12 MusicWeek 20.04.12
BUSINESSANALYSIS COMPILATIONS EDITORIAL
Baby boom helps compilations to recovery position
BE MY BABY IS THE ONE TRACK, more than any other, that Brian Wilson has played over and over again as he tries to figure out how Phil Spector created music perfection over two minutes and 41 seconds. It is also now the name of an album that became the
poster child of the compilations sector in the first quarter, leading the market to an unexpected rise at a time when artist album sales are falling quicker than a cheating forward in the penalty box. The increase came despite some having rashly written off
this part of the business as being in terminal decline because consumers can now create their own compilations via the likes of iTunes and streaming services rather than being spoon-fed them by record companies. Official Charts Company figures certainly back up their pessimistic view with 8 million various artist albums having been sold in the first three months of 2004, but fewer than 4 million this past quarter, despite the year-on-year rise. But creating a great compilation takes real skill and
knowledge; you need to know which tracks to select and how to sequence them in an appealing order. Diving into an online music service where there can be literally millions of tracks to choose from makes that task daunting, unless you are simply going to opt for the tried and tested. Where the talent lies is in combining some of these evergreens with lesser-known recordings, as well as coming up with a theme to curate them around. Be My Baby is a perfect example of this, compiled by Now! mastermind Ashley Abram whose overview of Sixties female pop not only takes in the bleeding obvious such as You Can’t Hurry Love by The Supreme, but more obscure offerings, too, by acts including Patti Drew and The Flirtations. It is smartly created albums like this that are now driving the expansion of the sector. And the likes of iTunes, rather than fuelling the decline of
compilations, appear to be aiding their revival with digital’s share of the sector having grown to nearly 25% of the market in the first quarter. This kind of penetration has been a while in coming compared to with artist albums, but the rise now happening should come as no surprise given more and more people are consuming their music digitally at a time when the desire for hit singles, rather than artist albums, is higher than ever. If you are hungry for the hits, compilations offer great value
for money. The most-in-demand tracks generally retail at 99p at iTunes, but a copy of the latest Now! album will set you back digitally at around £13, giving you 42 tracks at a cost of just 31p a cut. The record companies behind compilations have also wisely
changed tactics in recent times, putting all their efforts into fewer and fewer titles rather than swamping the market with countless releases. This has also included more and more joint ventures between rivals, thus ensuring there is not potential consumer confusion with lots of similarly-themed and titled albums in the market, but one or two with a superior tracklisting compared to what one company would have come up with if they had worked on their own. Paul Williams, Head of Business Analysis
Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing
paul.williams@intentmedia.co.uk LEFT
Sixties style: Be My Baby, featuring female artists from the Sixties including Aretha Franklin, was a big hit in Q1
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RARE BRAGGING
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Q1 compilation sales up 0.4% year-on-year to 3,941,207 units Quarter’s top seller Be My Baby sells 193,169 copies, 29.0% more than Q1 2011 number one title Combined sales of Q1’s Top 10 compilations 44.2% higher than sales of equivalent titles from 12 months earlier Digital’s share of compilations market up year-on-year in Q1 from 15.3% to 24.7% First-week sales of April 2-issued Now! 81 16.9% higher than equivalent 2011 release
SECTOR FOCUS BY PAUL WILLIAMS
A
mong the countless gems on Sony’s Sixties compilation chart-topper Be My Baby is Mama Cass’s uplifting It’s Getting Better. It
is an appropriate choice because, after many years in the doldrums, the various artists sector is finally starting to share such optimistic sentiments. The change in fortunes has been a very long
time in coming, though. Just as artist album sales in the UK – up to this year anyway – managed to hold up to reasonable levels, the compilations business plummeted year after year to yet further new depths. In 2011 alone the market shrank 14.3%, according to Official Charts Company data, and that was following a 10.7% drop in 2010. But in the first quarter of this year the tables
have been turned with the compilation sector winning rare bragging rights over the artist albums market. While sales of artist albums dropped an alarming 17.1% year-on-year during the opening three months of 2011, compilations started to head northwards again with sales up by 0.4% on last year’s numbers. And this was followed a week later by the newly-issued Now! 81 selling 255,337
copies, taking year-to-date sales 6.8% higher than a year ago. The 0.4% rise is the first this market has
enjoyed in an opening quarter since 2007 when some 6.6 million compilations were sold between January and March, around 600,000 more than during the previous year’s same period. However, the market has since got a lot smaller than that and dropped below 4 million units in Q1 2011, less than half the size it was in the equivalent period in 2004. So the annual rise experienced in the opening
three months of this year represents only a marginal recovery of the business that has been lost in recent years. But at least it puts a halt to the alarming annual drops that have become the norm in recent years and there is optimism this upward trend can continue over the coming months. “I would say compilations will remain relatively
steady for the next couple of quarters,” predicts EMI catalogue and commercial marketing senior vice president Steve Pritchard who, with partner Steve Duckworth, oversees the likes of the still incredibly successful Now! brand with partner Universal and EMI’s other various artist and catalogue releases.
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