McVariants - The music industry’s answer to dwindling physical sales
This article is part of The G Spot, a weekly segment where criticista Gordistotle gives insight into the pop culture happenings of now through opinions or anecdotes on his life living in Toronto.
Long gone are the days of music being an expensive hobby, casual fans have traded in bins of records for carefully curated playlists. This is a good thing, isn’t it? With mostly any song ever made digitally available for a few dollars a month, shouldn’t we be celebrating? It’s an amazing deal for the consumer- the same can’t be said for artists, who don’t share the same sentiments as their insatiable fans. Our unlimited access to cheap music is a ticking time bomb, and doomsday is swiftly approaching.
The Streaming Era
Streaming has a lot of selling points: it’s great for accessibility and discoverability, allowing people to listen to a wider variety of music than ever. However, that’s about it for streaming’s pros. Labels have traded making money on music for discoverability- which used to be limited to radio and music store promotions– but I digress. As the natural progression for music distribution, streaming worked to combat piracy- which ran rampant during the early days of the internet with music-sharing services like Napster, a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing application that allowed users to share and download MP3 files over the internet which ultimately lead to significant legal battles and a shift in the music industry.
Labels would rather make $0.003 per stream (not even exaggerating) than $0…
Credit: Chris Krofchak
Of course, streaming isn’t the only means to make money as an artist, but it is the main method of consuming music in 2025. Other revenue opportunities for articles come in the form of selling physical album copies, touring, and merch.
The Role of the Fan in the Digital Era
Without the foundational pillar of “the average person” buying music- the responsibility of helping an artist succeed falls almost exclusively on their fans. Labels had to come up with something quick, and during the pandemic, the perfect opportunity arose… Vinyl collecting as a hobby.
Normies are buying music now- and more than ever—vinyl sales are the highest they’ve been since the end of the 80s. The mainstream-ification of internet culture has compelled the everyday person to feel as though they need Billie Eilish’s latest album displayed on their wall. Vinyl are the new posters.
At first glance this would seem to be a great development for both artists and labels, however, capitalism always rears its ugly head to make sure that there’s always too much of a good thing. Just one copy isn’t enough- fans need to be buying more and more and more.
But how do labels get fans to buy the same album over and over again? Variants, or as they’re colloquially called- “McVariants”.
Via Reddit
It’s not uncommon for artists to have over twenty different physical versions of their albums; vinyls, CDs, cassettes, you name it. Dozens of different formats back every new release, and artists are now even reprinting their past music for fans to buy on vinyl. It’s lucrative and the fans want it, so why wouldn’t they?
Yet sometimes a pretty colour isn’t enough incentive to make a purchase- labels now include extra songs, speckled vinyls, alternate covers, and really anything the marketing department can think of to get fans to buy more than one copy.
It’s not uncommon for super fans to post their hauls online showing off just how many copies they bought.
What spurred this?
Releasing multiple album versions is a relatively new (really took off during 2020) practice in the Western pop music-sphere, though Asia’s been in on this for a while. Why did it take off? My theory is these three reasons:
The intense fan culture climate:
The internet changed what it means to be a fan–superfans used to flock to niche online forum boards, but those discussions are no longer confined to these exclusive spaces. They’ve taken over the internet. Even everyday casual fans have a vague idea about chart positions and sales (think Swifties). They’re die-hard fighting in TikTok comments arguing over how many weeks ‘TTPD’ was number one for- it wasn’t like this a decade ago. People just bought the CD or downloaded the single because they liked the single or the artist, and that was the only way to listen.
Transitioning from radio:
Impact is no longer felt, you can choose the music you want to listen to (yay), but is that a loss for culture overall? Since the advent of music streaming, the industry has all but collapsed upon itself (boo) with catalogue music continuously outperforming new releases. Again, Taylor Swift comes to mind with the popularity of the ‘Eras Tour’, she performed catalogue music and really marketed the nostalgia aspect. Would the tour have been as successful if promoted as the “Midnights Tour”..?
Gamification culture:
Heavily intertwined with fan culture- chart battles have since become the de facto way to compare artists. It’s reflective right? The streams, the peaks, the sales, are these not indicators of how successful an artist is? Therefore, diehard fans have since taken it upon themselves to get their favs to the top. Taylor Swift, again, comes to mind. Releasing 20 physical versions of the same album to entice fans to buy multiple, if not all (depending on how dedicated they are). The fans can then go on to say, “Well I’m a real fan! I bought Midnights 3am Edition Deluxe (From The Vault) 20 times!”
It takes 1,250 premium (3,750 free) streams to equate to one album sale, so obviously there’s an emphasis on pushing physical sales and downloads, but you can only download an album once per iTunes account. Thus, physical album sales play such an important role in boosting numbers. Billboard’s attempted to add rules to limit “bulk buying”, but fans will always find a way around it.
But it wasn’t always like this, artists used to bundle album releases with apparel and tours, letting popular artists regularly smash records. However, Billboard changed these rules in 2020 citing it “skewed what was popular”.
It’s a popularity chart though, isn’t the number one position already skewed to what’s popular? That’s the whole point…
Even straight boys are talking about their favs’ sales. You’re supposed to be providing for the house, building roads- not discussing Playboi Carti’s chart performance…
When did this really start?
The concept of “editions”, such as deluxe, special, or collectors is not new- but only recently has the music industry begun milking fans for all they’re worth. Fans see it as supporting their favourite artists, with the ultimate goal being a Billboard 200 (album chart) #1 debut, the higher the numbers- the better.
With fans living vicariously through their favourite artists’ achievements, they’ll do anything in their power to help secure a higher number, and if that means buying 20 copies of the same album? So be it.
From my experience, album variants were the first major distinction I noticed between Asian and Western pop releases. In Asian pop music, more specifically KPop and Japanese Idol Pop, there are multiple versions of the same album with varying inclusions, like a different photobook and photocards. And I mean multiple versions, like, one for each member, on top of the standard album. Keep in mind some of these groups have over 9 members, so you do the math. On top of completing their collections, the fans are incentivized to keep buying more albums by the randomized photocards included in each one. Some fans will continuously buy an album until they pull the photocard they want, and these photocards can go for about as much as it costs to buy an album itself on the second-hand market. That reselling market is no joke.
via K-Towns
These albums are selling hundreds of thousands of copies in their first week, so they’re obviously doing something right. It’s only a matter of time until we see labels add CD-Photobooks into the mix, because I need a Tortured Poets photocard…
Wait- maybe they already thought of it. Taylor experimented with it for the Deluxe Edition of ‘Lover’... but it didn’t seem to catch on with the rest of the industry… I think it’s because she didn’t have any photocards…
Is this a problem, and how can we stop it?
Should the rate at which the industry is currently producing vinyl slow down a bit? I know, I know, let people enjoy things, but the rate at which they’re being produced, to effectively be posters for 99% of their life span, isn’t sustainable. A lot of plastic goes into vinyl pressing- there are ways to consume music in high quality that isn’t nearly as harmful to the planet.
Vinyl initially faded from relevance because it was made redundant. I’m all for collecting things that make you happy, but climate change will only continue to worsen and most vinyls end up at thrifts or landfills after the super-fan grows out of their hobby or pivots to stanning another artist. Perhaps consider buying second-hand if you’re really into vinyl collecting- but that doesn’t boost the first week sales does it?
It’s not always a perfect supply and demand, some artists heavily overestimate how many pressings of their album need to be made- with Adele’s ‘30’ being a notable example. Apparently 500,000 vinyl pressings of ‘30’ were made- it caused worldwide shortages and caused every artist to scramble and delay their vinyls. Where are the majority of these 500,000 copies? Unsold. Dozens of copies ended up at charity shops like Goodwill and continue to rot on discount shelves across the world.
Album sales aren’t the only way artists recoup production and promotion costs, why do you think ticket prices have soared to such exorbitant rates since the pandemic? Aside from the fact that they price it that way because they can, it’s no coincidence that the prices have considerably risen since the popularity of streaming. We’re paying for almost free music through insane ticket prices. Is this just the way things are now? Capitalism is so exhausting.
On the topic of exhaustion- fan fatigue is going to be a very real thing in the coming years. Artists can only get by on so much goodwill, the more they squeeze their fans for every penny they’re worth- the fan grows tired of supporting their artist, they can’t afford it!
Taylor, you have released on average 2+ albums per year since 2020, with hundreds of versions. Your fans can’t afford 4 copies of ‘The Tortured Poets: Anthology (Meet Me At The Mall) Version’ to keep you at #1 for another week- after having already bought it the month before. At some point, they’re going to give up on this never-ending game. ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ will probably be her last hurrah of getting away with this, it’s a recession, if she tries this again next album cycle I do see it being the ultimate downfall of her popularity.
There’s no stopping the never-ending desire for fans, artists, and labels alike to be #1, it’s going to take Billboard changing the rules to put an end to the McVariant pandemic. If that entails putting less emphasis on physical sales and limiting variants, so be it- it’s extortionate how labels are treating fans. Protect the consumers whether they like it or not, no more buying your way to #1- or make it so you can do it without creating a new trash-island in the Pacific.
The economy is awful right now, nobody wants to choose between groceries and a rare vinyl pressing.