THREE LONELY CASSETTE TAPES…

The Sydney Morning Herald recently featured an article which detailed published data of music sales in Australia for the 2010 year.

In the past couple of years, there has been plenty of commentary [both written & verbal] about the steady decline in sales of recorded media in all major territories, thus I am not attempting to break new ground in the context of what follows beneath.

The most intriguing element of the music sales data relates to the fact that the Australian Record Industry Association has confirmed that only three [3] long playing recordings were sold on cassette tape in 2010.

When put into context [23.5 million CD sales, 3.3 million digital download sales, 40,000 vinyl sales], this is an amazing statistic.

Although it is nigh impossible to identify the actual cassette tape buyers, it is widely believed that the sales occurred at truck stops in outback Australia. Most trucks in Australia were assembled in an age when cassette tape players were “part of the furniture”, thus there is at least one truck driver in Australia who spends his or her long hours on the road enjoying music on the cassette medium.

So what does this mean in the context of the music industry, as we have historically known it?

Cassette tape manufacturers effectively cease to exist. For all we know, those 3 lonely cassette tapes may have been manufactured many years ago. In all likelihood, the cassette tapes were sitting in a “bargain bin” alongside the service counter, gathering dust and screaming out to be purchased.

What other aspects of the “old” music industry cease to exist?

1. Staff songwriters and producers of “album tracks” or “B-sides”. Historically speaking, a songwriter or a producer who landed their work on a long-playing recording or “B-side” of a single could earn a lucrative [and recurring] royalty if that long-playing recording or single was a big seller. Freddie Mercury was long incensed by the fact that Queen drummer Roger Taylor earned the same royalty on single sales of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, due to the fact that Taylor wrote the “B-side” of the single. Will the coming generations remember Taylor’s “I’m In Love With My Car”, or the timeless “Bohemian Rhapsody”? The answer is “Bohemian Rhapsody”, as the song shall continue to sell as a single mp3 download.

2. Designers of artwork cover for recorded media. Yes, there are sufficient sales of CD media to warrant the demand for specialist artwork, however this is a steadily dying trend. Historically, an album jacket “defined” the recording. What would Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” be without the seminal black & white photo of Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood? What would Nirvana’s “Nevermind” be without the underwater baby chasing the American currency? An mp3 download provides aural stimulation only…