RIAA Share Mid-Year Revenue Report

Money

The RIAA have released the 2023 mid-year report:

In the first half of 2023, recorded music revenues continued to set new milestones and reflect the results of more than a decade of industry transformation. Total revenues grew 9.3% at estimated retail value to an all-time first half high of $8.4 billion. At wholesale value, revenues grew 8.3% to $5.3 billion. Paid subscriptions continued to be the strongest driver of revenue growth, increasing by more than $550 million and averaging nearly 96 million subscriptions during the period.

RIAA Releases 2021 Revenue Stats

RIAA:

In 2021, recorded music revenues in the United States grew 23% to $15.0 billion at estimated retail value. All major formats of music grew versus the prior year with the exception of digital downloads. Paid subscriptions continued to be the biggest growth driver, resulting in the sixth consecutive year of growth for music revenues. At wholesale value, 2021 revenues were up 22% to $9.8 billion. On a nominal basis, these revenue levels exceed the record high of $14.6 billion reported in 1999, but adjusted for inflation 2021 figures remain 37% below that value level.

The Most Successful “Scene” Records Over the Past Three Decades

The commercial appeal of emo and punk records is undeniable. In this article, I dove into the most commercially successful albums of the past three decades in our scene. First, I wanted to provide a couple of quick notes about how I pulled this data. I took a look at the most popular pop-punk and emo albums from a Wikipedia article and cross-referenced it with other bands that I knew would be in the vicinity of receiving a Gold (500,000 albums sold) or Platinum (1 million albums sold) RIAA certification. From there, I used the Wikipedia articles on the individual album pages to see if they mentioned any certifications of Gold or above. I then confirmed those totals on the extremely helpful RIAA website. In some cases, I either rounded up or down on the number of albums sold to make the organizing of this list a little bit easier to follow, and these totals are for US sales only. I have organized this list into the three different decades of the 90’s, 00’s and 10’s, and I found it interesting that the vast number of eligible albums occurred during the 00’s era. I hope that you will find this information as enlightening as I did, and there are plenty of surprises to be found in these lists as well.

Read More “The Most Successful “Scene” Records Over the Past Three Decades”

RIAA Releases 2019 Mid-Year Report

The RIAA have released their mid-year report and vinyl sales are creeping up on CDs.

Net revenues from physical products bucked the recent trend in unit sales and grew 5% to $485 million in 1H 2019; however, this growth was the result of a reduction in physical product returns, and on a gross basis the revenues from physical product would have been down for the period. Vinyl albums grew 13% to $224 million, but still only accounted for 4% of total revenues in 1H 2019.