ApX Videos: Over 5 Million Views on YouTube
Thu., Jun. 30. 2016 2:31pm EDT
Every cloud has its silver lining. We didn't want to "bury the lead" in this story, so we put it in the headline, but let's check out the cloud before we get to the silver lining.
With so much music available through personal file-sharing, Napster, YouTube, Facebook, Pandora, Spotify, etc., far fewer people today actually buy music than in the "glory days" at the turn of the Millennium. That's not just us, and that's not just Christian music. Consider this:
NSYNC had the best-selling album of 2000, with 9,936,000 copies of No Strings Attached. Thirteen years later, NSYNC's Justin Timberlake, had the best-selling album of 2013, with 2,430,000 copies of The 20/20 Experience. That's over a 75 percent decline!
As an independent Christian band, we have seen an even steeper decline. Many Christian bookstores have closed in the last decade and a half, and many others don't even have music sections now, drastically reducing the places where we can sell CDs.
Fifteen years ago, Christian radio stations' playlists were much more open to indie bands, and Christian bookstores had huge music sections. It was infinitely easier for us to get played on Christian radio back then than in today's corporate radio world.
Ironically, however, thanks to all that digital file-sharing, plus fan videos on YouTube, it appears more people know ApologetiX now than ever. Although 99 percent of the ApologetiX videos on YouTube were not posted by the band, those videos have well over 5 million views! Praise the Lord!
As we've always said, we don't care how people get our music, as long as God continues to provide for us, so we can pay our bills. We try to put the Word of God in every song we sing, and we know His Word will not return to Him empty, without accomplishing the purpose for which He sent it.
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