I have a 2015 Nissan Pathfinder, whose stock stereo system includes AM/FM, SiriusXM, a CD player, an auxiliary input, and a USB input. Of those, I can tell you that AM/FM radio and auxiliary are never used. The CD player is used occasionally (most often by my son, who thinks that CD’s are “retro” and therefore “cool”). When the wife and/or family are with me, I usually bounce between 80’s pop and classic rock (two styles that most of us can agree on), and when it’s just me in the car, the USB input is most often used, as I use it to connect my iPhone (which includes streaming service via Apple Music and my own music library via iCloud).

Of course, my vehicle is nearly a decade old; newer vehicles have abandoned the CD player entirely, leaving only the aux and USB ports, and often utilizing Bluetooth connectivity to connect directly to portal music players (almost always a smartphone). In some instances, the USB port doesn’t even connect to the radio; its just a power supply. In others, the USB port for the radio is hidden inside a center console (such is the case with my Pathfinder).

To put it bluntly, USB ports in cars are often not the primary input source, and depending on the model, aren’t an input source at all.

So why are so many southern gospel artists jumping on the USB flash drive bandwagon? Whether it’s individual albums or collections of albums/songs, the USB format seems to be growing SG…and I can KINDA understand why.

We all know that streaming has thrown the music industry on its head. I’ve covered the calculations in the past, but in a nutshell, the streaming model is that an artist gets paid every single time a song is played for a minimum duration (usually 30 seconds). That payout is an average of 0.008 cents per play. In order to earn the same amount as a single CD sale (roughly $15), a song needs to played 1,875 times. Spread that out over 10 songs (an average album length), and you’d have to listen to an album 188 times to equal a $15 CD sale. That’s the roughly equivalent of playing a CD in its entirety once every day for a solid year. Sure, some of you may reach that threshold, but that’s still a LOT of love for a single album.

On the flip side, if you purchase a CD from an artist for $15 and play it one time, the artist made their money by virtue of selling it on a physical product. Even if you go strictly by profit margin, that’s still several dollars per unit upfront. It’s an entirely different business model – one that many artists prefer, since they can recoup expenses much faster.

Secular artists like Taylor Swift (come on, SEO keywords!!!) or Jelly Roll can easily get enough plays to not have to worry about CD sales. Actually Swift is probably a bad example, because she puts out 437 variations of the same album on CD and vinyl record, each of which will be purchased by rabid fans on release day, but the point remains – 2,000 streams is nothing for them.

SG, however, is admittedly a niche market, so 2,000 streams is not a guarantee, especially with an historically older audience who tends to be resistant to new technology. Unfortunately, technology is leaving those folks behind, as fewer and fewer sound systems (vehicular or otherwise) include CD players.

Now, it’s all Bluetooth speakers/earbuds, with overall music-listening habits changing significantly over the last decade or so. Even if you still have a CD player, why fiddle with swapping out physical discs (with a permanent track list) when you can shuffle through on a playlist of thousands upon thousands of songs with a simple command of “Alexa,” “Siri,” or “Ok, Google”? Cars (which is where many folks listen primarily to their music) have ditched the CD players, both out of obsolescence and safety concerns, and most home computer systems have likewise eliminated CD drives, so ripping CD’s to your laptop then synching with your phone is no longer easily doable without buying an external disc drive (which I do with CD’s that are not available for streaming so I can easily listen on my iPhone).

So, if customers no longer have a player, what incentive do they have to purchase a CD? Sure, some folks may buy a CD to support the artist, while others may pick up a CD as a collector’s item, but for the most part, trying to sell a CD today is like trying to sell a cassette in 2005 – it’s pointless. The result is that artists are losing a significant amount of revenue that they are used to seeing as part of their business model – concert product sales.

Enter the USB flash drive – the seemingly-perfect answer to, “My car doesn’t have a CD player; it only has a USB port.” Now, artists can sell physical product at concerts (and online), make their money up front, and give folks a format that they (hopefully) can use.

And on the surface, USB’s seem like a great solution. Aside from how easily you can add music to it, their cost is lower than that of glass-mastered replicated CD’s, and their storage size can allow for a large number of songs to be added to one device. You could put one album on it per device for $15-20, or you can put 10 albums on one drive and sell it for $120, all at the same manufacturing costs (although you’d still be on the hook for royalties).

(Or, you can do what Brian Free & Assurance did and only put a 6-song EP on a single flash drive and sell it for $20, or $3.33 per song – a good way to try to recoup costs, but not exactly the best deal when you consider the CD edition is half that price.)

Of course, USB’s are not bulletproof. Some stereos may not read them properly, especially if the songs are not the correct format. For example, my Pathfinder WILL NOT recognize any format but an mp3 on a flash drive, so if an artist tries to go for high-quality wav files, I won’t be able to play it. Sure, I can plug it into my laptop and copy the songs over to my phone (which will play any audio format through Apple Music), but that defeats the convenience purpose. It also means that these USB’s are almost always presenting songs in a mp3 format, which is a compressed, subpar audio quality. Now, if you’re like my mom, you couldn’t care less if it’s slightly less in quality if it’s more convenient (just look at cassettes), but for audiophiles like me, I want the best possible quality I can get for my money, and mp3 just isn’t it.

Adding the fact that USB types are becoming more and more inconsistent simply puts another kink in the hose. Most USB flash drives are USB-A (the flat, rectangular plug most likely found in your car), but more and more devices are abandoning that format for USB-C, a smaller format that, among other benefits, can’t be plugged in “upside down” like it’s earlier counterpart. I have a 2019 Macbook Pro, and the only way to connect a USB-A device such as a flash drive is to use an adapter or docking station. Again, not impossible, but an added step to listen to music in my preferred format – via my iPhone.

I actually tried to sell my own music on a USB drive. My Rewind series of digital albums was sold as a “deluxe” edition on a USB flash drive that was shaped like a cassette (which I thought was a really cool gimmick, given the project’s title and concept). It even came in the standard Norelco plastic case with a J-card insert, so at first glance, it looked exactly like a cassette. Of course, what I thought was so cool about it was exactly why I had such a hard time trying to sell them – no one knew it was a flash drive! I had to explain at concerts that it wasn’t really a tape; once I did, I had a few people pick them up, but by and large, the experiment was a flop.

Do I see USB flash drives lasting for a long time? No. Technology is advancing too fast for them to remain viable. At best, it’s a stop-gap solution to allow artists to still get paid for a physical product, even if that physical format has a limited life span.