f the record business has learned anything during those brutal years between 2000 and 2014 when the CD market wobbled and then went into such sharp decline that it halved, it is to seek out good news stories wherever you can.for recorded music revenues in 2024. The sell is that this marks “a 20-year high and an all-time record, exceeding the pinnacle of the CD era”. Let joy be unconfined. Bonuses all round.
But trade numbers can only ever capture what the recorded music business is worth in toto. They tell us little of the depth and of the complexities of what has been happening here since the early 2000s. First of all, ERA states that subscriptions and purchases of recorded music reached £2,389m in 2024, overtaking the “previous high” of £2,221m in 2001. But that does not account for inflation – factored in, that £2,221m would be £4,080m in 2024. Pesky inflation makes for a less appealing headline.in 2004 “at the tail-end of the CD boom”. That sounds impressive, but there is a complex numeric alchemy in how streams are converted into the “equivalent” of sales.
So there is an increasingly fusty scent of anachronism here. Streaming comprised around 85% of the total recorded music market last year, while physical sales made up 13%, and downloads the remainder. For all the hoopla about “the vinyl revival” and the industryThe huge immersive screen at Outernet in London’s West End displays Spotify Wrapped, the top songs streamed by London in 2024.
The past, of course, is a foreign country where things are done differently; directly comparing today to the turn of the century only reveals fragments of what has changed or what has stayed the same. But if the record business is to truly speak from the 21st century, it at least needs to establish a new and appropriate system of tabulation and stop reaching for the buckled abacus of yesterday.