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06.09.13 MusicWeek 13
Universal before being sold for a reported £0.5m. During this period Domino has enjoyed a strong
pick-up in sales of Arctic Monkeys’ back catalogue following their Glastonbury set and ahead of their new album, while Cooking Vinyl’s stock has risen in recent years through a series of label service deals, most recently with acts including Madness and Alison Moyet. The post-millennium record independent share
over the past 12 months has also been helped by Dramatico scoring its first No.1 with a non-Katie Melua release through Caro Emerald’s The Shocking Miss Emerald, while between them Nettwerk and Infectious have been behind the period’s two biggest independent album sellers. By far Nettwerk’s all-time top UK seller,
Passenger’s All The Little Lights has sold around 240,000 copies to date, while Infectious act Alt-J’s An Awesome Wave has shifted about 235,000 units over the past year and 270,000 in total. The two releases were among 10 independent
INDEPENDENT RECORDED MUSIC SALES IN THE UK Source: Officials Charts Company data/Music Weekresearch SALES PERIOD
SINGLES 2013* 2012** % CHANGE
32,736,059 27,183,418
+20.4%
independents accounting for 25.5 million of them, a 17.1% share. Fast forward eight years and 87.8 million albums were bought in total in the year prior to AIM’s 2013 event, a 41.0% drop since 2005. Independent unit sales, though, fell by a far more modest 22.4% to 19.8 million units, a smaller reduction than even Universal’s, despite the major since then heavily adding to its empire with purchases such as EMI. Back in 2005 two of the three leading
independent albums groups were Sanctuary and V2, both subsequently acquired by Universal, and between them accounted for around 4.6 million album sales during the 12 months in question. Ahead of them both then was Ministry of Sound and in 2013 it remains the leading indie albums player with a 3.0% share of all full and mid-price sales in the 12 months up to chart week 34 2013. As was the case in 2005, a big part of its current success has been compilations with Anthems – 90s alone having sold around 460,000 copies since it was released last November, but artist albums have been an increasing factor through acts such as Example (now with Epic) and DJ Fresh. The continuing rise of XL Beggars is one reason
why the independents are performing so well in the albums market right now, particularly relative to the market as a whole. Martin Mills’ group was hardly a slouch during the early part of the century, especially with XL Recordings successes such as Basement Jaxx and White Stripes, but its market share has notably grown in recent years and not just because of the phenomenal success of Adele. Her record company XL remains Beggars’ leading attraction with its successes over the past 12 months including The xx’s second album Coexist, Adele’s
TOTAL ALBUMS
19,776,196 19,998,748
1.1% *chart week 35 2012 to chart week 34 2013 **chart week 35 2011 to chart week 34 2012
ever-present 21 and Vampire Weekend’s third effort Modern Vampires Of The City, but there have also been key contributions from other Beggars record companies with Matador now having Queens Of The Stone Age on its books and so far selling around 85,000 copies of the band’s …Like Clockwork, 4AD experiencing great success with The National and making an encouraging start with Daughter and Rough Trade taking Alabama Shakes’ Boys & Girls to No.3 in the weekly artist albums chart. Beggars was behind an unrivalled 15 of the 100
biggest-selling indie artist titles in the 12 months leading up to this week’s AIM Awards, but the other main contributors were catalogue specialists Demon and Union Square and PIAS both with its own label and more recently working with a series of other labels after purchasing Co-op from Universal. Even excluding from our calculations budget
sales, where it is strongly represented, Demon was the third biggest independent over the last 12 months behind Ministry of Sound (3.0% market share) and XL Beggars (1.8%) with its own 1.4% mixing newly-recorded albums by the likes of Daniel O’Donnell and Deacon Blue with re-issues and retrospectives (sometimes in conjunction with majors) by acts such as Duran Duran and Chris Rea. Union Square’s contribution was similarly
mixed, including Michael Ball’s new studio album Both Sides Now and catalogue from artists including Madness, while PIAS’s spread had acts such as Texas on its own PIAS Recordings label with Co-op releases on labels including Kitsune (Two Door Cinema Club) and V2 (Black Keys, The Courteeners). For a good chunk of the 12 months in question Co-op was overseen by
ABOVE OPPOSITE Big heights for Little Lights | Passenger’s album is the indie seller of past 12 months
ABOVE Piling up the sales | Alt-J’s album has sold 270,000 copies for Infectious
ARTIST ALUBMS
14,968,621 16,042,074
6.7%
COMP ALBUMS 4,807,575 3,956,671
+21.5%
titles in the Top 100 artist album sellers during the 12 months up to this year’s AIM Awards, up from seven titles in the equivalent chart prior to the 2012 event. They include Stereophonics whose Graffiti On The Train album, the first on their own Stylus label via Ignition, has shifted more copies in six months than their final Universal release Keep Calm And Carry On has managed since it came out in 2009. The band’s success helped the indie albums
market to outperform the sector as a whole year- on-year. In the 12 months to the AIM Awards non-budget independent sales dropped by just 1.1% year-on-year, compared to around 4.7% for the entire market, and that comparison looks even better when you consider Adele’s phenomenal 21 was still making a sizable contribution a year ago.
SINGLES FOCUS Sales of independent singles rose more than 20%
year-on-year in the run-up to the 2013 AIM Awards, but the top end of the market remains difficult to breach for most labels. Nearly 40% of the 100 biggest-selling tracks by
indies over of the past 12 months come from just two corporate groups – Ministry of Sound and XL Beggars – which between them were responsible for 16.9% of all independent singles sold during this time. With nearly 2.9 million singles sales between
chart week 35 2012 and chart week 34 2013, MoS is the leading non-major player in the market and was behind six tracks in this period that sold at least 100,000 copies in the UK, according to Official Charts Company data. These were led by Duke Dumont featuring A*M*E’s chart-topping Need U (100 Percent), which to date has sold about 380,000 copies, while Chris Malinchak’s So Good To Me is around the 300,000 mark with Bingo Players’ Get Up (Rattle) featuring Far East Movement not far behind. Xl Beggars’ presence among the leading sellers
has been reduced since the commercial heights of Adele’s album 21, which produced a trio of big hit singles, but her theme to the Bond movie Skyfall was the second most popular indie track of the past year. Its sales of around 750,000 copies have only been bettered among independent releases by Nettwerk act Passenger’s Let Her Go with in the
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