BigChampagne's Ultimate Chart (a/o February 10th):
1. “What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger),” Kelly Clarkson
2. “Set Fire to the Rain,” Adele
3. “Turn Me On,” David Guetta
4. “Rack City,” TYGA
5. “Good Feeling,” Flo Rida
6. “Smooth Criminal (Glee Cast Version),” Glee Cast
7. “Young, Wild & Free,” Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa
8. “Domino ,” Jessie J
9. “Sexy and I Know It,” LMFAO
10. “Ass Back Home ,” Gym Class Heroes
As the music industry stumbles into a totally new place, the number of artists actually selling serious quantities is astonishingly low. At New Music Seminar, Tommy Silverman and Eric Garland (BigChampagne) rolled through a tirade of stats showing the extreme challenges that marketers and artists face. Sure, the album itself is waning, but these stats are still worth examining (Nielsen Soundscan is the data source).
o Albums that sold at least one copy in 2009: 98,000
o Albums selling more than 10,000 units in 2009: 1,319
o Albums selling more than 10,000 units in 2008: 1,515
o Albums selling more than 250,000 units in 2009: 85
o Albums selling more than 250,000 units in 2001: 214
o Albums selling more than 5,000 units in 2009: 2,058
o Albums selling under than 1,000 units in their first year of release: 92,601
o Number of albums selling less than 100 copies in 2009: 81,000
Comments Closed
bydesign Wednesday, July 21, 2010
don't forget that most of the albums > 10,000 are not by DIYS. Tommy found less than 10...
Simon Adams - MyMusicSuccess.C Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Couple of things here, consumers are now buying single track downloads, so looking at albums sales is a distorted view, also what territories do these stats cover, is it US only, Global, Europe, Outer Mongolia? When presenting these kind of facts it is important to quantify the data further, otherwise you can pretty much take these with as much credibility as the tabloid headlines...
presnikoff Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Soundscan = US.
Agreed, album metrics are limited, which is a point that TuneCore CEO Jeff Price has strongly raised. On this point, Silverman argues that 10,000 still represents an important threshold out of obscurity.
SoundWaveV Thursday, July 22, 2010
I believe it's just the USA and Canada - The regions that Nielsen SoundScan cover.
presnikoff Thursday, July 22, 2010
@SoundWaveV
I just checked again with Nielsen. They confirmed that this is US only, and does not include Canada.
Andrea Thursday, July 22, 2010
How many albums were released in 2008 and 2009? of course, not counting indie releases that are not tracked through Soundscan.
presnikoff Thursday, July 22, 2010
@Andrea
per Soundscan, 2009 featured 98,000 releases that sold at least 1 copy. And yes, these are just the ones they are tracking.
On the earlier data, Soundscan has agreed to release a lot more information - so look for that upcoming. In the meantime, feel free to post questions on the data, I'll answer to the best of my ability.
Visitor Friday, July 23, 2010
Music Industry? What Music Industry?
alden Friday, July 23, 2010
right. there is less an less of a music biz every day. tommy's revolution is a joke, because most of the artists are scraping $100 or whatever to get in. and a lot of getting in free. but more than that, you have about 12 different D. I. Y.s companies competing for these same artists. I've looked at this space - there's not enough room, not enough $.
Bob Friday, July 23, 2010
That's because there's a lot of coffee out there, but not much cream.
Tye Banks Friday, July 23, 2010
Just goes to show you illegal downloading does hurt all artist not just the major label artist. So when will the major lables stop lying about how many units they are actually selling?
Tye Banks
www.TyeBanks.com
Greg Friday, July 23, 2010
Good point dude! I don't think they will ever tell the truth!
Adam James Friday, July 23, 2010
Seriously, who cares? There are many more constructive ways to measure success in this day and age than the old "album sales" meme. And let's also take into account the number of DIY albums that are being sold out there that these stats probably don't account for. As an artist myself, I know that I can do a lot better for myself selling 10,000 records on my own than selling 500,000 for a major label.
SoundWaveV Friday, July 23, 2010
Does the data include sales from sites like CD Baby? I know CD Baby sends their sales data to SoundScan on a weekly basis.
Tony van Veen Saturday, July 24, 2010
I'm doubtful that CD Baby data made it in there, even though we do report to Soundscan. CD Baby published 42,000 albums in 2009. Eliminating duplicates between Disc Makers and CD Baby, Disc Makers manufactured an additional 30,000 or so albums. Add in other digital aggregators and my back of the envelope estimate is 150,000 to 200,000 DIY albums were released in 2009 over and above what Soundscan reports/estimates.
BumbleFunk Saturday, July 24, 2010
Not scary at all - in fact, awesome because these stats (while not representative of the long tail, as noted by others) only validate further the fact that business models, and products, evolve. In fact, for the indie artists it is fantastic that the commercial and well documented sales stats of albums are plummeting because indie artists (e.g., Jonathan Coulton) make their money through live shows, digital downloads and the way other celebrities at all levels make money (endorsements, tangible goods, etc.) and there is PLENTY of room to grow there without giving an ungodly amount of your hard earned money to the old school industry types who have grown fat and lazy. I've seen this in other industries too and the end result is always a healthier, more democratic environment in which entrepreneurs (as many indie indeed are, perhaps by definition) thrive and the dinosaurs walk off into the distance confused and discontent, whining all the way : )
Weathervane Music Saturday, July 24, 2010
Is this just physical discs or is this digital downloads as well? I'd be curious to see the breakdown between digital and CD.
PunkSoda Saturday, July 24, 2010
Let's do some math: Jonny Cash's "I Guess Things Happen That Way" was Apple's iTunes store 10 billionth download. iTunes Store began in 2003. Let's say 1 album is 10 tracks. 1 billion albums over 7 years that's roughly 142 million albums a year downloaded(and most of it paid for) just from iTunes.
SoundWaveV Saturday, July 24, 2010
Thanks Tony... I figured CD Baby was not part of the numbers above.... and thanks for the additional DIY data
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