Indie Music Grabs 32.6% Of U.S. Album Sales In 2012
According the A2iM, The American Association For Independent Music, Billboard and SoundScan stats show that independent labels grabbed 32.6% of U.S. album sales in 2012. As in 2011, indie labels outpaced each of the major
label groups grabbing the #1 sales spot followed by Universal,
Sony, Warner Music and EMI respectively. This chart breaks sales down by label group:
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indie’s are rad man i’d promote
It would be interesting to know how many of those indies have artists who were established by the majors, or how many are child companies of the big guys.
These stats are entirely misleading! You have to look at what Matt is saying
No you don’t ACmastering, because I guarantee that these figures totally ignore the BULK of indie sales that are just too far below the tracking capabilities of current market analysis.
When you figure in all the crowdfunding income, gig sales, monetization of alternative revenue sources… indies have been “outselling” and out producing the majors for years already.
The independent companies are combined. Combined the majors and u will see that the Indies DO NOT make more than the majors. Many of the sales come from Major indie companies, meaning they operate as a major yet they are not associated, distributed or owned by a major. The majority of the sales are probably NOT from the local dude up the street. Don’t let this mislead you. Just understand that its NOT as esay as it looks.
Read my post just above yours Hussle. This data is only now starting to catch up with reality. Indies far outsell and out produce the majors, and the vast majority of them do it without ANY record label. So if this data is only reporting the sales as recorded by Soundscan and other outdated major label yardsticks, it’s ignoring the vast majority of actual income earned by independent artists.
If those sales weren’t so far below the radar, and could be included in this report… that pie would be all blue.
But how much sales are we actually talking about?
totals please.
I’m a living & breathing testament of Noel’s assertion. The major figures are an exact number while the indie figures do not include many of the folks, for example, on the Texas scene who still sale thousands of cd’s from the front of the stage or the back of the van. Artists like Mike Blakely, Thomas Michael Riley, Pauline Reese, Chris Gage, Christine Albert, Rick Bussey, Courtney Reed, Debbi Walton, The Mystiqueros, Casey Hubble, and on and on and on, just in my region of Texas. I pay taxes on these sales but they are not recognized by Soundscan.