How Much We Spent On Recorded Music In 2015

In 2014 we undertook a project to record exactly how much money we spent on live music, including the cost of tickets, travel and other associated costs including merchandise. The end result was pretty staggering – we spent £3,661.17 (you can see the full break down of costs using this link here).

In 2015 we’ve been carrying out a similar project, finding out how much we spent on recorded music.

Now just to be clear, our music consumption probably isn’t typical of a member of the UK public; we just don’t buy 1 album a year (Adele) and nothing else. 

But 2015 has been a year of transformation. Slowly but surely the lure of purchasing all music that we’re interested in in a physical form has begun to dwindle. Not fully, but now the use of streaming services (we mainly use Spotify premium and Soundcloud) has become our filter mechanism. No longer do we pre-order albums or rush to our local record store on the day of release to buy the album. Instead we log on to Spotify, listen for a few days or weeks before deciding if we want to add the record to our physical collection. Also our back catalogue listening has become ever more wide ranging. Streaming enables us to listen to virtually anything from the past. Hell, even The Beatles have given in, enabling a whole new generation of listeners to explore their albums in full.

However, there are 3 main reasons why we do still buy a physical form of the stuff we really like:

1 As a back-up copy, just in case in the future, streaming dies. Unlikely perhaps, but with its future not being 100% certain, we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket quite yet. We still have horrible memories of selling our vinyl to ‘upgrade’ to CD when everyone was saying vinyl was obsolete. It really is true that hindsight is a wonderful thing .

2. Because we still like that old fashioned idea of investing in artists we like and buying their product on the basis that it may help them record something else in the future.

3. That geeky thing of wanting to collect something. Showing someone your Spotify playlist just isn’t as exciting as showing them your rather impressive CD collection.

But 2015 has been the year that we’ve really begun to rely on streaming and stopped buying albums we consider to be average or crap. It’s also the year we’ve (possibly) purchased our last ever download – after all what’s the point of buying something that doesn’t exist physically when you can get it anyway by streaming it? That download was  Petite Meller’s Baby Love (our song of the year) and only because we wanted to help in get in the charts.

So what’s the net effect of this? We’re spending less on recorded music than ever before. Sorry music industry, sorry artists. But we’re pretty sure we’re not the only ones.

Here is the final breakdown, recorded from 1^st January 2015 to 23rd December 2015 - in total we spent £617.84 on recorded music, this compares with the £ 3,661.17 we spent in total on going to gigs last year.

TOTAL MONEY SPENT ON RECORDED MUSIC IN 2015 : £ 617.84

FORMAT SPENDING

Physical format (CD & Vinyl) £468

Streaming Services (Spotify Premium) £119.88

Downloads (Bandcamp) £26

Downloads (iTunes) £3.96

PHYSICAL FORMATS WERE PURCHASED IN THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS

Amazon 39%

Independent record stores 29%

HMV stores 12%

Band’s Own Website 10%

Other Online Retailer 6%

At Gigs 4%

Why We Won't Be Visiting Our Local Music Store On Record Store Day

If you’ve come here because of the title of this post, expecting to see some sort of indie-minded rant about how the involvement of major labels has excluded small labels from Record Store Day, ebay profiteering, the overloading of poor quality re-pressings, or even a long winded moan about what Record Store Day should or shouldn’t be about, sorry, you’ve (mainly) come to the wrong place. Yes, the title of this post is unashamedly click bait, and yes there’s definitely been a slight waning of enthusiasm for the day in some quarters, but there’s a very simple reason why we won’t be in the queue at our local store trying to grab one of those limited edition Ah-Ha singles or such like....

We’re doing something else.

So sorry, we’re not on a high horse here, it’s just practicalities keeping us away from the consumerist fun. But a massive shout out to our favourite local store anyway -  Pie & Vinyl - you should really check them out, here. Grab a pie, buy some records, then go for a walk along the seafront just over the road. Lovely. 

So what are we doing that's keeping us away? Whilst some of you are setting the alarm super early to get your space in the queue, we’ll be travelling to Reading, Berkshire to attend a music festival. Not that Reading festival of course, that’s in August, but instead we're going to Are You Listening Festival – a one day multi-venue wristband event for charity. Depending on how long our journey takes in the morning, we might even nip into Sound Machine, Reading’s record shop, after the queue has died a little, before we catch some live music, which will hopefully include the likes of Robyn Sherwell, Sophie Jamieson and Smoke Fairies.

So now you know the answer and you’ve got this far, what’s this post about then?

No doubt on Saturday many music lovers will be posting excited tweets and Instagram photos about what they’ve purchased, but the reality is that Record Store Day is just the icing on the cake, or even the cherry on top of that. It’s a cliché to say, but it’s true, that if you’ve got the money you can buy physical music 365 days of the year. 

And we do. 

How much? 

That’s something that we’re determined to find out for 2015. 

So throughout the course of this year we’re recording every single one of our music purchases, be it vinyl, CD, cassette, MP3 or the use of a streaming service. We’re also recording where we buy from – an online store, a real life one, from the artist directly or a car boot sale. At the end of the year we’ll add it all up and be able to see exactly how much we spend on recorded music. We did something similar for live music last year. You can see the results for that by using this link.

So whilst you’re splashing the cash this Saturday on vinyl, here’s where we’ve spent our money on the rest of the year:

Music Purchases for 2015 – Key Facts

1. Everyone knows that streaming is changing the way we consume music and there’s no doubt that it has changed our behaviour. So far we’ve listened to in the region of 25 new albums that have been released in 2015. Yet of those 25 records we’ve only purchased 12 of them to own. 19% of our spending so far this year has been on streaming, yet 50% of our listening is accounted for in this way (yes we've also been recording what we've been listening to and where).

2. The vast majority of our spend is for physical forms that are purchased online (63% of spend)

3. Streaming is killing our download purchasing. Whereas we are still buying albums of artists we like the most physically (not in that sense - the boys out of Public Service Broadcasting do nothing for our sexual attraction buds), this year we’ve only spent £10.14 on downloads – the majority of it via Bandcamp. iTunes is losing our custom to Spotify.

4. Bands: Selling your music at gigs still works – we’ve brought several physical EPs and singles after seeing new bands live (and then sometimes have come home and written about those artists on the blog).

5. Our total spend on recorded music in 2015 so far is £174. Far less than we’d spent on live music at this point last year, which was around £ 800 at this stage (including travel and other associated expenses).

6. And the record store? Sadly only 6% of our spend so far is in that location. Maybe that’s why Record Store Day is important after all – forget the indie vs majors debate, the ebay profiteers and the like. There are people in these stores who have salaries to earn to keep a roof over their head just as much as the online guys. After all this isn’t ‘indie label day’ – this is about the stores and the people who work there themselves.

How Much Do You Spend On Recorded Music?

Last year on Breaking More Waves we conducted a project to record exactly (down to the penny) how much we spent on live music; not only the amount we paid for tickets, but associated costs such as travel, drinks, merchandise and accommodation. (You can find it here). The project was well received and so for 2015 we thought we’d try something similar and document everything we spend on recorded music. 

What we’re interested in is not just the amount, but the forms we consume music in and where we purchase from. Are we the great saviour of independent record shops, an iTunes whore or has Spotify killed our music purchasing dead? Is it all just stream, stream, stream? Or is there just so much free music out there that we don’t need to spend at all? What do you spend on music a month? Do you believe it is important to part with cash for music or do you think it no longer has any value in the recorded form?

With the live music project we provided a monthly report, however, for this project we’ll be posting a little more intermittently, with maybe 4 or 5 blog posts during the course of the year.

We’re really not sure what we’ll find out or conclude at this stage, but here are the statistics taken from our lovingly created spreadsheet as we near the end of the first month. The data is for up to midnight on the 28th January (see also the notes at the bottom of this post).

Recorded Music Spend 2015

Number of LPs purchased:  5

Number of EPs purchased: 3

Number of singles purchased: 0

Total % spend on formats

Where the money was spent 

As you can see in January we haven't spent a penny in record stores, all of our spending has been on line, most of it with Amazon. 

Some music nerds might suggest that buying from Amazon and not from an independent record store somehow makes us less of a 'true music fan', there's an implied lack of effort from just buying from Amazon as well as the moral issue of supporting your local business or a global one. On the other hand we could argue that spending £15 on vinyl LP a month from an indie store makes you less of a music fan than someone who buys multiple records and spends a vast amount more in doing so from Amazon. We'll leave that debate for you to ponder on - maybe that debate is a pointless one anyway? Does anyone care how big a fan you are? 

As far as what retailers we've used, we suspect that as the year goes on this will change, but it will be interesting to see what the final split on spending is and what our underlying reasons for choosing that method of purchase are. 

And now the all important figure..... 

The total spend for January 2015 was £85.76

We'd be interested to hear roughly how much you spend, what format you choose and where you buy your music from. Feel free to comment below, or as seems to be the preferred method these days, let us know on Twitter.

Notes (for those of you like us who like to know the geeky detail)

*We’ve included records that we’ve pre-ordered this month, even if they’ve yet to be received or released.

**Where a record comes in a bundled package such as CD + Download or Vinyl + Download we’ve counted the physical item rather than the download.

*** Where ordering online (in this case all purchases) we’ve included the cost of postage and packing.