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13.04.12 MusicWeek 13
TROUBLED TIMES FOR CD SALES single quarter’s results – but physical decline in Q1 suggests switch to digital albums is gathering pace
what is happening in the CD market with the aim of coming up with a formula to breathe new life into the format. The BPI’s Taylor reveals the research goes
beyond CD by looking at in-store opportunities in general. “Whatever that format looks like, we’re doing a bit of research into what consumers buy and entering into a dialogue with the companies about how we can innovate in terms of physical sales,” he adds. EMI Music UK & Ireland CEO Andria Vidler
suggests the key to such efforts is “to get the consumer at the heart of the development of our product rather than simply what delivers the highest margins”. According to Universal commercial division
managing director Brian Rose, the market’s leader has already been undertaking its own endeavours to try to drive up CD demand over the last two years by securing new places on the high street to sell music. Among these are the nationwide chain BHS. “We continue to look to put CDs into as many
retail outlets as possible so we don’t look at it as managing decline. We look at it as an opportunity,” he says. The drop in album sales in the quarter was
unusually most heavily felt in the artist albums sector, which has long got used to posting far more positive year-on-year comparisons compared to the compilations sector. For Q1, however, the reverse was true with artist album sales falling 17.1% to 18.4 million units and compilations climbing 0.4% to 3.9 million units. Admittedly 0.4% is not exactly huge, but it is significant as it compares to a 19.3% year-on-year fall reported between the first quarters of 2010 and 2011, while the same market dropped 14.3% across the whole of last year. Universal’s Rose describes the compilations rise
as one of the quarter’s “nicest surprises”. “It’s a brand business so there’s some quite
strong ones out there and there have been one or two new ones coming through, which we haven’t seen for quite some time,” he says. In what was the first rise in the market during
the opening quarter of the year since 2007, the compilations business was aided by some very impressive sales from individual titles, most
SALES STATISTICS Q1 2012 Source: Official Charts Company
SALES PERIOD Q1 2012 Q1 2011
TREND % CHANGE
Q1 2012 Q1 2011
TREND % CHANGE
SINGLES
46,661,629 44,679,739
+4.4% CD ALBUMS
15,318,632 20,532,192
25.4%
TOTAL ALBUMS 23,018,808
26,982,768 –14.7%
ARTIST ALBUMS 18,367,070
22,144,055 17.1%
DIGITAL ALBUMS 7,615,583 6,365,856
+19.6%
COMPILATIONS 3,941,207
3,925,053 +0.4%
VINYL ALBUMS 75,500 70,634
+6.9%
‘UNMATCHED’ 710,531
913,660 N/A OTHER 9,093 14,086 54.9%
TOP 10 ARTIST ALBUMS Q1 2012
POS ARTIST/ TITLE / LABEL
1 ADELE 21 XL 2 LANA DEL REY Born To Die Polydor 3 EMELI SANDÉ Our Version Of Events Virgin 4 ED SHEERAN + Asylum 5 COLDPLAY Mylo Xyloto Parlophone
6 BRUNO MARS Doo-Wops & Hooligans 7 DAVID GUETTA Nothing But The Beat
Elektra Positiva/Virgin
obviously Sony’s Sixties female artists compilation Be My Baby, which sold 193,169 units to become the quarter’s number one various artists seller. This compares to 149,771 copies sold of Q1 2011’s top compilation, the EMI TV/UMTV-issued Now 77. From an artist album perspective, the first
quarters of 2011 and 2012 at first glance looked very similar with Adele’s 21 the top seller in both periods. But that is where the comparison ends. Having been the top seller in the opening three
months of last year, XL’s second Adele album did it all again 12 months later, but in very different circumstances. The album sold 1,754,319 units to top Q1 2011’s listings, but needed just 411,997 sales to repeat the feat in the first period of 2012. Coupled with her first album 19, Adele sold around 2.2 million albums in the first quarter of last year, enough to lift the artist albums market then by 1.5%, but even she could not stop a decline a year later in which the same sector sold around 3.8 million fewer units overall. If you strip Adele out of the calculations the year-
on-year comparison between the first quarters of 2011 and 2012 looks better, but still makes grim reading. Without the multiple Brit and Grammy winner’s contributions, the total albums market would have been down 9.2% on the year, better clearly than the 14.7% drop but still very disappointing and unable to mask significant annual unit falls among the top sellers and lower down the market. Universal’s Rose says the year-on-year drop was
expected, but warns against the industry getting too down about the headline figures for artist albums.
8 JESSIE J Who You Are Island/Lava 9 MILITARY WIVES In My Dreams Decca
10 OLLY MURS In Case You Didn’t Know Epic
OPPOSITE AND ABOVE Breakthrough artists: in a quarter still dominated by Adele, there was also much to celebrate for Lana Del Rey and Emeli Sandé
Source: OCC
TOP 10 COMPILATIONS Q1 2012
POS TITLE / LABEL
1 BE MY BABY Sony 2 NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC! 80
EMI TV / UMTV
3 XX - TWENTY YEARS Ministry of Sound 4 R&B SLOW JAMZ UMTV/Rhino
5 NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL RUNNING EMI TV/UMTV
6 BRIT AWARDS 2012 WITH MASTERCARD UMTV
7 DREAMBOATS & PETTICOATS – THE PETTICOAT COLLECTION EMI TV/UMTV
8 THE WORKOUT MIC 2012 AATW/UMTV 9 ANTHEMS - HIPHOP 2 MoS/Sony 10 ADDICTED TO BASS 2012 MoS
“Clearly, we shouldn’t ignore it and we know
what’s doing that and the exceptional volume Adele put in the market last year,” he says. “From our end the focus remains the same: we’ve got to continue to break more artists and we got a few of them on the board in Q1, which we’re pleased about.” These included Polydor act Lana Del Rey with
Born To Die, while other breakthroughs across the industry included Virgin signing Emeli Sandé’s Our Version of Events. The BPI’s Taylor, though, suggests Q1 2011’s new release schedule was stronger, not least with the Adele album. “Q1 obviously had 21 selling bucketloads and
therefore [year-on-year] comparisons are difficult and it’s not a surprise overall we’re down,” he says. “The release schedule this year in Q1 hasn’t been as strong; it looks better the rest of the year. Lana Del Rey has done well, but there have not been as many big albums.” Beggars Group chairman Martin Mills reckons
there were three separate parallels helping to shape the Q1 albums market: fewer high-profile releases, the continuing movement of more mainstream buyers from albums to one track and more and more people using streaming services. Such use is currently not part of Official Charts Company available data. “If streams are excluded [from the calculations]
you are ignoring a significant part of what is going on,” he says. “We’re finding now a lot of our artists are
earning more from digital streams than they are from downloads. It’s a significant part of the market.” Among the quarter’s top sellers, UK talent was
heavily represented with seven of the 10 biggest artist albums coming from British artists, while 53% of the quarter-end Top 100 was homegrown. This was almost identical to the same quarter last year (52%), while the US rose a point to 34% as Europe claimed 5% (6% a year ago) and the rest of the world 7% (8%). Led by Adele and Lana Del Rey, pop was the
strongest genre within Q1’s Top 100, occupying 38 positions, while rock’s 26% contribution was led by Coldplay and contemporary urban’s 18% included Rizzle Kicks and Rihanna.
Source: OCC
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