Chris Anderson takes a look at the music industry's 2006, and it's safe to say label bigwigs won't like what he has discovered -- the number of gold- and platinum-selling discs was at a 23-year low. You can talk all you want about various technological and Long Tail-related reasons (which are all quite valid), but I still think it comes down the fact that the music being pushed as popular simply isn't very good. The High School Musical soundtrack, Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood lead the pack. Ugh.

Yes, that phrase above -- "the music being pushed as popular" -- seems a bit strange. Isn't popular music simply what's, um, popular? Yeah, right. It's what the labels choose to promote. As labels continue to promote pretty people instead of good, innovative music, fans rebel and look elsewhere for entertainment. File sharing might have been driven at least in part by people's desire to get something free, but it also stemmed in large part form the desire to find something better than what was being offered at the local Sam Goody.

Update: Coolfer reports further on the end-of-year music biz stats today, and has this interesting nugget: "Catalog titles fell only 2%, and deep catalog (albums three years or older) was even with 2005. New releases fell 7%." Further proof that mainstream music is getting worse? Perhaps. It's an easy assumption to make when you see that older music is selling steadily while new discs continue to tank.

Labels: lists, music