Record Sales Archives - Alan Cross' A Journal of Musical Things

The story of how SoundScan changed everything for popular music 30 years ago

SoundScan is the system by which the sales physical music formats are tracked. When it was implemented in 1991, it

On this day in 1972, Eugene Cernan became the last person to walk on the moon. Why haven’t we been

With both physical and digital record sales hitting new levels of suckage, the industry has to be freaking out over

What happened near Roswell, New Mexico, on this date in 1947? We still don’t really know. But I can tell

Here’s another terrific infographic from Completely Ignored. A hard scour through Wikipedia suggests these 61 artists have sold more than

Here’s what happened this past week starting with Canada. Overall album sales are up 2% over the same period in

In all the time the record industry has been keeping track of global revenues, things have never, ever fallen below

The other day I posted about how rock sold more than any other genre in the US. Of all the

Not much improvement this week with overall album sales still lagging 2013 by 7% with physical CDs down 7%, digital

I’m sure you’ve been panicked about Metallica’s financial situation. After all, they’ve been telling us how much record sales suck

Chasing a Dream – Kevin Porter in Conversation with TBP Podcast EP 036 October 11, 2021
Many of us – at one time or another – dream of being professional athletes. Most of us realize in high school that we won’t be making it to the big leagues – unfortunately. The lucky among us flirt with the minor leagues in hopes of that big break. But what happens when that big […]
Andrew Dick
Being your Authentic Self – Richard Crouse in conversation with TBP Podcast EP 035 July 2, 2021
You would be given a free pass if you forgot that before the rise of the social media influencer there were already pundits and personalities on TV, radio and print. There’s just been that much exponential change in the media business over the last 15 years. Yet today, those who were formerly the audience are […]
Mark Silver
The Business of Radio – Elliott Hurst in conversation with TBP Podcast EP 034 June 21, 2021
The commercialization of streaming audio is not a new phenomenon. Going back 100 years, it was simply known by another name, broadcasting. With the launch, rise and now transition to digital and apps, the business models of audio-preneurs have generally been the same, mostly because of the challenge of measurement, a problem audio’s cousin television […]
Mark Silver