by Josh O'Kane
Two decades ago, Canadian indie darlings Sloan released One Chord to Another to huge fanfare, racking up the best sales of the band’s career. Today, the Halifax-turned-Toronto group is touring in support of that album’s 20th anniversary – and can no longer depend on sales alone.
“We’ve really realized touring is our bread and butter,” songwriter-guitarist Jay Ferguson said from his tour bus. The band has put out a few “boutique” releases in the past few years – most recently, a special vinyl box set of One Chord – “which we can take on tour, and make money that way.” It’s a helpful strategy, because now that fans are streaming music instead of buying it, he said “we’ve noticed less money” than ever before from record sales.
Streaming started as trickle, and now it’s leading a sea change: Last year, services such as Spotify and Apple Music helped push the global recorded music industry into significant year-over-year revenue growth for the first time since the Napster-led industry crash. But this growth has been at the expense of both physical and digital music sales.
--taken from: The Globe and Mail (read more here)
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