There's a reason people stopped buying CDs and it wasn't just because they preferred downloading: the content changed - not just the distribution technology - and that's hardly ever acknowledged.

I don't like pushing cases that I can't prove, but in this instance I believe my observations, experiences and reasoning hold more water than those given by the music industry. The following isn't particularly balanced, but hopefully it's thought provoking and offers a not-widely-stated counter to the music industry's claims that piracy is killing their business and that downloading is the primary reason that music revenues have collapsed since the 90s. I'll start off with some graphs which generally illustrate my point before going into a lengthy justification.

What the music industry says

What actually happened

Source: There are many variations of the same graph. The point is that there was a huge spike in the 90s and I aim to explain that.

You don't have to be an analyst to identify something wrong with the record industry's graph. Predicting an unprecedented period of revenue generation off the back of a two year growth period when two of the preceding three years had seen revenue declines (one of them large) is more than optimistic. It could be explained by new strategy, marketing and innovation pushes by the music industry, but hindsight shows no evidence of that.

In a nutshell, the music industry is adamant that illegal downloading is the prime cause of its revenues dropping over the past decade. Opponents say that we're buying more music than ever, but that we're buying individual songs and not expensive albums on CDs and that's why revenue is down. But is the current quality of music really comparable to what was on offer in the 90s? Or is it more akin to the 80s?

What really happened

The following is something of a personal history, but then my formative years were spent growing up in the early 90s and after living through that I was a very early adopter of the web and MP3s in particular. My experiences were mirrored by everyone I knew when growing up. As to how much my world was a tiny microcosm in the great scheme of things is up for debate.

In 1988 I was 15 and had spent the 80s gawping at people's bizarre clothing, ridiculous hairstyles, listening to mostly-horrendous music and wondering why I struggled so much to fit in. I just didn't get what was going on. I liked Michael Jackson (who didn't back then?) but the first CD I bought was the Fat Boys' (with Chubby Checker) The Twist and the first 45 record I bought was Dr and The Medics doing Spirit in the Sky (which is actually awesome and, fashion apart, more 90s-style than 80s). For those who look back on the 80s as a great music decade, I can't stress how wrong you are.