Statistics Don't Lie, Right?

April 24, 2004

Let's face it: It's a hip-hop nation we live in, with rock 'n' roll being swept out of the way by up-and-coming rappers, smooth urban crooners and a tidal wave of youth culture. Older people have tuned out, turning to country or talk radio after giving up in frustration.

Oops - except the recording industry's annual consumer profile is out again, and damned if everything we know about popular music is wrong.

Myths die hard in popular culture. Everyone knows that punk rock came in 1976 and blew away the old, tired, corporate rock. Except that it didn't.

While Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols took 15 years to sell 500,000 copies, albums that came at the same time or after it - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, the Eagles' Hotel California, Frampton Comes Alive, Journey's heinous Escape - sold millions upon millions in a matter of weeks.

The difference between perception and reality is alive and well in the new millennium, so it's handy to have the Recording Industry Association of America's annual breakdown to set things straight.

Music fans age 30 and above - you know, those old and out-of-touch ones - buy 58 percent of all music sold in the United States. Those people 45 years or older - the ones who are clinically dead as far as the music industry and advertisers are concerned - buy 27 percent of the music themselves, larger than any other age group measured. Those 45-plus people buy more music than the entire 15-24 demographic combined.

The RIAA figures knock down plenty of other myths about popular music.

Let's start with the obvious: It's a hip-hop nation that we're all living in, and rock is dead. Fact: Rock is still the single-biggest seller, with 25 percent of all music. Add pop sales to that and you're at nearly 35 percent. Rap is just 13 percent; if you add in all R&B/urban sales to it as well, you're at just under 24 percent of all sales.

Granted, hip-hop/R&B are showing growth, and rock is declining compared to 10 years ago. That may not be as much of an us-vs.-them battle as it is the fact that categorizing this music isn't as clear-cut as it used to be. Is OutKast rap or pop? Is Kid Rock counted under rap or rock? What about Picture, Kid Rock's song with Sheryl Crow, that got big country airplay? Or Shania Twain's album, Up!, released last year with one disc of pop tunes, another of country?

Try this one: The music audience today is made up of testosterone-drenched young mooks, dumb young males lapping up music from Metallica, Eminem, 50 Cent and other cretins. Wrong; males buy less than half of the music, a 51 percent to 49 percent split with females.

OK, older people buy music, but it's old fogies buying Barry Manilow's greatest hits from late-night TV commercials. That argument won't fly either - TV and 800-number sales account for only 1.5 percent of all sales, the lowest figure in a decade.

Well then, the rock fans have all turned to watered-down country to get away from that noisy rap and rock. Nope; country is just over 10 percent of all sales, a steady decline from the 16 percent of a decade ago.

MP3s are where it's at; the explosion in sales and downloading of MP3s is the hottest trend in music now. Fact: Digital downloads accounted for just 1.3 percent of all music sales last year, falling far behind even cassette tapes at 2.2 percent. The growth areas aren't poor-sounding MP3s so much as high-end new formats such as Super Audio CDs and DVD-Audios. Combined, those made up 3.2 percent of all sales. Granted, that's not overwhelming - yet - but when you consider the whole world knows about MP3s and few people have heard of SACDs and DVD-As, it's a telling look at what's to come.

Downloading is slicing CD sales? Maybe, but not like they'd have you believe. In 1994 the music industry raked in $12 billion. It peaked in 1999 at $14 billion. Last year it was $11.8 billion. Seems like fairly routine market fluctuations in a business - like the movies where sales will vary depending on the quality of the product available. And I think it's safe to say that quality isn't at its highest at the moment.

And it's quality that sells. Look at what are the huge concert and album-release events of any year: McCartney, Springsteen, U2, the Stones, Metallica, Prince, even Madonna. They're all artists with history. The most money and the biggest enthusiasm surrounds the artists that came up old-school - through artist development and a career based on longevity and substance rather than a quick flash (literal or otherwise).