To the Music Industry Quantity is Better than Quality

Source: Amtrak Downeaster

The economic principle I’m exploring is “Because of scarcity, people choose.”

My research question to help me study the economic principle is “How does simply knowing about an artist make you more predisposed to listening to them.”

 The article published in Billboard titled “Maximum Exposure” demonstrates this economic principle by showing that simply being seen can largely affect how well an artist does.

First, famous events can be a powerful catalyst for growth. One of the most well recorded examples was with the band Mumford & Sons.They performed during the 53rd annual Grammy Awards with great success: “The impact on viewers was immediate: U.S. sales of Mumford & Sons' debut album, Sigh No More (Glassnote Entertainment), surged 99% to 49,000 during the sales week that ended later that evening, according to Nielsen SoundScan, lifting it nine notches to No. 2 on the Billboard 200.” This perfectly explains why so many companies can push for exposure: the quality on the music didn’t change, but more people heard it allowing them to decide whether they liked it or not. If 100 new people listen to a song, the worst that can happen is that zero of those people will want to buy it. The worst case is status quo.

As a real life example, I recently learned of a new band named Casiopea. It was recommended to me by Youtube and I was immediately hooked and I bought two albums. Just because I knew about them, we both profited: I was able to buy a product I wanted and they sold another unit.