Changes in Music Formats

How has changing audio formats affected music consumption?

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/animated-chart-of-the-day-recorded-music-sales-by-format-share-1973-to-2021/

*USA only*: Vinyl was the most popular format at the start of the 1970s. During 1973 and 1974, Vinyl usage was at roughly 70%+. Roughly 10 years later, Cassette usage became the most popular format. CDs were also introduced at this time. CD usage rapidly increased and overtook the use of Vinyl, in about 1987. During the 1990s, Cassette usage plummeted, as CD usage became the most popular format. In the early 2000s, Digital Download was introduced and took off quickly. CDs remained dominant, until 2011, when Digital Download took over. Streaming then became more popular than CD. In 2019, Vinyl began to make a comeback, which took over digital download in 2021. This left streaming as the most popular, followed by vinyl, followed by digital download.

I think that the increase in digital music and streaming has made music more accessible. This is because you can download a song from your phone, without having to travel anywhere, and it is cheaper, as digital music requires no manufacturing.

I also think that this has impacted the way that musical trends exist. I think that a trend emerges more quickly, and disappears after not very long, because people can download new music quicker and more easily, and it means that we can replace our favourite artists as soon as we get bored with them, or when something new comes out.

The invention of streaming and digital download has meant that music consumption has become very different to the way it was 50 years ago. From the point of view of the retailers (manufacturers and shops), this is a bad change. This is because music is no longer in physical formats, which means that manufacturers lose business, as their demand drops, and shops also lose business, as there is nothing physical to buy. From the point of view of labels and consumers, this change is fantastic! This is because there are no limits to how many people can buy a digital copy of a song, and they are free to upload, as there is nothing to manufacture, which makes them cheaper. They are also more accessible, as they can be downloaded from a smartphone.

How has the availability of technology affected music consumption?

I think that new technology drove the popularity of particular audio formats until recently. This is because the fidelity of audio is as clear as we need it to be, but we still want something different, so we go back to vinyl purely for nostalgia. During the 1960s-2000s, new technology dominated the results of which audio format was most popular. Now, we feel like we have gone as far as we can go anytime soon (in terms of new audio formats), so we want to revisit some of our favourite formats from history.

I also feel like people want to revisit a format after a certain amount of time. This didn’t happen during the 1960s-2000s, because vinyl was around from, roughly, 1888, so there was a large window with no change, so there was no older format for people to revisit (besides wax cylinders and older vinyl sizes, eg 78s) and they just wanted to move to something new, very quickly. But now, we have vinyl, cassette and CD in our recent audio format history, so the formats we choose to revisit for nostalgia will also change. For example, maybe in 10 or 20 years, people’s ‘nostalgia choice’ will be cassette, then CD another 10 or 20 years after that.

I think that when we experience another breakthrough in consumer technology, then we will discard vinyl once again, until we get bored with this new format, then we will revisit another old format.