Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: it's Christian Sager here. In the early two thousand's, the
Speaker 1: compact disc became an endangered species. It was nearly killed
Speaker 1: off by the rise of the MP three and peer
Speaker 1: to peer file sharing networks like Napster. It was then
Speaker 1: that we started reading the first obituaries for the album.
Speaker 1: File sharing made it easy to download your favorite individual tracks,
Speaker 1: upload them to your iPod, hit shuffle, and you know, enjoy.
Speaker 1: But gone was the concept of the album listening experience,
Speaker 1: sitting back and appreciating a musical work of art from
Speaker 1: beginning to end. As we moved into the era of
Speaker 1: legal digital downloads, things didn't look much better for the album.
Speaker 1: Singles dominated the download charts, and some artists began ditching
Speaker 1: the traditional album format altogether by just simply dropping new
Speaker 1: tracks online one by one. One but too fascinating consumer
Speaker 1: trends have emerged over the past couple of years that
Speaker 1: may conspire to save the beleaguered album. First is the
Speaker 1: dramatic rise in popularity of subscription music streaming services, and
Speaker 1: second is the unexpected comeback of vinyl. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: vinyl sales topped four hundred and thirty five million dollars
Speaker 1: in the United States and grabbed nearly six percent of
Speaker 1: total music sales, the highest market share for records since.
Speaker 1: Some credit vinyls resurgence to the attractive physicality of records
Speaker 1: and a collective desire for a more personal connection with music.
Speaker 1: Vinyl sales have been growing by ten percent each year,
Speaker 1: and seventeen, vinyl sales are already up two percent over
Speaker 1: the same period in but vinyls numbers are a drop
Speaker 1: in the bucket compared to the explosive growth of streaming music.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, onto Mann music streaming from services like
Speaker 1: Spotify and Apple Music overtook digital music sales as the
Speaker 1: single most popular way to listen to music, capturing thirty
Speaker 1: eight percent of total audio consumption, and it's gotten even
Speaker 1: bigger in with Nielsen reporting a sixty two point four
Speaker 1: percent year over year increase in on demand music streaming
Speaker 1: compared to the same period in At first glance, the
Speaker 1: increasing dominance of streaming audio looks like another strike against
Speaker 1: the traditional album After all, Nielsen reports that in the
Speaker 1: first six months of album sales were down nearly across
Speaker 1: all formats, including full digital albums, individual digital tracks, and
Speaker 1: physical albums like c d s. But there's also evidence
Speaker 1: that at least some streaming music listeners are attracted to
Speaker 1: the format precisely because it allows the kind of immersive,
Speaker 1: old school listening experience that was missing from the digital
Speaker 1: download era. If you need proof that streaming can actually
Speaker 1: be a good thing for albums, look at one of
Speaker 1: the biggest releases of Kendrick Lamar's Damn. When the album
Speaker 1: dropped in May of last year, it immediately dominated streaming audio,
Speaker 1: with a record breaking nine songs from the album appearing
Speaker 1: in the top ten slots on Billboards on Demand streaming chart.
Speaker 1: Another Damn track grabbed the eleventh spot as well. What
Speaker 1: that means is that streaming listeners weren't just playing the
Speaker 1: hit single on repeat, but they were actually listening to
Speaker 1: the whole album, and Lamar's streaming streak wasn't a fluke.
Speaker 1: Earlier in both j Cole and Drake Twice took over
Speaker 1: the top eight spots on the Billboard streaming chart when
Speaker 1: they released new albums. Yes, hit singles still get the
Speaker 1: most streams overall, but there is a clear desire to
Speaker 1: listen to full albums from important artists. In fact, there
Speaker 1: seems to be a direct connection between the rebirth of
Speaker 1: vinyl and at least some of the wild popularity of streaming.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Dave Bruce, produced by Tristan McNeil,
Speaker 1: and For more on this and other topics, please visit
Speaker 1: us at how stuff works dot com.