declined, spiking up again only with the introduction of vastly improved units (Pentiums), and hefty price drops.

The same thing is happening now with CD's. People who had just a few would buy many, and once they acquired a couple hundred of them, their buying naturally slowed down. (Also, there was no hefty "price drops" to aid sales, as there was with computers.) Anyone with marketing experience understands the laws of a declining market, and realizes that it's impossible to keep offering the same (or relatively same) product at the same price, and maintain sales. The recording industry is eager to cast blame anywhere they can, and foolishly still expects continual gains from what is, in reality, a shrinking market.

When I first started buying CD's, it was common to buy several each week. But now that I have many hundreds, I'm very selective about what I buy. (I imagine there are others that feel the same way.) Also, not a single person or article is mentioning sales of used CD's, which are growing dramatically. Why buy a new CD for $18 when you'll be able to get a used one for half that (or less) in just a few weeks? High retail prices for CD's have spawned a huge entrepreneur's market for used ones almost overnight!

JB Arnold · From: Longmont,Co,USA (deceased)

Hi John

For some reason, I'm not sure downloading affects country as much as the other areas, but then I read the article in the Rocky and it says different. It probably does, but not 10%, do ya think?

John

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Fulawka D-10 9&5
Fessenden D-10 8&8
"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel
www.buddycage.net

http://www.nrpsmusic.com/index.html

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

I know I've about heard enough of it for a while..

EJL

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

Classic country never renewed it's market with the young because it was not based on expiriences they had lived.
Classic country increasingly wrote for an older audience and as that aged and stopped buying a lot of CDs the market shrunk.

So the young gravitated to rock, and then country rock because country had been a background music in their lives especially in the southland.

Now the market for music with a country theme IS rock with that theme. Or the acoustic renaisance plumbed so well by the Dixie Chicks. They took bluegrass and old timey and added rock pop and sexiness to it.
And a briliant move too.

But you must note Lloyd Maines played no steel at all, he left it all to the sexy dobro player.
I won't bet against him playing some on later albums.

But for the early ones he didn't want to saddle the kids with old baggage. Build their fan base and style, there's plenty of time to add more retropsective elements when they are well established.
A canny fellow this man.He read the market looked at his act and used it's strengths in relation to the market.

And like them politically or not, they did a great job and are more country than a lot of "New Country" acts.
And they have had good sales.

Alvin Blaine · From: Picture Rocks, Arizona, USA

This is my theory on why Country music sales are down(when the industry say sales are down that means they just didn't increase as much as projected).
As of this year 26% of the American population is over 50 years old, they control nearly 75% of North America’s personal wealth, spend 28% of all discretionary income, nearly double that of households headed by those who are 34 years old or younger, and represents close to 50% of all consumer spending in North America.

Yet Country radio and recording labels keep putting out songs aimed 12 to 25 year olds. They're trying to compete with pop/rock and are completely missing out on the market that has all the money to spend. Do they really think that people over fifty want to buy a Billy Gilman CD for $18.99 and hear him sing songs for other 12 year olds? Or Keith Urban, Tim Mcgraw, Kenney ..... I don't want to hear songs about going to the highschool prom or taking your first date out to the farm to ride around on a tractor.

You (country music industry) built up a fan base of loyal followers back in the '50s, '60s, and '70s and now that these fans of country music have all the money to spend you go and turn your back on them.

Come on Nashville, get with it!!!

Ed Naylor · From: portsmouth.ohio usa, R.I.P.

I have been around a couple years and involved in Music. I spent many years in Nashville and helped produce some good C-W but all low key and not for the "Hit" scene. With today's economy and public attitude I think I will write a song called "ME and MY S.U.V." A guy in prison sent me a song "NASHVILLE MUSIC CITY-HEARTACHE USA". Another song 'Did You Forget the Melody-or Did I Forget the Song" Ed Naylor Steel Guitar Works

Johan Jansen · From: Europe

Do you also have % from the total CD-sales drop? I mean all kinds of music? My guess is that the sales of rock-hiphop,r&b, are even higher. Blame it on copy-ing. Which youngster pays $18 for a CD if he can copy it from a friend?
The whole music industry will go down, and with the DVD-burner in two years the whole movie-industry.my 5 cnts. Johan

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Click on the pic!

Bill Llewellyn · From: San Jose, CA

Johan,

I think DVDs are a lot harder to copy than CDs -- I think the copy protection is better. And I also think they'll come up with a reasonably good CD copy protection scheme before long which should stem some of the file sharing activities.

I'm doing my part to increase country sales.... since I got iTunes I've been buying quite a bit. And I get to pick the songs I like best on a one by one basis.

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?

Carter York · From: Austin, TX [Windsor Park]

Keep in mind as well, that the used CD market is a factor, though it is rarely demonized like the downloading aspect. I think that sales are down because there are fewer choices being shoved in your* ears by commercial radio , and most of it follows such cliched formulas.....no thanks.

Carter

* - I say 'your' b/c I decided about 10 years ago to stop listening to *any* commercial radio for my music intake. What a difference a decade makes.

Ron Page · From: Penn Yan, NY USA

Regarding Tom's theory on demographics and David's reply: If we're not adding to the country fan base you would NOT expect sales to remain constant, you would expect a decline. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but even fans of tradional country music are not imortal.

I don't think it could have had a 10% impact yet, but I suspect many country fans will turn to satellite radio. Having to pay for radio might make them less inclined to buy CD's. So it may get better before it gets worse. Why would country fans turn to satlelite radio more than others? Where else can they hear the real stuff?

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HagFan

Nicholas Dedring · From: Beacon, New York, USA

Bill, with all consideration, DVD encryption is garbage. I don't know if you remember the case that came up under DMCA ("Digital Millenium Copyright Act") regarding it... but the deal was that CSS (the DVD encryption protocol) was cracked with a string of code that might have been a hair over twenty lines of text... by a fifteen year old kid. Panic ensued, websites were sued etc. etc., but the fact is that DVD can be cracked with a gray market version of the kids code "DeCSS". Note: he didn't make it to pirate DVDs, he made it because there were no available retail systems to play DVDs on a Linux equipped machine.

The thing that has been hitting pop sales hard, and now country as well, I guess... is not downloading but the fact that people have replaced all the old back catalogue that they still want, that they had on tape and vinyl. Once you've bought all the old george jones you want on cd, you aren't buying any more stuff. Back catalogue is the most profitable part of any record company's business... so they are hurting because of it.

Carter York · From: Austin, TX [Windsor Park]

quote:

Back catalogue is the most profitable part of any record company's business...

_______________________

...which says volumes about their "current" catalogs...

CY

Ben Slaughter · From: Madera, California

Lets do the math: 2003 - Garth - Dixie Chicks = 10% decline

How do the record companies expect to sell more albums when the radio stations play the same 30 songs over and over and over?

Like it or not, somewhere in a 10,000 square foot house in Oklahoma, Garth is planning his comeback, and he will be viewed as the savior of country music. Mark my words.

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Ben
Zum D10, NV400, POD, G&L Guitars, etc, etc.

JB Arnold · From: Longmont,Co,USA (deceased)

See, Ben's got it. The problem with aiming for the older group is they won't spend any of that money. The only folks buying D's are kids. That's why it's all anyone writes for. It has been that way since the 50's.

But yeah, no Chicks, no garth, no sales. It's pretty simple. I know this will be an unpopular position, but Garth Brooks was the Beatles of Country-he changed the landscape from a sound and sales perspective permanently. There is no replacement for him in terms of someone who can command those kind of instant fly off the shelf sales numbers.

One other thing-you just KNOW that a lot of those folks who dashed in to pick up the new Garth album also saw something else while they were there and took that home as well. Now they're not perusing the aisles at all anymore.

JB

------------------
Fulawka D-10 9&5
Fessenden D-10 8&8
"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel
www.buddycage.net

http://www.nrpsmusic.com/index.html

Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

But why did country drop 10% while the other genres dropped 1%? That's a ten-fold difference! Paul Franklin said in a thread the other day that country-radio playlists have only about 20 cuts at a time. That's not much product to choose from; it's more like a corner grocery than a supermarket. Do the other radio genres limit their product like that?

[This message was edited by Dave Birkett on 14 January 2004 at 11:24 AM.]

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

Garth Brooks is "country"?

If you reclassified all the performers that traditionalist do NOT call "country", country music has fallen much greater than is reported over the last 30-40 yrs. For all practicaly purposes it is practically dead.

THIS, IMO is why old people do not buy CD's.

There is little to buy that we like. If I have to choose between Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, etc, then I will not buy. Not interested in that sound. I would not listen to the CD's IF they gave them to me.

As a matter of fact, even those that still ARE country such as Vince Gil, throw in some NON country stuff on CD's. This does not sit well with me, so I won't buy that CD either. Like "little Liza Jane"; which is about as country as Billy Ray Cyrus. And bubba that 'aint cuuntrie'

carl

Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

I'm 55 and I buy country CDs; but always the great old stuff that I don't already have. A question for Carl: I haven't heard Vince Gil's "Liza", but I sure love Emmons and the boys' version on the Cherokee Cowboys instrumental album which I bought last year. Have you heard it? I'm sure you'd love it too. I don't find Country and Western Swing incompatible. They both can strike the same pleasure zone in my brain.

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