www.musicweek.com
12.07.13 Music Week 11
INDUSTRY OPTIMISTIC DESPITE ALBUMS DROP
Record business finds reason for cheer as LP sales decline 5.2% in quarter to 19.5m units
SALES BY PAUL WILLIAMS
H
MV’s fall and subsequent rebirth cast a huge shadow over the UK albums market in Q2 as a rise the previous quarter turned
into a drop. The market shrunk by 5.2% between April and June to 19.5 million units compared to a year-on- year lift of 1.4% during the opening quarter of the year with another compilations rise easily cancelled out by a sizable fall in artist album sales. But making any sense of what was going on in Q1 and Q2 has to be done in the context of HMV moving into administration in January when the retailer also heavily slashed prices that sent music fans back into its stores and the tills ringing. That helped to buoy up the albums market during the first quarter, only for the following quarter to suffer from the distraction of an HMV coming under new ownership with a takeover by Hilco and all that comes with the reorganisation of a still meaningful business. According to Universal commercial division managing director Brian Rose, what was going on in the market in the first quarter was “a little artificial”, noting: “There was a lot of significant volume getting zipped through the HMV post- admin sale, so we’re seeing a settling down of what the true picture is where physical is still tough on artist albums, but we’re seeing continued growth in digital.” Despite artist album sales falling by 7.7%
annually in Q2, according to the BPI/Official Charts Company, Rose, whose own company’s highlights included Rod Stewart’s Time, Night Visions by Imagine Dragons and the Now! 84 compilation, remains upbeat. “I do feel optimistic about the artist albums
market in both physical and digital. As the reformed HMV continue to rebuild the business and rebuild those stores with the right levels of stock and campaign activity that will add some
YEAR TO DATE 2012 Source: Official Charts Company
SALES PERIOD 2013 2012
TREND % CHANGE
2013 2012
TREND % CHANGE 10.5% +14.1% +94.8% +8.1% +2.0% CD ALBUMS
25,608,725 28,627,868
1.7% 3.9%
DIGITAL ALBUMS 16,835,261 14,750,935
+8.8%
VINYL ALBUMS 340,541 174,779
N/A OTHER
23,609 21,850
SINGLES
95,464,538 93,583,966
TOTAL ALBUMS 42,808,136 43,570,179
ARTIST ALBUMS 32,832,004 34,181,033
COMPILATIONS 8,675,644 7,975,280
‘UNMATCHED’ 1,300,487 1,414,446
volume back into that sector of the market, and the digital numbers already this year are encouraging, although we’d like them to be even better. At the half-year point it’s not a true like- for-like for me, particularly around HMV there’s some fluctuations where we’ve seen a positive in Q1 and a slowing down in Q2 as they came out of it.” That sentiment is shared by BPI chairman Tony
Wadsworth who suggests the market is in a lot better shape than the figures might suggest, especially when you take into account the quarterly BPI/Official Charts Company figures still do not factor in ever-rising streaming activity. “My own feeling with these numbers is they
don’t really reflect the true picture of the mood at the moment because there is a genuine feeling of optimism and expectation of growth,” he says. “They cover a period when we’ve had the issue around HMV and that alters the numbers a bit, but also it wasn’t necessarily the strongest release schedule for that Q2 period. Over Q1 and Q2 the market was only down 1.7% on albums.”
There were unquestionably some notable
blockbusters entering the market with the four biggest artist albums all Q2 releases and led by Columbia Daft Punk’s (pictured, facing page)
ABOVE TOP
In the thicke of it: Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines with TI and Pharrell Williams was Q2’s second top single
ABOVE
No passenger: The Brighton singer- songwriter had one of the
quarter’s leading singles
Random Access Memories with nearly 300,000 sales by the end of June. They also had the period’s top-selling track with Get Lucky, although its million sales could not prevent the singles market from showing virtually no growth (see separate piece).
TOP 10 ARTIST ALBUMS Q2 2013 POS
ARTIST/ TITLE / LABEL
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
DAFT PUNK Random Access Memories Columbia MICHAEL BUBLE To Be Loved Reprise ROD STEWART Time Capitol/Decca RUDIMENTAL Home Asylum
EMELI SANDE Our Version Of Events Virgin PASSENGER All The Little Lights Nettwerk PINK The Truth About Love RCA BASTILLE Bad BloodVirgin
BRUNO MARS Unorthodox Jukebox Atlantic 10 JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE The 20/20 Experience RCA
TOP 10 COMPILATIONS Q2 2013 POS
TITLE / LABEL
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Source: Official Charts Company
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 84 Sony Music CG/Virgin EMI NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL 30 YEARS Sony Music CG/Virgin EMI VOICES – SIMPLY THE BEST Sony Music CG EUPHORIC CLUBLAND AATW/UMTV
THE SOUND OF DEEP HOUSE Ministry of Sound EDDIE STOBART – TRUCKING SONGS Sony Music CG THE TREVOR NELSON COLLECTION Sony Music CG EDM – ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC Sony Music CG/UMTV MARBELLA SESSIONS 2013 Ministry of Sound
10 THE GREAT GATSBY (ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK) Interscope Source: Official Charts Company
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