Digital Music is Creating the New Music Industry Standard
The Grammy Awards and RIAA Recognize the Impact of Digital Music Releases
Jerry Doby, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Sep 6, 2012 “Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here.”Digital music is rapidly taking the place of hard-copy records/CDs and creating a totally revamped music industry. Music downloads have become increasingly important not only to artists, but major labels and monitoring agencies, as well.
Grammy Award winner Taylor Swift sets digital sales record
According to an August 22, 2012 report by Grammy.com, Taylor Swift recently set the record for the biggest digital sales week for a song by a female artist. Swift’s single “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” debuted atop Billboard‘s Digital Songs chart, with more than 600,000 units sold online. In sharp contrast via the same report, Grammy.com detailed Hastings Entertainment’s 11.6 percent decrease in retail music sales for the second quarter of 2012.
A music legend speaks
During a conversation with Chuck D of Public Enemy, he spoke to me about the creation of PE’s 2012 two-album set, indicating that, “These albums were spawned from the virtual studios of 14 production lab experts in sync from 8 different states in the USA.”
According to Chuck D, both “Most Of My Heroes STILL Don’t Appear on No Stamp ” and its companion album, titled “The Evil Empire Of Everything“ will be digitally distributed to serve as the launch point for his digital record label SPITdigital, a joint venture with partner Gary G-Wiz. He and his partner hope to inspire other independent artist to form and become their own record labels, distributing their music online through SPITdigital channels.
Retail sales reports, Soundscan numbers and BDS reports are no longer the benchmark elements declaring success, in my experience. Digital activity is now heavily factored as part of the overall analysis. Often, digital sales are the main concentration of independent artists/labels.
RIAA recognizes digital sales
Digital music is such a dynamic force, the RIAA launched its Digital Sales Award in 2004. According to the RIAA website, 45 titles were included in their initial group of certification, including music from every major record company and most genres in music. (RIAA.com)
Updating its 47-year old Gold and Platinum program in 2006, the RIAA launched the Master Ringtone Sales Award. This award recognizes the growing popularity of listening to music via cellular phones. Specifically, the RIAA awarded 84 Gold, 40 Platinum and four Multi-Platinum Master Ringtone certifications during its inaugural proceedings for this award. Ringtones are the original recording, rather than synthesized instrumental version of a song. (RIAA.com)
Lastly, during my orientation for The Recording Academy (Grammys), I was surprised to read in my new member material that commercially released digital tracks counted toward eligibility for voting membership in the organization.
“**Anyone who has credits on…12 digitally-released tracks on projects released in the past five years qualifies to vote in the annual GRAMMY Awards.**” (Grammy365.com)
Another fascinating fact in my “newbie” materials is that over half of the 78 Grammy Awards given out during the 2010 ceremonies went to independent artists. (Grammy365.com) Once again, most of the independent artists I know only distribute their work digitally.
We are solidly in the digital music age and it is being validated by the most relevant monitoring agencies and music awards platforms in the industry. I can’t wait to see what’s next!
References:
Taylor Swift Sets Digital Sales Record: http://www.grammy.com/blogs/swift-sets-female-digital-record retrieved August 30, 2012
RIAA Digital Sales Award: http://riaa.com/newsitem.php?content_selector=newsandviews&news_month_fil… retrieved August 30, 2012
Grammy Awards voting membership qualifications: http://www.grammy365.com/programs/independents retrieved August 31, 2012
Grammy Awards given to independent artists: http://www.grammy365.com/programs/independents retrieved August 31, 2012
Published by Jerry Doby
Jerry is Executive Editor of The Hype Magazine and a member of the Recording Academy (Grammy s), as well as a freelance publicist with more than 10 years experience in the urban music field. Key to his mu… View profile
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Digital Music is Creating the New Music Industry Standard – Yahoo! Voices – voices.yahoo.com
Posted: September 7, 2012 by jdobypr in News
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