Physical Single Sales by Format 1988-2005

I never thought about that, Dave, but that's a valid observation. Younger consumers with limited spending budgets may have been more likely to select cassette singles over CD singles for perhaps at least partially that reason (and lower pricing). I remember how the early portable CD Walkman and car CD players were very sensitive to bumps and thus prone to "skipping" and mistracking. You're right about how this issue didn't seem to get remedied until at least the mid- to late '90s. The one positive attribute with cassettes compared to all other formats is that they're obviously not vulnerable to "skipping" problems!

I too recall that the availability of CD singles was pretty low.

The larger music stores that I shopped usually carried a decent
sized selection of cassette singles. But if CD singles were sold
at all it was in very small quantities. Perhaps that was related to
the quantity of CD singles being made available to them by
music labels. Or perhaps the store's sales history or corporate
policy regarding CD singles dictated they carry less inventory.

Oddly I recall seeing more CD singles in the discount bins than
when they were current hits. Perhaps the proliferation of the
"Now That's What I Call Music" type compilations contributed to
their demise.

CountryPD wrote: Oddly I recall seeing more CD singles in the discount bins than when they were current hits. Perhaps the proliferation of the "Now That's What I Call Music" type compilations contributed to their demise.

Oddly enough they stopped the Now series after Vol 90. That's how far the CD itself has fallen off in sales. A great series but you are correct why buy 16 of the newest songs that are popular when I can get the CD for 10-15 bucks every 3 months? It didn't make financial sense.

PopArchivist wrote: Instead of maxing out space no one did or chose not to from the label.

It's not the disc's potential capacity that comes into play. It's the costs involved vs. what the buying public is willing to spend. The more music you cram onto a CD, the more the artists and songwriters make, which means the price of the CD has to go up to cover those expenses. When the CD price goes up, demand and sales go down. It's all a business decision that has nothing to do with the cost (or size) of the plastic holding the music.

Edited by aaronk

PopArchivist wrote: Todd Ireland wrote: A couple of other thoughts that have occurred to me... I firmly believe that CD singles were really never marketed properly in the U.S. and therefore never truly enjoyed a bonafide sales boom here. By the time this format had finally emerged as the preferred one among consumers, record labels began to stop making popular hits available as retail single releases in favor of forcing consumers into having to purchase these songs on their more expensive album counterparts. Meanwhile, there was no uniform packaging standard with U.S. CD single releases. Thus, consumers were treated to a messy hodgepodge of the product being issued in everything from standard jewel cases to slimline jewel cases to cardboard sleeves to "digipaks", etc. which made storing them both a pain and an eyesore. I give full credit and props to European countries for marketing CD singles the right way... As far back as 1989, or even 1988 in the U.K., one could reliably find pretty much any hit song available on CD single and uniformly issued in a slimline jewel case! I can attest that the CD single sometimes came in awkward packaging (a cardboard slip cover around 93-98 was very common offering no protection). They were not as nicely done as an album of the era which has a jewel case. I can agree that Europe marketed the CD single the way it should have been. By 1999 Billboard had finally allowed album tracks to chart. The CD single was still very popular. The point where the CD single fell off the cliff was after 2009. The 2007-current period is dominated by digital downloads, including Itunes and Amazon exclusives etc. As Aaron can now attest, and as Pat before him CD releases of new stuff do not exist. Many of us board members for our personal collections saw this coming decades ago with Napster and P2P. Storage is now affordable to the point where you can amass thousands of tracks and unload your physical CD collection. The times they are a changin'.....

Man, how I have always passionately hated to see CD singles packaged with the cheap plastic trays and awful cardboard slip covers that you describe! In fact, that rotten packaging deterred me from buying a number of CD singles during the mid-'90s that I otherwise was willing to purchase!

Meanwhile, judging by the sales data put out by the RIAA, I'd argue the point that CD singles really "fell off a cliff" was closer to 2000 and 2001. And the thing is, this was not due to declining interest and demand from consumers, but rather from record labels intentionally suppressing the release of CD single product. It's as though the labels never really wanted to see CD singles truly maximize their popularity out of fear that album sales would become cannibalized as a result, thus reducing profits. Yet, despite these unfounded fears, we witnessed cases like Santana's improbable comeback album Supernatural get certified a phenomenal 15x platinum (for shipping 15 million copies to retail), while still yielding two huge #1 platinum-selling singles, "Smooth" (featuring Rob Thomas) and "Maria Maria" (featuring the Product G&B)!