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Cai Xukun's album tie-in sales peripherals have caused controversy, can the "fan economy" support the recovery of records?

Author| Put blue

Edit| Yuan Jiaqi

Many people in the music industry have a feeling: the physical record industry has rejuvenated.

According to the Global Music Report 2022 released by IFPI, the international association of the phonographic industry, global CD sales revenue increased by 8.9% in 2021, the first increase in twenty-one years.

At the beginning of January this year, QQ Music Poutao Mall posted on Weibo that the vinyl album "Living Room Carnival" launched by singer Wang Yuan at the end of December reached 24w+ copies during the 48-hour limited sales period, and the sales exceeded 70 million yuan. On February 10, the second physical album "Utopian Youth" of the Times Youth Group went on sale, with sales exceeding 100 million.

Recently, Cai Xukun also released his online concert LIVE album "KUN 2023 ART LAB LIVE", but it caused a lot of controversy due to pricing and album bundling. Many fans believe that the price of this album is too expensive.

The record market has been in a slump for a long time, and in order to sell today's physical albums, when they are sold, they often bundle ancillary goods in addition to the album. For example, in addition to the album itself, Cai Xukun's album also comes with peripheral sales, including figures, rings, T-shirts, and even different cameras have different prices. At the end of 2021, Luhan released the 10th anniversary vinyl collection, of which there are two versions: vinyl and vinyl + record player.

And the small card attached to the album has also become a favorite of the girls in the rice circle. In July 2022, "China Rap Peak Showdown" released a set of limited star cards containing 25 groups of artists, and rapper GAI's small card even sold for 7,000 yuan on idle fish.

Today's many physical records have long exceeded their own musical attributes, and are more like a carnival between stars and fans, stars for good sales data, fans for "brother" support. Rejuvenated physical records are going in strange directions.

The album is sold around, and the disc becomes a USB flash drive

"To be honest, this album and peripherals are really expensive." On February 25, the night before Cai Xukun's online concert LIVE album "KUN 2023 ART LAB LIVE" WENT ON SALE, SOME FANS POSTED ON CAI XUKUNCHAO.

In the comments, many student parties feel that it is much more expensive than they expected, and it is a little difficult to buy, but many fans feel that compared to Korean entertainment, Cai Xukun's album is of better quality, and expensive because the configuration is relatively high.

Some fans also summarized the packages of various combinations of the album, in the table made by fans, divided into tickets, physical specials, peripherals, and priority purchase theme gift boxes, different package prices are also different, the lowest price is 36 yuan, the highest price is 1456 yuan.

From the content of the album itself, the album contains a total of 7 songs, these songs are not new songs, but 7 works of different stages since their debut, rearranged and designed their music, and recorded online concerts.

The corresponding ticket in the table is the ticket of the concert, ordinary camera is free, if fans want to see the special camera, you need to pay an additional 36 yuan for the camera, but many fans who buy the special camera position said on Weibo that they did not see the difference between the special camera and the ordinary camera, and some fans said that "I feel that the camera movement, scene switching is more comfortable, and there are more opposites." ”

The physical album is priced at 182 yuan, divided into two types, phenomenon VER and behind-the-scenes VER, the difference between the two is the difference between the cover and the small card. The album contains covers, magazines, lyrics foldouts, album bookmarks, three album cards, album stickers, and two album posters, but in particular, unlike the usual CD or vinyl albums, Cai Xukun's album uses the form of a USB flash drive.

In addition to the album itself, this time there are also figures, rings/pendants, T-shirts, canvas bags, masks, and themed gift boxes containing the above peripherals. The cheapest is the mask, 9 masks cost 35 yuan, the peripheral gift box is priced at 389 yuan, which is 43 yuan cheaper than buying it separately, and it is limited to 8200 copies.

In addition, in order to buy all the magazines, small cards and posters, fans also summarized different ways to buy, the most expensive four phenomenon albums and four behind-the-scenes albums cost 1456 yuan.

Album tie-in sales around, Cai Xukun is not the first, and has even become the usual model of the current physical record industry, and the seemingly recovered physical record seems to have embarked on a crooked road.

Vinyl records sell record players, why have physical albums become leek cutting weapons?

In Douban's "Internal Entertainment Sliding and Kneeling Group", some users summarized a table of the sales of domestic entertainment physical records in 2022.

Wang Yuan's vinyl album "Living Room Carnival" released at the end of 2022 ranked first in sales and sales, with a vinyl price of 286 yuan, a limited time of two days, and sales of 70 million yuan. From the table, the pricing of vinyl records is basically between 250 yuan and 300 yuan.

Luhan, who ranked second, also released vinyl records, the difference is that in addition to vinyl records, there is a combination of vinyl + record player. The price of vinyl records is 277 yuan, but after adding the vinyl record player, the price reaches 2777 yuan. Jingdong shows that the evaluation of "Luhan 10th Anniversary Collection LP/Vinyl Album" has 20,000+, and the evaluation of the record player set has 5000+, that is, the sales of vinyl records exceed 5.54 million yuan, while the sales of record player sets are at least 13.88 million yuan.

The third place in physical album sales is Liu Yuxin, her first solo physical album "XANADU" is divided into two versions, ordinary album and vinyl album, the ordinary album is priced at 233 yuan, and the price of vinyl records reaches 899 yuan, the price of physical albums and vinyl records are far beyond the conventional pricing.

However, many fans feel that the price of 233 yuan is not expensive compared to the configuration of the album. The details of the album show that the configuration of the album includes a silver shell, a "Xin" logo CD, an embroidery bag, a lyrics poster, an embroidery DIY experience package and more than 200 photo albums, and the album uses a lot of traditional Miao embroidery techniques. "Looking at other people's three or five songs, it costs hundreds of yuan, I know how much the number 233 carries, and there is no need to say more about the hard work behind it." "I just want to know Liu Yuxin, can you return the cost of this physical album so expensive?"

The reason why the vinyl record is priced at 899 yuan, fans explained, is because the record is co-branded with Japanese illustrator Ki Kuyama, and it is a limited edition vinyl record.

Compared with individual singers, the group has an advantage when selling albums. On the one hand, the number of people in the team is large, and the fan base attracted is also larger, on the other hand, Battle as a tradition of the rice circle, different members release different versions, which can also greatly stimulate the enthusiasm of fans to buy.

Recently, the second physical album "Utopian Youth" of the Times Youth Group was on sale, although the price of 168 yuan is not high, but the sales volume has exceeded 100 million yuan, and its secret lies in the fans' "second cut" curse.

THE ALBUM IS DIVIDED INTO TWO VERSIONS, UTOPIA VER. AND TEENS VER., EACH OF WHICH HAS COVERS FOR EACH AND GROUP, AND A TOTAL OF 16 VERSIONS WITH 7 MEMBERS. A single person is limited to 30,000 copies per version, so whoever can do it first can send a big-character poster.

In order to rush sales, the fans of group member Ma Jiaqi even taught fans to borrow money to buy albums, and the minimum loan amount was 60 solo albums, that is, starting from 10,000 yuan.

According to the statistics of entertainment big V, after the sale began, the album's sales exceeded 100 million within 10 minutes, and even fans of Ma Jiaqi, Song Yaxuan, and Liu Yaowen claimed on social platforms that they were the first to sell short, triggering a "second cut Rashomon".

However, in order to sell albums, it is not original in domestic entertainment, as early as 2019, American rapper Travis Scott and his label Cactus Jack's album "JACKBOYS" rushed to the first place on Billboard, but Travis Scott also sold T-shirt, hoodies, hats, and even hard hats, toolboxes, steering wheel locks and fire extinguishers and other auto parts series in addition to the album, which made the industry shameful.

The global recovery of physical records relies on the fan economy?

Whether it is tie-in sales or stimulating consumption, the growth of the physical record industry in the past two years has been solid. In 2021, there was a rare increase in global physical record revenue, which was also the first time since 1996 that both CD and vinyl grew up.

According to the Global Music Report 2022 published by IFPI, 32 of the 62 markets it monitored, saw growth in CD revenue. In addition, Discogs, the world's largest physical record collection platform, is expected to see CD sales growth of 8.8% last year.

Even Universal Music's physical record growth rate reached 18.6%, surpassing streaming revenue for the first time in recent years, surpassing streaming revenue by 16.9% growth for the first time in recent years. IFPI data shows that in 2020, the growth rate of China's vinyl record sales revenue was as high as 359.3%, and in 2021, the growth rate of China's vinyl market also reached 144.1%.

The fan economy is one of the most important reasons for the revival of the physical record industry. A record chain released data saying that 70% of the CDs they sold were K-Pop artists. According to Yonhap News Agency at the end of 2022, the overall sales of K-POP physical records in South Korea in 2022 will approach 80 million, which is expected to set a historical record.

It is not difficult to see from the physical album sales table summarized by users in 2022 that most of the singers on the list have a large fan base, but there are few national singers such as Jay Chou, Lin Junjie, and Eason Chan. Therefore, whether the album itself or the peripherals, whether the pricing is within a reasonable range or not, it will be regarded by fans as a channel for idols to support.

"Compared with the previous pure money-throwing charts, at least the money and peripherals for buying albums really entered my idol's wallet." A fan explained to Yu Xiaobeast the reason why he hoarded a large number of albums.

Fortunately, regardless of the reason, the domestic entertainment physical record industry has finally ushered in a recovery. Although with the development of the Internet, the territory of online music is expanding day by day, and the market share of physical records has shrunk, but based on the huge market demand, physical records are still a fertile soil.

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