Album Sales Up

[sammie]

Wonder if they'll get the message?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050106/ap_en_mu/music_best_sellers2004

Album Sales Up for First Time in 4 Years

2 hours, 10 minutes ago Entertainment - AP Music


By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer

NEW YORK - The music industry reversed a four-year decline as album sales rose slightly in 2004 while overall music sales spiked thanks to a huge increase in digital track sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan.


AP Photo



The music industry was buoyed by chart-toppers from acts such as Usher, whose "Confessions" sold 7.9 million copies to rank as the year's best-selling album. The best seller of 2003, 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," sold 6.5 million copies.


Last year's album sales increased 1.6 percent, versus 2003's decline of 3.6 percent. Some 666.7 million albums were sold in 2004, compared to 656.2 million in 2003.


Overall music sales — which includes albums, singles and digital tracks — increased to 817 million last year, up from 687 million in 2003. It marks the first time since 2000 that overall music purchases went over 800 million, Nielsen SoundScan reported.


"There were 817 million decisions made to purchase music in 2004," Rob Sisco, president of Nielsen Music, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "That's a number that we haven't seen the likes of in years."


Much of it was attributable to an explosion in digital track sales; in 2003, 19.2 million tracks were sold, while 141 million were sold last year, Nielsen SoundScan said.


"The iPod and other carriers of digital tracks are really important in ramping up digital distrubution," said Geoff Mayfield, director of charts and senior analyst at the music trade magazine Billboard. "It's very promising that the category has grown as much as it has, and the recent growth has been almost startling."


Sisco noted that digital music sales did not adversely effect the sales of CDs.


"I think that what you're seeing in the results is that the marketplace has embraced digital downloads as a new format of purchasing music and at the same time hasn't lost any zest, and actually has increased its buying of physical CDs," he said.


The year's No. 2 seller was Norah Jones (news)' "Feels Like Home," which sold 3.8 million; in 2003, her debut album, "Come Away With Me," held the same spot with 5.1 million. Eminem (news - web sites) came in third with "Encore" in 2004, despite releasing his album in mid-November. Evanesence's "Fallen" made the list for the second year in a row. (It sold 3.4 million in 2003.)


"I think anytime sales are good it's a reflection of the fact that artists are connecting with the public," said Mayfield.


Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales, monitored data from Jan. 5, 2004 to Jan. 2, 2005.

[housepig]

album sales are up, yet people are still downloading?

Unpossible!

[Nilfennasion]

This is news?

The labels who make actual music, as opposed to formula shovelware, had a literal explosion of business from MP3. Some of them, thanks to fans being able to send complete songs to friends via the Internet (as opposed to poor-sounding one minute samples), increased business by thousands of percent. The RIAA is still sore because MP3 levelled the advertising playing field to an extent, and they still don't know how they can gain a monopoly over it.

[ViRaL1]

Can't you see? Album sales are up because they're suing all the pirating scum until they turn tail and run. They're winning the fight. Expect more lawsuits to bring the industry back to it's pinnacle of power. Long live the RIAA.
[/sarc]

[Conquest10]

That's what I was thinking. They're going to use this to show that suing the customers works.

[Nilfennasion]

Yeah, and then in twenty years or so when everyone has broadband connections, the tables will turn, and indie labels will be doing more business than them. All because they actually listen to what their customer base wants, rather than just shovelling up Bitchney or her ilk and thinking the customer is obligated to buy it.

[VCDHunter]

That's what I was thinking. They're going to use this to show that suing the customers works.

They fuckin will an' all.

[drjtech]

The RIAA made a deal with the Devil: 666 million albums sold...

-drj

[Sillyname]

I think that the music that is deemed popular these days is only popular because the people that listen to it don't know how to download mp3s. The industry is being driven by the computer illiterate acting under the guise of caring about the artists. I can think of alot of artists that deserve more than the flakes that are currently "on the scene". The quality of music has gone down because the quality of people buying music has gone down. And the recording industry is supporting anything that rakes in the dough, no matter how unfulfilling it is to the soul.

[Nilfennasion]

One problem that has been observed before is that a lot of the sales figures the RIAA quotes are fudged, inflated, or outright made up. I remember one cracking interview I read with an exec for a label that has since been swallowed up (Epic, I think), who said that when you work for Sony, you often get expected to "buy" X copies of a certain disc in order to keep sales up. And most of those employee-bought discs wind up as landfill, I might add.

[zworg2]

I think that the music that is deemed popular these days is only popular because the people that listen to it don't know how to download mp3s. The industry is being driven by the computer illiterate acting under the guise of caring about the artists. I can think of alot of artists that deserve more than the flakes that are currently "on the scene". The quality of music has gone down because the quality of people buying music has gone down. And the recording industry is supporting anything that rakes in the dough, no matter how unfulfilling it is to the soul.

The quality of people has gone down largely IMHO because the age demographic of people buying 'Pop' music has gone down.

Younger consumers = Shorter attention span
Shorter attention span = buy music more often
Buy music more often = buy more of whatever is out there

which leads to the music companies mass producing bands (even if they are only short lived) so that they can pump out track after track of forumlaic shite so that the people can buy it.

Because people buy it, the companies htink that it must be good and so the circle continues......

PS occasionally tho there is a diamond in the rough, although such bands tend to be self formed and self-developed (and therefore are often not much to do with the above mentioned musical circus), but unfortunately they often get swamped by the mass produced shit. however the online revolution has helped such bands to reach a wider fanbase and this can only be a good thing

Now i am 0.02 poorer