A couple of weeks ago I posted “long tail woes” citing and MCPS-PRS study that showed that of the 13 million songs on the internet, ten million did not sell a single copy.
Today, eMusic, announced that approximately 75% of the tracks sold on their service, sold at least once during 2008 based on a recent analysis of worldwide sales data. This finding supports the existence of retail’s “Long Tail” and contradicts the November MCPS-PRS study.
eMusic, which does not sell music from the four major record labels, claims to be a successful example of the Long Tail theory.
“eMusic is the Long Tail,” said Madeleine Milne, eMusic Managing Director, Europe. “Our customers buy music beyond the mainstream top 40 because we provide them with more context than any other major music retailer through Web 2.0 features, insightful editorial content, a passionate subscriber community and an easy-to-use and effective recommendation engine. And, we reinforce the music discovery experience with subscription pricing that encourages experimentation.”
Considering that eMusic does not carry any major label content, this is not all that surprising. But is sure is interesting how two sets of data published within a month or two on digital music can contrast each other so much.
you know who else is good at promoting long tail artists? pandora. I have discovered more new music from them than anyone else.
Context is so essential in how people experience music.
Thank you, eMusic, for making me feel sane again.
Selling music is probably not the the future of the music industry since an artist could never make a living selling one song once a year even if it benefits eMusic.
It’s just statistics, and long-tail is a simple theory, the real world is far more complex. If someone came up with something to explain the real world, it would be too complex for anyone to bother reading it! it’s the general thought that counts