The Seventies Music Sale Slump

[Xanadu]

Bat Out of Hell surprises me. I didn't think it was that popular.

 

That's one of those albums that I always thought had some good songs but was it really THAT good? Or was something else going on in popular culture at the time (TV show, movie that embraced that album, for example) that boosted those sales?

[Lorraine]

Bat Out of Hell surprises me. I didn't think it was that popular.

 

That's one of those albums that I always thought had some good songs but was it really THAT good? Or was something else going on in popular culture at the time (TV show, movie that embraced that album, for example) that boosted those sales?

 

I'm sure I have no idea. Like you said, it had some good songs, but ....

[ReRushed]

Bat Out of Hell surprises me. I didn't think it was that popular.

 

That's one of those albums that I always thought had some good songs but was it really THAT good? Or was something else going on in popular culture at the time (TV show, movie that embraced that album, for example) that boosted those sales?

It's a campy, bombastic, confident and entertaining album. A lot of people liked it. It had nothing to do with being objectively a good album or a bad album.

[Lucas]

Bat Out Of Hell is a great album

 

Paradise By The Dashboard light is a camp classic - I love it, and it really rocks

[laughedatbytime]

The economy tanked. As a kid, we pretty much had no money for records.

 

I don't know where you were brought up, but none of my friends or my family suffered from the economy in the seventies in my area. That is probably because jobs were always plentiful back there. If you were raised where I now live, I can understand that you would have been hit hard back then, because it still isn't great now.

You're lucky then, because the oil embargo of 73-74 and the stagflation of the Carter years were difficult times for a lot of people. Remember Carter's malaise speech?

[RushFanForever]

I stumped upon this topic by accident, and discovered another thread elsewhere relating to this here.

 

Home taping, compact discs, music files, and digital streaming have impacted the music industry.

 

Maybe the title of The Rolling Stones compilation album Sucking In The Seventies sums it up.

Edited March 16, 2021 by RushFanForever

[invisible airwave]

I vaguely remember this mentioned in the 1975 episode of Behind The Music. Edited March 16, 2021 by invisible airwave

[stoopid]

According to the RIAA, there wasn't any record sales decline in the 1970s. Maybe the manager and record companies were holding onto more of the profit, but from a raw sales number perspective it grew year over year for the whole decade.

 

https://www.riaa.com...sales-database/

 

It really wasn't until after 2006 that they can claim any significant sales decline.

 

Other fun fact from this chart, cassette sales started in the mid '70s with 8 tracks vanishing by 1982. So cassettes were around, but not affordable tape recorders/home duplication until sometime in the 1980s IIRC. I know by the mid-late 1980s I had a cheap smallish Aiwa(?) stereo in my bedroom as a kid with a dual cassette deck (recording quality was horrible, but it did record radio, vinyl, and dupe tapes).

Edited March 16, 2021 by stoopid