(via this Digital Music News article)

There’s not a single person even vaguely educated on the current state of the music industry that doesn’t know that CD sales are at the end of their death spiral and are just waiting for the digital undertakers to finish digging their grave.  Digital Music News made this great .gif to show us exactly how music revenue sources have changed over the past three decades.

Record execs are still sweating the small stuff because of their lack of response to the digital evolution of music, and it’s pretty clear to see that they should have just looked at the numbers from 2002-2008 when CD sales went from a ridiculously dominating 95.5% of the market share, to below 70%, with digital music taking out CD sales each year by as much as 10% between ’07 and ’08.

I know I’m preaching the same sermon to the same choir, but it’s always easier to see the errors of one’s ways through a visual aid.  What I do find interesting though isn’t how digital music destroyed CD’s the same as CD’s destroyed Cassettes, and cassettes destroyed LP’s.  No, it’s how it’s being done.  You can look at the graph and see clearly that it’s not one source of revenue that’s taking the CD’s place, but eight.

And that’s where the main problem with our current music industry lies.  It was always clear cut what was replacing what.  LP’s to cassettes to CD’s to…um, digital singles/albums/streaming media/subscription services/kiosks?  Hell, even I wouldn’t be able to tell heads from tails as to what the next dominating source of music industry revenue will be.  And unfortunately, this is the same thinking of people actually in charge of the industry.  You know your industry is doomed when its leaders are scratching their heads.

I have faith something solid will come about digitally in the next five years that becomes the new dominating revenue stream in the industry, that will gather the eight parts and make them a cohesive whole, but until someone figures out what that is exactly, let’s just cross our fingers and hope the current execs don’t damage the industry irreparably as they scramble to make their last batch of cash from the physical CD sales cow.