Month: November

Full Text:

There will be a full block of rock this holiday season. AC/DC and Metallica's albums have sold with descent success. And retailers are expecting releases from Fall Out Boy, Guns n' Roses, Nickelback, and the Killers to be potential blockbusters. While U2, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z's albums have been pushed back to next year, also due out are Kanye West, Beyonce, 50 Cent, Britney Spears, David Cook, and possibly Eminem. But most retailers do not believe that this will improve the state of the grim sales that have been going on the the record business. Sales have fallen 36% from 2000 to 2007. Industry decline along with the current economic situation make for a bleak outlook. Walmart is downsizing its shelf space for music. Circuit City is closing down 155 stores. There is still hope with the mild success of AC/DC and Metallica's albums, the people still want to rock.

Month: July

Full Text:

After the first six months of 2008 have come to a close, we can now look back at the numbers of how the record sales industry has done. While overall sales have continued to fall, digital sales have come close to closing the gap caused by the decrease in physical sales. Sales of albums, including track-equivalent albums (TEA: 10 digital tracks = 1 album), went down 4.7% from last year at the six month mark, but that is only half the rate of decline from the year before. CD sales dropped again, while digital albums and vinyl have each increased. The sale of digital tracks has gone up 30% from last year, and using the TEA formula combines to make digital album sales increase 23.6% from last year. This is good news for the industry, but a problem lies in the drop of current albums. Only three current albums (released within 18 months) have broken the million-unit mark this half year, compared to six from last year. The top-10 bestsellers from this year have sold 9.9 million, compared to 11.6 million last year (down 14.8%). Older titles have sold much better this year. The best-selling digital album more than doubled that of the one from last year. 19 digital tracks broke the million mark, while only 11 did that at this time last year. In genres, Latin suffered the biggest drop, while soundtracks and electronic music were the only two to report a gain. Non-traditional retail showed a 20.2% growth and Universal Music Group retained the largest market share with 31.2%, only slightly down from last year.

Month: November

Full Text:

Vinyl is seeing a comeback. Sales of the old format have skyrocketed within the last two years (2005-2006). This article examines the who, why, and how of the vinyl resurgence, and whether or not it will be a long-term revival.

Month: March

Full Text:

While physical sales dropped in South East Asia, digital sales rose, despite the continued use of illegal online P2P services. WMG and Sony BMG seem to be coping with the changes while EMI and UMG appear to be having a great deal of trouble getting adjusted.