By Jon Newton - p2pnet.net

Rap/Hip-Hop is now the second most- preferred genre of music, with Urban/R&B right behind it. But Rock is still Number One with 24.7 % of the market, up slightly from 24.4 the previous year.

At least, that's what the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of Americas) says.

And in one of her most brilliantly insightful statements yet, outgoing RIAA chief truth adjuster Hilary 'Reach Out' Rosen says, "Music continues to appeal broadly to people of all ages and demographics."

No kidding, Hilary.

In the meanwhile, in its 2002 Consumer Profile, an annual demographic survey of more than 3,000 US music 'consumers,' the music industry mouth-piece says in 2001, Rap/Hip-Hop represented 11.4 % of the market, while in 2002 it was 13.8 %. Inching its way to the top was R&B/Urban with 11.2 % in 2002, up from 10.6 % in 2001.

"Country music also remains popular, with its 10.7 % share of the market, while Religious music retained its position, comprising 6.7 % of music purchases," says the RIAA profile.

And how about this?

"Outlet Consumers continued to find new ways to purchase their favorite music in 2002, as non-music-only outlet purchases continued to grow from 42.4 percent in 2001 to 50.7 percent in 2002".

That's one way of putting it. heh

"This marks the first year more music purchases were made at non-music-only outlets rather than at a record store," the RIAA continues. "Record store purchases decreased to 36.8 percent in 2002. While record store and non-music-only outlet purchases made up more than 87 percent of the market, purchasing music online continues to be popular with consumers and increased slightly from 2001, representing 3.4 percent of the market in 2002."

In terms of gender and age, more than 50 % of music purchasers were made by females in 2002, down from 51.6 % in 2001, while more than 49 % came from males, up from 48.8 percent in 2001.

Format CDs remained the format of choice among consumers, totaling 90.5 % of all music purchases, up slightly from 89.2 % in 2001, and in 2002, 1.3 %of all music purchases were DVD Audio, up slightly from the year before, states the RIAA, adding that in 2001, 1.1 % of purchases were DVD Audio. Full-length cassettes, on the other hand, dropped from 3.4 % of the all music buys in 2001 to 2.4 % in 2002.

This is statistical bullshit, just like everything else the RIAA puts out. Comparisons, percentages, blah, blah, blah.

Where are the damn numbers? This says absolutely nothing of value. There is no data here.

Typical RIAA drivel.

"In terms of gender and age, more than 50 % of music purchasers were made by females in 2002, down from 51.6 % in 2001, while more than 49 % came from males, up from 48.8 percent in 2001."

so this means that about 0.5% or so were unisex aliens from mars? *shrugs*

i really don't think retailers report the gender of their customers to soundscan, so i'm with george.. statistical bullshit all the way.

Has it occured to them that if rock sales are proportionally up it may not mean people prefer rock, just that they are now produceing more rock and marketing it harder?

Yeah right? I haven't heard a good rock band come out since Guns & Roses split in the 80's. The RIAA has flooded the market with their hop/hop pop crap and they got a nerve to say rock is the top??? This IS an out an out lie that ticks me off to no end.

LOL.

I think the riaa needs to get off the weed they're smokin.

Outside of the old timers that may put out a few rock albums every four years this is really a bunch of bullshit.

rock is at the bottom, I wouldnt even say number 2. I wish it was number 2 or even number 3.

that should read 'hip/hop', rap crap thats dominated the top 40 since the 90's.

I don't know about you but the only recent CD coming from the labels that I'd even consider "rock" is that new Blue Man Group CD. Of course, they're not going to get any airplay (I suppose a tonight show appearance or two might help them a bit though.) I bought it (used of course) through half.com, and am waiting for it to arrive.

If you have it, listen to it, because they have something that no other rock band has. A formula.

And that formula is:

Rythem on drums + Strong guitar chords = Rock.

Most of the "rock" bands out there think that if you have some guy just drumming to keep time with the guitarist going through the three chords he knows, if they record it loud enough and the vocalist screams unintelligibly into the mic, that's rock.

Well, it's not rock, it's unintelligible monkey-screeching!

AAARGH!

I'm tired of having to choose between "hard rock' that is bereft of melody, and "soft rock" which is bereft of rythem. Give me ROCK!

ROCK ROCK ROCK ROCK!


AAAAAAAAAAAARGGGH!!!!!


*smash, break, pound, hit, snort, smash, destroy*





That's it, no more mixing Caffeine and C-Span.

"purchasing music online - increased slightly - representing 3.4 percent of the market" Do they mean purchasing the legal RIAA downloads or ordering a CD mail order with paypal or what? When I shop online (like at Fredricks of Hollywood and/or Tiger Direct and soon Dmusic CD Store)I get the idem number from the online catolog then use the phone to use my CC# for mail order. Im allways sure to tell the salespeople Im looking at their site and used it to order and I consiter this online shopping. Im sure the RIAA did whatever they could to make it appear as if very few people online are buying anything. They would pass me by in this crapola. Statistic manuplation is way too easy with raw data that doesnt mean anything.

Funksaw -- Not trying to start a platform argument here, but did you know that the Blue Man Group, despite the fact that they did Pentium commercials, actually use Macs to run their show?

They mostly play Las Vegas.

Personally, my band just became cross-platform, so it just isn't an issue for us any longer. THis let us quit arguing about which machine was best and use the best of both worlds. We've got two PCs and a Mac for a studio. We use simple old ftp on a local network to transfer files.

Bullshit. Rock isn't still #1. The new PUNK bands and fucking annoying alternative bands such as Nickelback and so on are just popular and more abundyant than before. More people are into hip hop and such.

Well, I think after 10 years of hip/hop it needs to die. There's only so many songs about ho's that I can tolerate and I've heard them all over the years. If the RIAA would only bring back real rock and roll instead of these boy & girl bands and hip/hop trash then just maybe, they would make some money again instead of whining about P2P and lost sales.

Oh please, no genre arguments. It's all good. Everyone can't like the same thing. That's what diversity is all about.

To say otherwise means that Clear Channel and the RIAA are really right, but just picked the wrong group of clones.

Please don't go there.

viva la underground!!!!

Did not know that. I'm a mac user myself. Okay, so I also have a PC laptop, but I really hate it and as soon as I can get a reasonable price for it, I'm trading it in for a Mac.

ashleighj: that .5% is because of rounding, otherwise the numbers would be like 45.5555555%

Hey, if i swear loyalty to RIAA etc, will they let me get a glance at real stats?

Better yet, would it be possible to have one of us get in there and get us the real numbers?

just kiddin'

RAS- if r'n'b and Urban are in one category, then Punk is the same category as rock.
As would be alternative rock.