Music Industry Suffers Digital Decrease Despite ‘Beyonce’ Gains

beyonce-she-is-diva-that-grape-juice-haunted-2013

 

For the first time since its genesis, iTunes saw the music industry suffer a digital decline last year, despite helpful efforts made by mega-sellers Beyonce, Justin Timberlake and Emeli Sande.

Details below!


In 2013, US sales of digital tracks dipped by 5.7% while album sales dropped by 0.1%. This, after 117.6 million units were sold in the market last year, a little less than the 117.7 million copies that were sold in 2012- helped in part by Bruno Mars’Unorthodox Jukebox’, Nicki Minaj‘s ‘Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded’ and Taylor Swift’s record breaking effort, ‘Red.’

Unfortunately, not even monumental numbers moved Beyonce and Justin Timberlake could halt the industry’s digital decline, as overall album sales slipped by 8.4% after the 316 million units sold in 2012 found itself unmatched by the 289.4 million units shifted one year later.

Billboard Biz adds:

“Despite the decline in album sales, million sellers increased in 2013 to 13 titles versus the 10 that passed that milestone the prior year when Adele’s “21” led the way with 4.4 million units followed by Taylor’s Swift;s “Red,” which scanned 3.1 million units. In 2013, only one album sold more than one million units, Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience, with 2.4 million units.

The top selling track in 2013 was Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” featuring T.I. & Pharrell, which scanned nearly 6.5 million units, followed by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop,” featuring Wanz  with 6.1 million units and Imagine Dragon’s “Radioactive” with 5.5 million units. Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” featuring Kimbra was the top selling digital song with 6.8 million units the prior year.”

With the above in mind, let us know

What do you feel prompted the decline?

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  1. King Me January 5, 2014

    Ppl start purchasing Records! Especially from great artist support the ART

  2. AutoFill Truthteller, D January 5, 2014

    The 1 year the DIGITAL QUEEN didnt release an album is the very first year of digital decline. Is anybody surprised? Come back asap ICON R, the music industry is flopping without you…

  3. Amanda Bynes January 5, 2014

    Thanks to her husband for buying her album.

  4. ENOUGH ONIKA (NEW & IMPROVED) January 5, 2014

    Well I’m glad, I hate digital. I like to have the physical copy of every artist I truly like. The only time I purchase digital music is when it’s someone I don’t really care about or when I know i’ll get tired of that artist and/or song fast (i.e. Rih…nm). The only FULL length album I bought on iTunes last year was Beyonce..before I got the physical lol..

  5. Marley January 5, 2014

    Considering the amount of people who released (Gaga, Katy and Britney) You would think they would have gained a lot. The fact that only Justin sold over a million (Beyonce would have of she released earlier, I think she is at around 900k digitally)…

  6. FentySoSnatched January 5, 2014

    Can someone tell me why the Hive are saying Beyonce is a positive black role model in the Rico Love thread?

  7. cake like lady gaga January 5, 2014

    and?? What was the purpose of this post??? 5% and 0.1% declines are not that ground breaking declines, they are negligent losses!!

    Sam u just wanted to post about t*********, this site is getting very basic I must say..

  8. h2o January 5, 2014

    Long as my fav is slaying, nothing matters.

  9. Thatmessjuice January 5, 2014

    Where is the post about Anthony Mandler basically saying, in an interview, that Rihanna is not the puppet some out here claim her to be? She self financed the video shoot for Disturbia against her labels wish…post it dammit.

  10. *ℙᏫℙ ℝᏫᎩAℒᎿᎩ* January 5, 2014

    So According to TGJ, Beyonce saved the music industry?

    ZzzZzzz.

  11. Robyn Rihanna Fenty January 5, 2014

    Having worked with Rihanna on 17 videos, how would you say she’s evolved since “Unfaithful”?

    The way I look at it, she was a complete form—an undeveloped complete form, if that makes sense—when I first worked with her on “Unfaithful.” There was this incredible power and emotion, this kind of dark side, and duality. At that point, she was kind of a Bajan island singer. I didn’t know what to do with her. Was she R&B? Pop? Reggae? I think on “Unfaithful” she found the beginning of a lane and a voice. If you look at the songs before that, “Pon de Replay,” stuff like that, they would kind of fit her into a marketable box, more like a female Sean Paul . . . That was what seemed like made sense. But the truth is that anybody who knew her at the time, anybody who worked with her, saw there was this other thing, this incredible fire, this incredible wise-beyond-years thing. It was just about her outgrowing the youth, outgrowing the constraints of the label, having enough hits, making your own decisions enough times. If you knew every single step along the way, you would say, “This could never happen; this never happens.” And it doesn’t. She’s the once in a generation. She’s the biggest star in the world.

    She just had her 13th Number One single, and she’s still only 25.

    There is nothing she can’t do, in a way. There have been some incidents in her life that we all know about, and a lot of incidents people don’t know about, that have given her fuel to the fire to grow further into her character. Because, hey, they all have a character, whether it’s Robyn playing Rihanna, or whether it’s Shawn Carter playing Jay Z, or Marshall Mathers playing Eminem. And in that character, there’s sort of a safe zone. You can ask her [and she’ll say] “Robyn wouldn’t do that, but Rihanna would.” And that’s a very interesting mentality. If you can get under their skin and see who they are at a deeper level—and that comes from working with them direct—you can push them in different ways. You can hopefully create work that lives at a different level.

    Do you have a favorite Rihanna video?

    I love “Russian Roulette”; there’s something about “Russian Roulette” I just love. It was so brave of her, and bold. It was a very dark time and she was harnessing an incredible power. “Disturbia” was probably the biggest moment because that was the first time she let the world see what was inside her. [“Disturbia”] was the 5th or 6th single off the album. I think she probably paid for a lot of it herself. And she said “We’re doing whatever I want. You can’t tell me anything.” And I said “No problem.” When I saw it together, I knew it was something special. It scared the s*** out of the label. I think there was a conversation at one point about shelving it. It was one of those moments when she was kind of smarter than everyone else.

  12. Basura Caliente January 5, 2014

    lady gaga, yelly perry and britney are to blame. What’s the point of having over 40 million online twitter followers and over 50 million facebook fans etc when you can’t even scan over a million copies worldwide in one month?

  13. senshi_nynavy January 5, 2014

    No @pop this is just thatgrapejuice way of saying that without rihanna digital sales suffer…

  14. Red January 5, 2014

    The year the digital sales rose, Rihanna was never mentioned and she had an album out lol.

  15. *ℙᏫℙ ℝᏫᎩAℒᎿᎩ* January 5, 2014

    @Robyn:

    You don’t Need all That baby, Her fans Believe in Her, support her and Push her only to be Better and that’s all What matters at The End of The day, No amount of a hate in a blog Will Change it. 😀

  16. suga&spice January 5, 2014

    Sadly to say there are plentyof places online where u can download for free and illegally.The way music is bought and sold hasn’t been the same since Napster.

  17. *ℙᏫℙ ℝᏫᎩAℒᎿᎩ* January 5, 2014

    @RED

    RIHANNA remains THE BEST SELLING DIGITAL ARTIST OF ALL TIME and We, her fans, REMAIN unbothered With a #1 Hit On BB Top 100 Right as we talk.

    Magnificent. 😀

    Who cares How You Haters Feel ?!!!

  18. Hadley January 5, 2014

    Can you people read? Where did he say Beyonce saved it? More the opposite

  19. Red January 5, 2014

    Only thanks to cheap singles she churns out EVERY year.

  20. *ℙᏫℙ ℝᏫᎩAℒᎿᎩ* January 5, 2014

    @Suga&Spice:

    Bootlegging has always Been omnipresent Before “Napster”. 😕

    Some people See That They can get Music for Free Cuz The Music is not worthy of getting your $$$, Too Expensive or any other reason, You can’t Control Everything!

    Now you can Find Almost Every album on The Internet in Sharing Sites.

  21. axecbgaw244 January 5, 2014

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  22. shauwndapooh January 5, 2014

    Congrats to the booty poppin’ queen beyonce for whatever she did I didn’t read the entire post
    When a certain person doesn’t release the whole industry suffers

  23. Truth About B January 5, 2014

    With Pepsi, H&M, Lorreal buying large bulk of her album.. (Thanks to Jay Z having rules changed at Billboard) Beyoncé is ruining the music business with awful repetitive music she has done on previous albums. just changing titles.

  24. FreeBreezy January 5, 2014

    The biggest pop star in the world didnt release an album

  25. JOHNVIDAL January 5, 2014

    Believe it or not I still only buy physical copies. I´m like @s****** blonde 🙂
    This year I bought Janelle´s “Electric Lady”, Hurts´ “Exile”, John Legend´s “Love in the future”, Celine´s “Loved me back to life” and Gaga´s “Artpop”. I think not bad. If everybody would buy 5 albums every year from people they really like the industry would still be BIG like it was.
    But this digital decline is not a good sign. Overall sales have been declining for years, but not the digital ones. Now even the digital ones decline. It doesn´t look good.

  26. Theman January 5, 2014

    People put way too much stock into digital music.. Digital singles sale because they are dirt cheap. But it is the actual physical album that really carries albums over, and that is awesome.. Digital music while quick and convenient does it hold the same importance of physical music. Also a lot of artists just keep churning out garbage music.. Release great music, promote it..

  27. Truth B Told January 6, 2014

    Death to the Music Business

    It’s a sad reality that number one albums and awards can be bought. There is no longer an art involved. Due to rule changes at Billboard big companies can now buy large bulk amounts guaranteeing a platinum status. Jay Z fought to have this changed so samsung can buy 1 million to place on their devices. Guaranteeing him a number one album and platinum status.When in truth the albums aren’t physically in the hand of the consumers. I call that kind of record sales #GhostSales.

    Now when I see an artist who never sold well to begin with out of nowhere sell 864000 in three days when their last album didn’t come close to that number. You have to really ask yourself the truth. How did that happen? Well if your husband had rules changed in order for big business to get involved your lucrative endorsements can be persuaded to guarantee your albums success such as Pepsi Lorreal H&M Starbucks and now Walmart. If each endorsing company invested several hundred thousand copies? Who really has the album? And she has failed to produce number one single in years. I’m so sad that fans have been brainwashed and are that naive and delusional to believe in this fraud of a successful album. But hey these people still believe she writes. Truth she writes her name on just the copyright document. Uneducated people would say I’m hating. I’m a believer in Truth and nothing but.

  28. LOL January 7, 2014

    LOL MAKES SENSE THAT FLOPONCE WOULD BE BEHIND THE DECLINE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY WITH HER LITTLE ITUNES SCAM LOL

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