8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

  • 8sided About
  • memora8ilia

Total Music Streams Doubled In 2015

01.06.2016 by M Donaldson // Leave a Comment

Digital Music News:

Song downloads plunged another 12.5 percent last year, and a depressing 23.4 percent since 2013, according to preliminary US-based stats from Nielsen Music. Indeed, downloading is plunging downward, but streaming is absolutely soaring: according to the same dataset, the total number of streams doubled in just one year. As in, gained 100 percent, in 365 days.



Also from Digital Music News:

Accordingly, the music world will witness a more dramatic download plunge in 2016, with 12.5 percent shifting towards 18 percent, according to conservative DMN estimates. The decline will subsequently accelerate to 25 percent in 2017, with a 40 percent drop anticipated in 2019.



The reasons for this aren’t mysterious: last year, the number of music streams doubled to 317.2 billion streams in the US alone, thanks to explosive growth across Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music, among others. That is directly assassinating paid downloads, with Apple accelerating the plunge by aggressively pushing consumers towards Apple Music streaming accounts.



The rest, as they say, will be history, with downloads occupying a niche space in music listening experience, alongside CDs and other marginalized formats.



The tone of these articles is a little gloomy, which is interesting from a site called Digital Music News. I see the download decline as inevitable by nature of the technology (just wait until the wireless / streaming CDJ is invented for the club DJs), and the rapid acceptance of streaming as a good outcome. Those numbers will get higher and higher as download numbers plummet. It changes the game, but I’m confident fleet-footed independent labels will adapt and succeed.

------------------

Related posts:

  1. iTunes’ Death: Greatly Exaggerated
  2. Streaming’s Song Disparity
  3. Vinyl’s Rise in Defiance of the Intangible

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Streaming, The State Of The Music Industry

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

8sided.blog

img-0 
 
 
 
 
 
8sided.blog is an online admiration of modernist sound and niche culture. We believe in the inherent optimism of creating art as a form of resistance and aim to broadcast those who experiment not just in name but also through action.

It's also the online home of Michael Donaldson, a curious fellow trying his best within the limits of his time. He once competed under the name Q-Burns Abstract Message and was the widely disputed king of sandcastles until his voluntary exile from the music industry.

"More than machinery, we need humanity."

Learn More →

featured

On the Guest List: VIP Clubbing Goes Virtual

Bands are successfully adapting their performances to the livestreaming space, but what about the nightclubs? Enter the virtual VIP club.

Jogging House: Feels Like a Good Revenge

Jogging House’s music is both nostalgic and hopeful. It tells us “life was better then” while reassuring us “it can be nice like that again.”

Simon Berz’s Geological World

Breath Versus Beats is a geological sound adventure formed by three elements: Simon Berz, Toshinori Kondo, and Bill Laswell.

Mastodon

Mastodon logo

Listening

If you dig 8sided.blog
you're gonna dig-dug the
Spotlight On Podcast

Check it out!

Exploring

Roll The Dice

For a random blog post

Click here

or for something cool to listen to
(refresh this page for another selection)

Linking

Blogroll
A Closer Listen
Austin Kleon
Atlas Minor
blissblog
Craig Mod
Disquiet
feuilleton
Headpone Commute
Jay Springett
Kottke
Metafilter
One Foot Tsunami
1000 Cuts
1001 Other Albums
Parenthetical Recluse
Robin Sloan
Seth Godin
The Creative Independent
The Red Hand Files
The Tonearm
Sonic Wasteland
Things Magazine
Warren Ellis LTD
 
TRANSLATE with img-2 x
English
Arabic Hebrew Polish
Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese
Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian
Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian
Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak
Czech Italian Slovenian
Danish Japanese Spanish
Dutch Klingon Swedish
English Korean Thai
Estonian Latvian Turkish
Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian
French Malay Urdu
German Maltese Vietnamese
Greek Norwegian Welsh
Haitian Creole Persian
img-3
img-4 img-5 img-6
TRANSLATE with img-7
COPY THE URL BELOW
img-8
img-9 Back
EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE img-10
Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal
Back
Newsroll
Dada Drummer
Deep Voices
Dense Discovery
Dirt
Erratic Aesthetic
First Floor
Flaming Hydra
Futurism Restated
Garbage Day
Herb Sundays
Kneeling Bus
Orbital Operations
Sasha Frere-Jones
The Browser
The Honest Broker
The Maven Game
The Voice of Energy
Today In Tabs
Tone Glow
Why Is This Interesting?
 
TRANSLATE with img-11 x
English
Arabic Hebrew Polish
Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese
Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian
Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian
Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak
Czech Italian Slovenian
Danish Japanese Spanish
Dutch Klingon Swedish
English Korean Thai
Estonian Latvian Turkish
Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian
French Malay Urdu
German Maltese Vietnamese
Greek Norwegian Welsh
Haitian Creole Persian
img-12
img-13 img-14 img-15
TRANSLATE with img-16
COPY THE URL BELOW
img-17
img-18 Back
EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE img-19
Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal
Back

ACT

Support Ukraine
+
Ideas for Taking Action
+
Climate Action Resources
+
Carbon Dots
+
LGBTQ+ Education Resources
+
National Network of Abortion Funds
+
Animal Save Movement
+
Plant Based Treaty
+
The Opt Out Project
+
Trustworthy Media
+
Union of Musicians and Allied Workers

Here's what I'm doing

/now

Copyright © 2025 · 8D Industries, LLC · Log in