So Atlantic Records recently hit the tipping point where now their digital sales are surpassing their physical ones. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of no one at all being surprised. I mean, sure, there might be a FEW C-Level execs left in the record industry who are looking at the Internet and saying “oh that’s just a fad. That flummery will pass and people will go back to buying vinyl!” But if there are such execs left, they’re few and far between and probably well-insulated from the actual music-related decisions of their company.
See, even the Majors are starting to realize that this Internet thing is around to stay and that, for the foreseeable future, digital sales are probably going to make up the lion’s share of their revenue. Even companies (like Atlantic) that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Internet age are starting to realize that this whole “online music sales” thing doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as they thought. In fact, it feels kind of good.
The most cursory reason that Internet sales are good for the companies is the impulse-buy, candy-in-the-checkout-line effect. I can be browsing Amazon and come across an album I’d heard good things about and one click and 7 bucks later, I own it. It’s easy. And while that’s not strictly speaking unique to the Internet, the Internet makes such impulse purchases a lot easier and available. I mean, if I get blitzed one night and I decide at 3 AM that I really need the new Britney Spears album, well, now I can go online and buy it and have it downloaded via Amazon with a single click. This, if nothing else, is a Good Thing for them. I mean, compare that to the pre-Internet days: how many times have you been shitfaced in a record store?
Glib observations about the power of drunk-buying aside, Majors are starting to grok the fact that what’s good for their customer is, generally speaking, good for them. This is ESPECIALLY true if we’re talking increases in convenience. There are a lot of records that I never bought because I never thought of them or was never covetous of them while I was at the record store. Well, with all of those records now available over the Internet, my room is a record store. There are also a lot of albums that I was curious to hear, but not curious enough to actually hop in my car, drive to Sam Goody’s, purchase, and drive home to hear. With the Internet, buying music so easy that I don’t even have to put on pants.
(I suppose I don’t TECHNICALLY have to put on pants to go to the mall, but the one time I tried it, it didn’t end well . . . )
The point is, purely digital music is faster, cheaper, and more convenient than any physical media can possibly be. This is a Good Thing for music consumers, obviously, but it’s also a Good Thing for record labels. This is due to the simple equation that (Easier To Buy) + (Cheaper To Buy) = (More Likely To Buy). The horror stories the labels have been trying to sell us about piracy being the slow bleeding death of the industry and digital music being its dark-robed harbinger are (and always have been) total bullshit. The truth is: if people want to hear their music, the odds are that they’re perfectly willing to pay for it if they can. Sure, the ones that can’t may pirate it, but those are mostly people that weren’t going to buy it anyway.
So it really should be no surprise to Atlantic or anyone else that digital sales are quickly outstripping physical sales. Digital sales are more convenient and cheaper and so are a much better choice for most customers. And as always: what’s good for the customer, is good for the label.
UPDATE: If you’re interested, the amazing Bob Lefsetz does a pretty interesting analysis of this story.