14 MusicWeek 20.07.12
BUSINESSANALYSIS USHALF-YEARSALES EDITORIAL
America dances to EDM’s tune
DANCE MUSIC SPENT YEARS trying to penetrate the US mainstream, but a look at Nielsen’s half-year market figures reveals just how far it has now come. Having still been deemed niche and completely ignored by
daytime radio just a few short years ago, the genre in the first six months of 2012 not only grew its digital one-track sales by 65.2% annually in the States it more remarkably leapfrogged R&B in the rankings. With download sales of what is billed by Nielsen as
electronic/dance rising to a new half-year high of 46.6 million units up to the end of June, R&B passed it heading the other way as its own total slumped 30.4% to 38.9 million units. That represents one hell of a musical shift in just a short
space of time, but probably should come as no surprise given how dance or its more widely-used tag of EDM in the US has infiltrated the Billboard charts not just directly via its own acts, but also through the impact it has had on the sound of hits by artists from other genres. In short, dance has become the pop music of the day. The first half of 2012 threw up countless big dance smashes Stateside, among them LMFAO’s Sexy And I Know it and Turn Me On by David Guetta who arguably did more than any other individual to take dance to the wider US public and non- specialist radio when he collaborated with Black Eyed Peas on their mega-hit I Gotta Feeling back in 2009. Dance’s popularity across
‘Dance’s popularity across the pond has
the pond has risen to the extent that even events like the annual Lollapalooza music festival, which has traditionally been all about alternative acts, included in its line-up this year the likes of Swedish DJ and producer Avicii and the UK’s very own Calvin Harris. The Scot’s importance to the story cannot be overstated, too, having been the writer and producer of Rihanna’s We Found Love, which saw one of the world’s biggest music superstars unashamedly embracing the genre and resulted in a dance track leading the Hot 100 for 10 weeks, something that would have been unheard of not so long ago. At the same time as dance’s elevation to the top, alternative
risen to the extent that even events like the annual Lollapalooza festival included in its line-up this year the likes of Avicii and Calvin Harris’
music also seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance in the States with one-track downloads having grown there by 18.8% year-on-year to 94.0 million units by the mid-year point. The period included two alternative singles reaching number
one, Fun’s We Are Young and Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know, representing something of a real revival given the last alternative chart-topper before then was Coldplay’s Viva La Vida back in June 2008.
Paul Williams, Head of Business Analysis Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing
paul.williams@intentmedia.co.uk
www.musicweek.com
AMERICAN SYCO Syco signings lead the way in our US half-year analysis
INTERNATIONAL BY PAUL WILLIAMS
O
ne Direction’s Up All Night dropped out of the US Top 10 for the first time last week, but its exit was eased by becoming the
year’s biggest-selling new album. The sales milestone is further evidence of just
how successful the Syco signings have become in a market that until 2012 seemed impenetrable to a UK boy band and also highlights what a remarkable first half to the year new British talent has enjoyed Stateside. One Direction’s big rivals The Wanted, Ellie
Goulding, Calvin Harris and Ed Sheeran all experienced sizable Billboard chart breakthroughs during the opening six months of the year, while Cher Lloyd last week stood on the brink of cracking the Hot 100’s Top 10 as Want U Back climbed 35-26. But it is the What Makes You Beautiful
hitmakers who have set the pace with their debut album Up All Night having sold 899,000 copies at 2012’s mid-way point, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That placed it as the year’s third top album behind Adele’s 2011 release 21 with 3.7 million sales and Lionel Richie’s Tuskegee with 912,000 units sold, although it last week moved past Richie’s total to become the biggest album of the year released in 2012 just as it fell out of the Billboard 200 Top 10 after 16 straight weeks. One Direction’s US breakthrough has come in
what could be described as a solid opening half to the year for the recorded music market there. Although album sales failed to match their feat this time last year of actually rising year-on-year by the
mid-way point (for the first time since 2004), the drop in 2012 was still a relatively modest 3.2% to 150.5 million units and compares to the UK albums market shrinking by 13.8% over the same period. Once you factor in track-equivalent albums, which equate 10 one-track download sales to one album, the drop was just 0.6%. Much has been made on this side of the pond
about the impossible job the market has had to try to compete with the 2011 sales of Adele’s second album, but it has not been an issue in the US – not yet anyway – as 21 sold more copies in the first half of 2012 than it did in 2011’s opening six months, when it shifted 2.5 million copies. There are obvious reasons for this. For starters, the album last year had seven fewer weeks to clock up sales as it was not released until February 22, while it had some exceptional weeks this year, including in the aftermath of Adele’s Grammy triumph in February when 21 hit its weekly sales peak with 730,000 copies snapped up. While the year’s biggest album at 2012’s mid-
way point achieved higher sales than 2011’s interim top seller managed, sales of the rest of the Top 10 were significantly lower this year. Adele’s 21 is the only album to have sold more than 1 million copies so far this year – although Up All Night will get there in the next few weeks – while last year both 21 and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way (1.5 million) had reached that landmark by the end of June. Meanwhile, sales of mid-year 2012’s 10th most popular album, Adele’s 19, were 10.2% lower than what Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream sold to attain the same position a year ago. The sales drop among the biggest sellers
reflected an overall albums market in which sales of
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