Who Buys Downloads From Independent Artists?

[BigRedX]

Following on from a couple of recent discussions about music formats and digital aggregators, I was looking into how sales for the different formats of The Terrortones music broke down.

I'd always known that we sold a lot more physical product than downloads, but what I didn't expect was just how much it was skewed towards the physical product, no matter whether you look at income or the number of songs sold.

We weren't very good at keeping actual sales figures for the physical product, but looking at what I have left of each release and taking into account how many we gave away as promo copies, I can estimate that over 5 years we made around £2500 - about 600 actual items sold, split over the 4 releases. That's from selling CDs, records and cassettes mostly at gigs and the rest mail-order through our web site and Bandcamp.

In the same time period we made $200 from downloads and streaming from CD Baby, and £80 from downloads on Bandcamp - roughly 10% of our total sales. Of all those sales streaming only accounts for about 15% (that's less than 2% of the total sales by value).

Looking at the actual sales numbers for downloads it was 138 tracks from Bandcamp, 137 tracks from iTunes, 14 tracks from Amazon and 7 tracks from eMusic. Interestingly by far our most popular release on download was "The MonsterPussy Sessions" which was otherwise only available as a cassette, which probably goes to show that although our audience prefers physical product to downloads they also prefer downloads to cassettes!

For The Terrortones audience at least (and we did have a good spread of ages across our audience), physical product is far more popular than downloads, although they will buy downloads (in limited numbers) if there is no corresponding physical product, or if it is on a less popular format like cassette. Geographical location doesn't seem to be a problem. We sell a large number of our CDs and records to addresses outside of the UK, so AFAICS our audience isn't choosing to buy downloads because it is easier and cheaper than getting the physical product shipped to them.

This tallies with my experience as an audience member. I have to admit that I am biased towards CDs, but I find that I buy most of my new music from bands at gigs.

It goes a bit like this: I've enjoyed the band, had a couple of beers and there's money still in my pocket. If the band has CDs for sale I'll buy one (maybe even 2). The next day when I listen to them sometimes they are great, sometimes they are disappointing compared with my memory of the gig, and sometimes after a couple of listens a disappointing CD will start to grow on me.

However if the band only has downloads available they are at a distinct disadvantage. Even if they have a card with the web address on it, there's a good chance I'll have lost it by the time I remember to check out their music, I might not even remember who the band were by then. That's a sale definitely lost. Also the next day when the buzz of the gig has worn off, I might not be quite so enamoured with the music when I check it out on iTunes before spending my money. A CD available at the gig is a definite sale. A download in the cold light of the following day... probably not. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Also (probably because of my age) I can't help but feel that a band who have gone to the trouble and expense to put their music on CD or Vinyl take themselves a bit more seriously. And I'll take them more seriously too. After all anyone with recording and $50 can get their music up on iTunes etc. It's hardly a big deal any more.

So are there any musicians on here who are selling more downloads than CDs and records?

And how do you feel as an audience member. Does anyone buy a download after a gig? Would you rather be buying physical product?

[Graham]

I use Bandcamp to buy releases by smaller bands who don't have their music on Spotify, and in some cases (for example the new Weigedood album) buy it there even if it is on Spotify.

I don't get to many live performances these days, due to kids and my own gigs, but if I've enjoyed the band and have the cash on me I'll buy a CD. If I didn't have the cash, odds are I'd add it to my Bandcamp wishlist for later.

I've bought 8 albums/EPs on Bandcamp over the last year, not sure how many CDs, maybe 6 or 7 and streamed hundreds of hours on Spotify.

[Dad3353]

I can't remember ever having bought a 'download', but have often enough bought a CD, either at a gig, or having heard a U-tube or the like. I've even bought a couple after recommendation through Basschat..! It's true, of course, that I'm old, so a physical medium is much preferred (harder to misplace, despite my eternal managing of my hard disks contents..! ).

[ambient]

I've got quite a few, usually from Bandcamp.

I have bought a few CDs from off there too, mainly ones who've made an effort with the art work etc.

[Kirky]

I generally use Spotify nowadays but often buy physical (vinyl or CDs) product from bands at gigs. Rarely from record shops these days.

[MartinB]

I've bought Terrortones releases from Bandcamp

Spotify's great for checking out artists at minimal cost, but if I decide I like them, I'll always support them by buying the album - on CD if possible, otherwise lossless digital is ok. CDs offer the best combination of reliability, flexibility and sound quality... plus they look good on my shelf! For singles/EPs I generally prefer lossless, because (1) I don't have enough space to store them, and (2) almost no-one releases them on CD anyway. It winds me up when the only options for singles are vinyl or lossy digital - why wouldn't you want me to listen to your music as close to the recorded quality as possible? It's like painting a masterpiece and then only letting people look at polaroids of it.

I wouldn't consider streaming any good for long-term usage, as there's no guarantee that a song will still be available the next time I want to listen to it (plus the obvious issues with releases being fragmented across different services).

Edited April 20, 2017 by MartinB

[Cat Burrito]

I have bought from CDBaby and Bandcamp in the past. They aren't regular default sites for me to check but over the years I've made a few purchases. I prefer a physical product to a download but always favour supporting the artist direct.

[BigRedX]

Does anyone buy anything from record shops these days? We have a Rough Trade here in Nottingham, but the selection is pitiful. For a name that was associated with all that was cutting edge in music in the late 70s the current incarnation is depressingly mainstream.

For Spotify users do you not find the catalogue too incomplete? I suppose it very much depends on your taste in music, but when I was asked by the Death Notes (the band I've joined recently) to contribute a Spotify playlist or two to their Facebook page along with the other members, I found that in the two genres I wanted to highlight - J-Pop and Post-Punk Electronica were severely limited and many of the tracks that I considered essential listening simply weren't available.

Spotify seems to be fine for anything released in the UK and US since 2010 (if you release your music through an aggregator you'll be on Spotify by default), but once you start looking for older tracks by non-mainstream or artists who aren't UK or US there are massive gaps in the catalogue.

Edited April 20, 2017 by BigRedX

[BigRedX]

[quote name='MartinB' timestamp='1492693819' post='3282408']
I've bought Terrortones releases from Bandcamp

Spotify's great for checking out artists at minimal cost, but if I decide I like them, I'll always support them by buying the album - on CD if possible, otherwise lossless digital is ok. CDs offer the best combination of reliability, flexibility and sound quality... plus they look good on my shelf! For singles/EPs I generally prefer lossless, because (1) I don't have enough space to store them, and (2) almost no-one releases them on CD anyway. It winds me up when the only options for singles are vinyl or lossy digital - why wouldn't you want me to listen to your music as close to the recorded quality as possible? It's like painting a masterpiece and then only letting people look at polaroids of it.

I wouldn't consider streaming any good for long-term usage, as there's no guarantee that a song will still be available the next time I want to listen to it (plus the obvious issues with releases being fragmented across different services).
[/quote]

Thank you!

I'm glad someone else feels this way about the streaming services. I was beginning to think that I was on my own in this opinion.

[vantagepointrocks]

My band sell CDs, pretty much exclusively at gigs, on rare occasions someone will purchase them over the internet.

We used to get the odd download of songs, or full albums, but this has really dropped off in the last couple of years and been replaced by streaming, mainly on Spotify. Though I think a lot of them are people searching for the 21 Pilots track, Stressed Out, as streams of our song of the same name have increased a lot since they released theirs!

Personally I don’t download tracks/albums of anyone, whether they are independent or major artists. I sometimes use Spotify on my computer to stream the odd thing I don’t own – I just have the free service for that. But still buy all my music on CD, mainly well known artists, but occasionally local bands if I see and enjoy them at a gig.

[wingnutkj]

I buy and listen to lot of stuff via Bandcamp, but if there's a physical component, I'll try to buy that too.

If I'm seeing a band live and enjoy it, I'll generally try to buy something off them, and will favour the physical component.

However, I rarely play records these days, because it's easier to just play the download. Maybe bands are going about it the wrong way - get a load of download codes, record sleeves and label stickers printed out, then raid junk shops for the cheapest records they can find and bung them in the sleeves. Anyone complains, well it must have been a pressing error, right? And you've got the download code anyway.

[Beer of the Bass]

When I buy music from independent artists I prefer a hard copy if at all possible, but I will download if that's not available. Though having said that, the band I play guitar in have had a surprising number of younger people come up to us at gigs, look at the CD's and pronounce that there's not much point since they don't have anything to play it on. That always makes me feel old, and I'm only 36! Typically we shift more t-shirts than CDs at gigs...

[chris_b]

I have never downloaded or streamed anything.

I like to be able to hold my music.

[ambient]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492694154' post='3282413']
Does anyone buy anything from record shops these days? We have a Rough Trade here in Nottingham, but the selection is pitiful. For a name that was associated with all that was cutting edge in music in the late 70s the current incarnation is depressingly mainstream.

For Spotify users do you not find the catalogue too incomplete? I suppose it very much depends on your taste in music, but when I was asked by the Death Notes (the band I've joined recently) to contribute a Spotify playlist or two to their Facebook page along with the other members, I found that in the two genres I wanted to highlight - J-Pop and Post-Punk Electronica were severely limited and many of the tracks that I considered essential listening simply weren't available.

Spotify seems to be fine for anything released in the UK and US since 2010 (if you release your music through an aggregator you'll be on Spotify by default), but once you start looking for older tracks by non-mainstream or artists who aren't UK or US there are massive gaps in the catalogue.
[/quote]

Slightly off topic, I would buy from a record store if there was one by me. I was in Paris for a couple of gigs last week. I found a fantastic record store, stocking loads of vinyl that you just can't get usually.

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492688654' post='3282324']
Following on from a couple of recent discussions about music formats and digital aggregators, I was looking into how sales for the different formats of The Terrortones music broke down.

I'd always known that we sold a lot more physical product than downloads, but what I didn't expect was just how much it was skewed towards the physical product, no matter whether you look at income or the number of songs sold.

We weren't very good at keeping actual sales figures for the physical product, but looking at what I have left of each release and taking into account how many we gave away as promo copies, I can estimate that over 5 years we made around £2500 - about 600 actual items sold, split over the 4 releases. That's from selling CDs, records and cassettes mostly at gigs and the rest mail-order through our web site and Bandcamp.

In the same time period we made $200 from downloads and streaming from CD Baby, and £80 from downloads on Bandcamp - roughly 10% of our total sales. Of all those sales streaming only accounts for about 15% (that's less than 2% of the total sales by value).

Looking at the actual sales numbers for downloads it was 138 tracks from Bandcamp, 137 tracks from iTunes, 14 tracks from Amazon and 7 tracks from eMusic. Interestingly by far our most popular release on download was "The MonsterPussy Sessions" which was otherwise only available as a cassette, which probably goes to show that although our audience prefers physical product to downloads they also prefer downloads to cassettes!

For The Terrortones audience at least (and we did have a good spread of ages across our audience), physical product is far more popular than downloads, although they will buy downloads (in limited numbers) if there is no corresponding physical product, or if it is on a less popular format like cassette. Geographical location doesn't seem to be a problem. We sell a large number of our CDs and records to addresses outside of the UK, so AFAICS our audience isn't choosing to buy downloads because it is easier and cheaper than getting the physical product shipped to them.

This tallies with my experience as an audience member. I have to admit that I am biased towards CDs, but I find that I buy most of my new music from bands at gigs.

It goes a bit like this: I've enjoyed the band, had a couple of beers and there's money still in my pocket. If the band has CDs for sale I'll buy one (maybe even 2). The next day when I listen to them sometimes they are great, sometimes they are disappointing compared with my memory of the gig, and sometimes after a couple of listens a disappointing CD will start to grow on me.

However if the band only has downloads available they are at a distinct disadvantage. Even if they have a card with the web address on it, there's a good chance I'll have lost it by the time I remember to check out their music, I might not even remember who the band were by then. That's a sale definitely lost. Also the next day when the buzz of the gig has worn off, I might not be quite so enamoured with the music when I check it out on iTunes before spending my money. A CD available at the gig is a definite sale. A download in the cold light of the following day... probably not. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Also (probably because of my age) I can't help but feel that a band who have gone to the trouble and expense to put their music on CD or Vinyl take themselves a bit more seriously. And I'll take them more seriously too. After all anyone with recording and $50 can get their music up on iTunes etc. It's hardly a big deal any more.

So are there any musicians on here who are selling more downloads than CDs and records?

And how do you feel as an audience member. Does anyone buy a download after a gig? Would you rather be buying physical product?
[/quote]thanks for that, we've decided to go with Soundrop for digital distribution because we don't think we'll sell many downloads, your analysis seems to reinforce that, I will be checking out bandcamp though, and our albums are available on Big Cartel, not heard them mentioned yet, it's free up to 5 items, payment via payapal

[Twigman]

I tend to buy vinyl or CDs, mainly from Amazon.....I don't do downloads - I did buy a DL once, from iTunes, while in the departure lounge of an airport, to my phone, having no music to listen to on the plane and having forgotten my ipod.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1492697298' post='3282451']
When I buy music from independent artists I prefer a hard copy if at all possible, but I will download if that's not available. Though having said that, the band I play guitar in have had a surprising number of younger people come up to us at gigs, look at the CD's and pronounce that there's not much point since they don't have anything to play it on. That always makes me feel old, and I'm only 36! Typically we shift more t-shirts than CDs at gigs...
[/quote]

We haven't sold anything like as many T-Shirts as we have CDs and records, but our T-Shirts sales have made a profit for both designs unlike the music which has yet to sell enough to cover the recording, and production costs for any of the 4 releases.

It always seems strange to me that people will happily pay £10 for a T-Shirt that probably cost less than £3 to produce, but aren't so keen to spend the same on an album whose unit cost will be considerably higher.

[Twigman]

We always sell all the CDs and vinyl we can take to gigs.
Due to weight we don't take many - most of our gigs are fly aways on Easyjet/Ryan Air.
We sell lots of t-shirts too but the punters always seem to want the sizes we have least of!

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1492700558' post='3282519']
We always sell all the CDs and vinyl we can take to gigs.
Due to weight we don't take many - most of our gigs are fly aways on Easyjet/Ryan Air.
We sell lots of t-shirts too but the punters always seem to want the sizes we have least of!
[/quote]

What I've discovered is that it doesn't seem to matter how much of your audience is made up of skinny hipsters, only L, XL and XXL people seem to buy band T-shirts!

[Twigman]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492701210' post='3282528']
What I've discovered is that it doesn't seem to matter how much of your audience is made up of skinny hipsters, only L, XL and XXL people seem to buy band T-shirts!
[/quote]

Don't gig in Italy then - they only seem to want S and M tees.....and most want to try them on (eeeewww) before they buy!!

[cheddatom]

When I'm attending gigs, I'll buy CDs if I like the band. When I see people publicising stuff online that I think looks interesting, I'll listen to it, and if I like it I'll buy it online. Normally that means downloading some mp3s for me, often through bandcamp. I guess it's the quickest method to obtain the music in the given situation

My band sells loads of CDs at gigs, not so many online

[BigRedX]

[quote name='wingnutkj' timestamp='1492696872' post='3282449']
However, I rarely play records these days, because it's easier to just play the download. Maybe bands are going about it the wrong way - get a load of download codes, record sleeves and label stickers printed out, then raid junk shops for the cheapest records they can find and bung them in the sleeves. Anyone complains, well it must have been a pressing error, right? And you've got the download code anyway.
[/quote]

I like your thinking sir!

Do you know of anyone selling second-hand vinyl by the yard?

[bassix]

Just something to consider, we sell music through CD's and digitally. From my perspective, if I'm considering going to see or am playing with another band I will always take the opportunity to check them out online beforehand if possible. 1 because you then know what to expect and 2 they may be great. I find that having the opportunity to do that will vastly improve the chances of me watching that band and also increase the chances that I will go on to buy their merchandise, be that CD or T-Shirt.

Personally, I find it hard to get into most bands if I don't know their material, listening online gets me interested in new stuff.

[Beer of the Bass]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492699899' post='3282503']


We haven't sold anything like as many T-Shirts as we have CDs and records, but our T-Shirts sales have made a profit for both designs unlike the music which has yet to sell enough to cover the recording, and production costs for any of the 4 releases.

It always seems strange to me that people will happily pay £10 for a T-Shirt that probably cost less than £3 to produce, but aren't so keen to spend the same on an album whose unit cost will be considerably higher.
[/quote]

It's not impossible that our t-shirt art is better than our music, though that's probably a thought I should not bring up with the band!

[Graham]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492694154' post='3282413']
Does anyone buy anything from record shops these days? We have a Rough Trade here in Nottingham, but the selection is pitiful. For a name that was associated with all that was cutting edge in music in the late 70s the current incarnation is depressingly mainstream.

For Spotify users do you not find the catalogue too incomplete? I suppose it very much depends on your taste in music, but when I was asked by the Death Notes (the band I've joined recently) to contribute a Spotify playlist or two to their Facebook page along with the other members, I found that in the two genres I wanted to highlight - J-Pop and Post-Punk Electronica were severely limited and many of the tracks that I considered essential listening simply weren't available.

Spotify seems to be fine for anything released in the UK and US since 2010 (if you release your music through an aggregator you'll be on Spotify by default), but once you start looking for older tracks by non-mainstream or artists who aren't UK or US there are massive gaps in the catalogue.
[/quote]

I find Spotify fine for the genres I listen to - some of it fairly obscure black metal and doom, be it new or old.

The only bands I've had trouble with are small UK and Icelandic black metal acts and the occcasional older artist like Hellhammer. For the most part, almost anything I'm after is on there, I've had more trouble with some big name pop for dep gigs - Taylor Swift, Emile Sande than more obscure stuff.