LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some music merchandisers are alarmed by an
accelerated decline in R&B sales -- the broad category that also includes
rap and hip-hop, Billboard magazine reports.

With the exception of new age, the smallest genre tracked by Nielsen
SoundScan, R&B and rap suffered the biggest declines in 2006 of all styles
of music.

R&B, with album scans of 117 million units, was down 18.4% from 2005, while
the rap subgenre's 59.5 million scans were down 20.7%. Total U.S. album
sales fell 4.9% to 588.2 million units.

Since 2000, total album sales have slid 25%, but R&B is down 41.4% and rap
down 44.4%. In 2000, R&B accounted for 25.4% of total album sales, and rap
13.6%. In 2006, their respective shares fell to nearly 20% and 10%.

Looking for specific causes, merchants attribute hip-hop and rap albums'
accelerating decline to their increasingly short life span.
"Rap used to be the flavor of the month, and then it became the flavor of
the week and then the day, and now it's the flavor of the moment," says
Hinsul Lazo, owner of Miami-based H.L. Distributors.

Merchants point to large second-week declines in new albums. For example,
Jay-Z's 2006 "Kingdom Come" album debuted with 680,000 units in its first
week and then dropped nearly 80%, to almost 140,000 units.

Digital distribution may be cutting into album sales as well. Between
"ringtones and downloads, people don't have to buy the whole album
anymore -- just the music they want," says Troy Marshall, VP of rap
promotion at Interscope.

Earlier this year, Sony BMG reported that some of its acts are drawing most
of their revenue from ringtone, track and song bundle sales. In the case of
Jive Records rapper T-Pain, 43% of revenue came from ringtones alone.
A senior executive at one major label says ringtone revenue now exceeds
track download revenue. And since Nielsen RingScan started tracking master
ringtones in September, rap and R&B have comprised 87% of scans generated by
the top 10 sellers.

Interscope's Marshall points out that Jibbs, for example, "has sold an
incredible 1.4 million ringtones" -- a figure that might well offset lost
album revenue. The rapper has moved 196,000 units of his "Jibbs Feat. Jibbs"
album since its October 24 release. But figuring the ringtones he's sold at
$2 apiece translates into $2.8 million in revenue, the equivalent of another
233,000 albums at a wholesale cost of $12 per unit.
And, Marshall adds, Chamillionaire has moved more than 3 million ringtones
on top of scanning nearly 900,000 units of his "Sound of Revenge" album.

"That's probably one of the biggest success stories the industry has seen,"
Marshall says. "Consumers are buying into him as a brand. It's more than
just about the album."
A senior distribution executive, while acknowledging that R&B and rap are
currently in decline, reminds that music trends are cyclical. For instance,
while country was hot for most of the '90s, he says, it then fell out of
favor and is now back in vogue again. Indeed, country music is up 9.3% since
2000.

Mazerati said:

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This what RnB music has been reduced to a damm ring tone.

laurarichardson said:

I was just going to say that. People have no attention span anymore, so just a few seconds of a beat seems to be enough now. And these "artists" are becoming millionaires from that. It just boggles the mind.

minneapolisgenius said:

Even worse was the fact that the American Music Awards actually had an award for TOP RINGTONE and Billboard has a chart for it! Well RB like Rap and other Genres will all suffer because everything is marketing towards 15 year olds, and music isnt really important to kids like it was when we were that age.

minneapolisgenius said:

Yes,but the ringtone market is the largest increasing segment in music industry. People buy more master ringtones at 2 $ than digital tracks at 99 c. thanks to the rise of volume sales in mobile phone using mp3 while itunes has recently diped by 60 %, according to a recent report.

For example, Chamillionaire' Ridin' has sold over 3 million units in master ringtones, almost as much as the year's best selling album. And that's not counting the sales of 1.2 million of the digital track and 1 million of the album.
I believe, over the years, that albums will continue to suffer severe decline (5% dip this year) and we'll see new heights in digital track sales (+ 60 % this year) and, essentially , master ringtones that are almost exclusively dominated by rap and r&b.

lastdecember said:

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be, does it?

I heard about that ringtone award. Between that, and Nickelback and Black Eyed Peas topping those awards, plus "My Humps" being up for a Grammy, how is it even possible to take mainstream music seriously anymore?

Not that I ever watch those award shows anyway. I just hear about it all on the org.

laurarichardson said:

When you think about it, songs are like extended ringtones. It's not like there are any changes or anything in the music. The ringtone pretty much says it all.

speeddemon said:

It's all about the ringtone. It's the new status item. It's how many want to be identified in public etc...

I couldn't even imaging buying one but I did witness a girl getting teased by her friends (they couldn't have been more than 13) because her Usher ringtone was "from the summer". The ringtone has peer pressure and status pressure and all that other stuff pushing the sales.

It's not just kids, though. I've been in lines (many of us probably have) where someone's ringtone goes off and they get the looks of acknowledgment from others that like the track. It's all very amusing.

anon said:

This is the stupidest thing I've EVER heard.

VoicesCarry said:

Well, it's a stupid reality.

Its really very simple.....BOTTOM LINE! Labels will make money anyway they have too, if it means selling 30 seconds of a song as a ringtone to make money then they'll do it. I mean its like Baseball in the late 90's when Steroids were everywhere, do u think the owners didnt know about it??? Of course they did, but the fans were coming to the games and thats what mattered. Its just like Prince said a few years back, "Youre gonna get the Audience that you deserve", and that sums it up, the industry can bitch and moan about it, but they steered it this way, and the artists that did it are no more than the "puppets".

lastdecember said:

I wonder if they knew it would take off the way that it has. They probably didn't foresee the animal that the ringtone would become. The fact that they outsell the tracks makes you wonder if all that "wear the tone" even listen to the music when they get home.

anon said:

I know. It wasn't your comment I was referring to, but the anecdotes you were relating. Ringtone as a status symbol...you've got to be fucking STUPID to do shit like that ...

VoicesCarry said:

That's the way I took it. Still, it's one thing if it's the kids because the world and the things that are important in it are different when you're 12. But to see grown ups do it!?

The ringtone has a culture of it's own and I do get a kick out of observing it but I keep the cell on vibrate 99% of the time.

...for fear of my default tone going off in public.(Not really, but it is on default.)

anon said:

I changed my mind: I'm never having kids. OR I'll keep them away from the modern world by moving to a commune in the mountains or something.

minneapolisgenius said:

A commune where Marvin Gaye LP's grow on trees!

VoicesCarry said:

Of course!

I'm seriously considering it. I just got the Old School Sesame Street DVDs from 1969-74, and I was just saying that if I ever have kids, they will ONLY be allowed to watch that, and not the new episodes or any other new kiddie crap. The music was amazing on those old episodes! Even in all the little Muppet skits and all the tripped-out cartoons as well. They had amazing jazz, funk, soul, weird Beatle-esque psychedelic sitar heavy music, rock, etc. in that show.

Plus all the guest stars: Lou Rawls, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash, Lena Horne, Victor Borge, Ray Charles, etc.

Do you all think that the record companies really know that they are pushing crap when it comes to the so-called R&B these days, and they are just selling images to make money? Or do you think they are really boggled as to why R&B music sales are declining? LOL

Poor record companies...

anon said:

I just wanted to add that I was in line at the Subway, and some teen girl with jumpy legs was texting someone "I love you more than anyone or anything that ever existed."

The lesson is don't eat at Subway.

speciallove said:

I dont think the "suits" really know what they are doing. Most people at music labels, dont know music (like Prince said). Everyone has a degree in marketing or Business or Law or whatever but no one has anything to do with Music. Now labels will continue to blame downloading and itunes, but thats just an excuse to cover up what really is going on. Sales are down for many reasons, one being theres no Music Stores left. Now people can say, well its too expensive, but that just doesnt make sense, compared to prices years ago and income and things like that, music is cheap, but a kid is not going to spend 12 bucks on a cd when he or she has a cell phone bill of a 100 dollars, there basically gonna download it for free or just not get it. Just the fact that "music" means almost nothing to kids today, it means even less to the labels.

lastdecember said:

This part doesn't make sense to me.

CinisterCee said:

Labels dont care about music is what it all comes down to, and they are targeting kids in their marketing and artists and they are getting burned by it. If you notice they talk about RB/Rap sales being way down, basically anything that is targeting the younger age group for music is way way down. I didnt see a report on Tony Bennets sales being down, as a mattter of fact he had more sales at 80 than he did at 30.

nothing is doing that well and this is what the greedy ass record companies get. they had it coming for what they did to the blues, not to mention billions of other great artist they have raped over the years

CinisterCee said:

So are you saying that her digital sentiment wasn't heartfelt?
No. I know what you mean. It's a different world...but then, at least there's the immediacy of it that this:

didn't have. By the time you received one of those, weeks or months later, the sentiment may have changed. Or maybe sentiments were less fleeting back then, & things and people were less disposable.

Devotion, today, seems to lasts for a day, so why pay for a tune that you won't wan't tomorrow. Buy a tone instead and make people(that you don't even know) believe you're cooler than you really are.

minneapolisgenius said:

Kids are too cool for school,,,the irony is, the grown up middle men are the ones who provided this pop atmosphere.

It just sickens me that the legacy of R&B music is damn near destroyed...and non-existent... All of those old school artist busted the asses to create something special, and these new cats have thrown it all away.

stinka said:

I totally agree, i heard James Brown daughter speaking the other day, and she was saying that James spoke often about "what we created" and "what we have now become" truly sad indeed.

anon said:

Precisely.

Based on Nas' example, I now know what Prince should name his next album:


R&B IS DEAD