Atlantic Record Has Gone Digital

Atlantic Records, home of artists like Kid Rock and Death Cab For Cutie (who are neither cute nor deathly looking), recently announced they are the first label to reach the dreaded marker of 51% digital sales overall. More than half of their sales are now derived from the digital market place, like iTunes (or not, in Kid Rock's case) and ringtone sales.

This is a pretty significant milestone, although it should be noted that no other label is close to this just yet. Most other labels are closer to the 30% digital range. Atlantic claims the reason they have this high of digital sales mix is they "get it" concerning how consumers want to purchase digital music.

From my stand point, this is great news! It seems to me that the digital sales front has always been the wave of the future. Hell, I can't recall the last time anyone I know purchased a physical CD (well, that's a bit of a lie... I just ordered the new Scott Weiland Collectors Edition cd cause I'm a bit of a freak for him...). I would think that record labels would be trying to embrace digital distribution more, considering the lowered cost of produciton.

Many of the labels, however, are still scared to death of digital music. Overall, music sales are down drastically since the inception of the MP3 and Napster, which leads label execs to think that people are simply pirating everything. However, they still fail to understand the basics of good music, and that if there aren't good artists producing quality tracks, no one's going to buy a damned thing. For example, I am a music nut. There was a time that I was buying 2 cds or more every paycheck and relishing it all. Now, I'm lucky to find a new album every month or so to listen to, and that's even digging through some of the smaller labels.

Whether this is a good sign or not is still up for debate, but there's no denying that the digital revolution is in full force now and these labels better find a way to get on the train before it's too late.

Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic [NY Times]
[via: Engadget]