1 week (US):
Vinyl LPs – 859,000
CDs – 759,500
Cassettes – 21,500
Digital Downloads – 274,000
That would appear to suggest there is still a place for physical media.
However:
Spotify streams > 1 billion (presumably worldwide)
Taylor Swift – Tortured Poets Department Sales Figures
by 35 Comments
I’ve just run it through my abacus – 859k CDs means that one in every 453 squillion people in the world bought one. CDs indeed have their place – in that tiny niche in that dark corner over there.
759K actually
That’s what I get for being a smart-arse.
More vinyl than CDs suggests that CDs are dead. And who is buying cassettes? And why?
Completists
Do you think they stream on all of the different streaming services as well?
And, more importantly, where are they buying the blank tapes? It wasn’t so long ago that cassette labels were buying up boxes of blanks from a dusty corner in the Richer Sounds warehouse.
Thing to do is to buy used cassette tapes on Facebook Marketplace and tape over them, but I doubt Taylor Swift fans need blanks.
It’s home tapers like you who are killing music
😂
“But I’ve got a blank tape baby, and I’ll write your name”
#TaylorReference
I was going to make the same joke – but yours is better anyway……
People with really old cars still play cassettes.
I bought a cassette of an ACR album as it came with a code to a 24-bit Flac download. The tape still has the shrinkwrap on.
I then bought it on vinyl because the mastering of all the digital formats was brickwalled.
So I’ve contributed one tape sale in the past five years. I am a statistic.
You’re not a statistic, you’re a free man!
I am “a Cassette W@nker”, as my friendly mastering engineer puts it.
The new ACR one Steve? Really good isn’t it.
Nope, ACR LOCO. I learned my lesson, and now only buy ACR on vinyl (Martin Moscrop attends the vinyl cut, then leaves the download/streaming/CD to Mute’s deaf-as-a-post mastering bot).
And, yes! I really like ‘live in the studio’ albums.
I still play cassettes, occasionally – but I must admit, I can’t remember when I last bought one.
Vinyl priced at 51 Euros on Amazon Spain. There’s a lot of money being made.
One thing that TS doesn’t really get credit for is making fans care about physical media again. You can argue that some of it is cynical and it is being bought for collecting purposes only (as Billie Eilish has alluded to) but there’s a definite halo effect I think where the streaming generation are getting used to buying physical albums on day one.
tbf the K-pop phenomenon nailed this way before Taylor.
There’s the Taylor Swift industry over here and the entire rest of the business over there.
Re CD/vinyl sales. Physical albums have 17 tracks (I think) whereas the downloaded / streamed album has 31, so an obvious benefit to purchase the non-physical product. I bought the CD by the way but I haven’t listened yet. If I want the 14 or so extra tracks I will have to download them and it will be better value to download the full album than to pay for 14 individual songs.
There’s been a few threads now about this new TS album, but has anyone actually listened to it ? I don’t see any reviews / etc / etc posted
It’s too long and, so far, underwhelming
@Chrisf
HP Saucecrcaft wrote a fairly cutting appraisal of it not long back
If you like TS – especially her more understated stuff, it’s decent. It is a bit too long and a bit too samey though.
Don’t listen to any of these grumpy old men – it’s absolutely brilliant!
To be honest, I’m Taylored-out right now (watched The Eras tour too many times) so I’ll reserve my opinion till later in the year. I know my many fans will be disappointed….
@henpetsgi
Bloody hell, these anniversary box sets are coming out earlier
and earlier
I know they are unlikely to have any Taylor Swift fans but the Chameleons have just announced an EP. Streaming or vinyl apparently, no cd. I am annoyed.
Those sales figures are for units sold but there’s presumably a significant number who’ll have bought the vinyl and CD. Or even the vinyls and CDs given there are multiple versions of each, each with a different single bonus track. One could cynically suggest that’s a bit exploitative of a fanbase.
Been there, been exploited though. Twenty-plus years ago when CD singles were still a thing, plenty of releases came in two or even three CD versions. Not quite as expensive to spend an extra £2-3 on CD2 just for an extra b-side or two than it is for any who are forking out £30 on CD or £90 (!) on vinyl (HMV’s current prices) for two versions of Taylor’s album that differ by just one track.
At least there is a track variation with this one. Previous releases seemed to just have variations in the (colour of the) album cover – I again assume plenty of her fans will have collected the full set as they cheerfully propel her to billionairedom with their pocket money.
Not really judging though. I’m still easily lured in by re-releases six months later with some extra tracks, or anniversary box sets of albums or film reissues just for some new bonus features…
Just this week, for example, I’ve bought the BFI release of Gregory’s Girl in their current sale. This is despite me already owning it on blu-ray. And I’ve still got the DVD somewhere. And a newspaper freebie DVD of it too, because: hoarder.
Last several times I’ve watched it haven’t been on any of those. They’ve all been when I’m flicking through tv channels and there it is. Rest of the film later, I realise two things:
1. I might… *might* be wasting quite a lot of my money on purchased media
2. Something about Clare Grogan that, the one time I said out loud as the credits played, got me into a lot of trouble with my wife who’d watched the film with in bemused silence. Maybe even a stony silence. Not even a flicker of a smile at the kid in the penguin costume who’s never in the right classroom. Or the inept high jumper. Grounds for divorce?
I think I had a point but somewhere in this it got very lost.
I do quite like some of the album though.
If you like buying an album again with a few extra tracks a few months later, Madness have just announced they’re doing that with their latest.
Madness? Madness!