SIDENOTE: Farewell to the days of album concepts. It's all a digital hit singles now.

http://new.music.yahoo.co...f-the-past

Chart Watch Extra: Is The Album Becoming A Relic Of The Past?
Posted Fri Oct 3, 2008 10:42am PDT by Paul Grein in Chart Watch

If you've been anywhere near a radio in the past four months, you've heard Jesse McCartney's "Leavin'" countless times. The amiable pop tune has sold 1,360,000 downloads, making it the #24 best-selling song of the year. So McCartney's album, Departure, must be a big hit, right?

Not really. Departure has sold 118,000 copies, not enough to put it on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the year's top 200 albums.

"Sexy Can I" by Ray J & Yung Berg is an even bigger hit. The slinky R&B smash has sold 1,843,000 downloads, making it the 12th best-selling song of the year. The collaboration is featured on both artists' albums, Ray J's All I Feel and Yung Berg's Look What You Made Me. As of this week, the two albums have sold 157,000 copies. Combined.

Welcome to the modern music business, where even big hits don't necessarily sell large numbers of albums.

Let's try one more. Leona Lewis' elegant and soulful ballad "Bleeding Love" (which Jesse McCartney co-wrote) has sold 3,165,000 downloads, making it the #1 hit of 2008. Surely Lewis' album, Spirit, must be a hit. Indeed it is. The album has sold 1,125,000 copies, fewer than it would have in the record business' glory days, but a solid showing for a new artist.

So what's going on? Is it all about the individual track these days? Is the album becoming a relic of the past? Let's look at the numbers.

Just 11 albums topped the 1 million mark in sales in the first nine months of 2008, the lowest tally at this point in the year since Nielsen/SoundScan took over tracking of record sales for Billboard magazine in 1991. The trend has been downhill since 2006, when 28 albums topped the 1 million mark in the first 39 weeks of the year. The number dropped to 20 in 2007.

It wasn't always this way. Each year from 1994 through 2004, at least 30 albums topped the 1 million sales mark in the first nine months of the year. The best year was 2001, when 59 albums did the trick-more than five times this year's total.

Of course, in 2001, there was no downloading of individual songs. And this year, that counts for a lot. A total of 39 songs sold 1 million or more downloads in the first nine months of this year. In fact, there were as many songs (11) that sold 2 million or more downloads in the first nine months as there were albums that sold 1 million copies (physical and digital combined) in same period.

The top 200 songs for the year-to-date sold a combined total of 152,246,000 downloads in the first nine months. The top 200 albums for the year-to-date sold a combined total of 80,720,000 copies in the same period. As you can see, songs are out front by a margin of nearly two to one.

But keep in mind that all sales are not equal. An album costs about 10 times as much as an individual song, so it's a more considered decision. Downloading a song is more of an impulse purchase, like buying a candy bar or a newspaper. Buying an album is more of a demonstration of commitment to an artist. The 2.5 million people who have bought Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, the best-selling album so far this year, are probably true fans. The 2.9 million who have downloaded his hit "Lollipop" may have just liked the tune.

And albums are still able to amass big weekly sales numbers, especially in their first week of release. In the history of downloading individual songs, the all-time record for one-week sales was set in the last week of December 2007, when 467,000 fans paid to download "Low" by Flo Rida featuring T-Pain. That's a hefty total, but four albums have exceeded that sales figure in 2008 alone. (Tha Carter III sold more than twice that in its first week.)

Individual songs dominated the music business in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Billboard introduced its first national "Best Selling Retail Records" chart devoted to individual songs in July 1940-nearly five years before it added an album chart. (The album chart didn't become a regular weekly feature until March 1956.)

Album sales started to heat up in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s with the success of albums by such artists as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Kingston Trio. In April 1961, Billboard expanded the depth of its album chart to 150 titles.

The arrival of The Beatles in 1964, and the popularity of such other hit-makers as the Monkees and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass caused album sales to explode. Multi-million sellers became more commonplace. In May 1967, Billboard expanded its album chart again to its present depth-200 albums.

Albums were the leading configuration throughout the '70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Such albums as Carole King's Tapestry, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Michael Jackson's Thriller were as broadly popular as any film or TV show of the period. To not be familiar with them would be like not having seen Annie Hall or Seinfeld. You'd be left out of the national cultural conversation.

Album sales hit their peak around the turn of the millennium. The #1 album of the year topped the 7 million mark in sales in seven of the 10 years between 1995 and 2004. (The biggest year-end victor of all was N Sync's No Strings Attached, which sold 9,936,000 copies in 2000.)

But album sales have taken a beating in the last four years. The sales tally of the year's #1 album has declined every year since 2004. Two years ago marked the first year since at least 1992 that no album topped the 4 million mark in sales during the year. The soundtrack to the Disney Channel's High School Musical took the year-end title for 2006 with sales of 3,719,000. The best-selling album of 2007, Josh Groban's Noel, sold even fewer copies during the year (3,699,000). Unless something comes out of nowhere in the final quarter of this year (as Noel did last year), this year's champ will probably fail to equal Groban's total.

Tha Carter III has sold 2,489,000 copies in 16 weeks. No Strings Attached, released in March 2000 when sales were at their dizzying peak, sold nearly that many copies (2,416,000) in its first week.

There is one bright spot: Paid downloads of albums are starting to catch on. Coldplay's Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends has sold 548,000 digital copies. But while that's a healthy total, it's just one-eighth of the tally (4,302,000) of the all-time best-selling digital song, "Low." The five songs with the most paid downloads have sold a combined total of 18,354,000 copies. That's more than the combined total (17,207,000) of the top 100 albums with the most paid downloads. The digital area holds promise, but it's not yet remotely strong enough to offset the decline in physical album sales.

Let's take a closer look at these two year-to-date lists-albums with the most total sales and songs with the most paid downloads. Six artists are in the top 20 on both lists: Lil Wayne (#1 album, #2 song), Coldplay (#2 album, #6 song), Leona Lewis (#7 album, #1 song), Usher (#9 album, #9 song), Miley Cyrus (#14 album, #16 song) and Rihanna (#15 album, three songs in the top 20 at #11, #13 and #15).

While there's a high degree of overlap between the two lists, there are also some striking differences. Five of the year's top 20 albums have no representation on the list of 200 songs with the most paid downloads. These are Jack Johnson's Sleep Through The Static, Kid Rock's Rock N Roll Jesus, Metallica's Death Magnetic and the soundtracks to Mamma Mia! and Juno. (In the case of Rock N Roll Jesus, the reason is simply that Kid Rock elected not to make any tracks available digitally.)

Likewise, three of the top 20 most downloaded songs since Jan. 1 are drawn from albums that aren't listed among the top 100 best-sellers for the year to date. These hit songs that haven't moved great numbers of albums are "Sexy Can I" by Ray J & Yung Berg (#12; neither artist's album is in the top 200), Metro Station's "Shake It" (#18; the album is #133) and M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" (#19; the album is #160).

So, let's settle this, what's more important these days-the album or the song? The numbers don't lie. Music fans are consuming far more songs than albums. But I'd still rather be Lil Wayne or Coldplay than Metro Station or Ray J. I think their greater album sales make them far better bets to still be in the forefront five or 10 from now. It's a matter of degree of commitment to an artist. If you buy an album, you're invested in that artist-literally and figuratively.

One look at this week's chart shows that albums aren't dead yet. Metallica's Death Magnetic has sold a most healthy 959,000 copies in just three weeks. And rapper T.I.'s new album, Paper Trail, is expected to debut next week with sales in the range of 550,000. These tallies are far too strong to arrive at a conclusion that albums have run their course. It's possible that albums will remain a viable niche product for years to come, even though their days as a high-volume, mass-market product may be numbered.

While we're three-quarters of the way through 2008, there's still time for some big sellers to emerge. Let's hope they do.

TonyVanDam said:

Exactly!! and it doesnt end there, "ringtones" which are the new way to brag that you sell, the artists make half a penny on a ringtone, half a penny!! and some of them dont even get that. Artists may nothing on download singles, this is why they are taking this all to court, a single sells for 99cents and most artists barely get a nickel of that. iTunes is fighting it saying if the revenue for artists gets raised then they will have raise their price which will force them to close the iTunes store. The writing is on the wall, the USA system is already rethinking its "counting" system, dropping its certifications down to the UK standards or possibly a bit lower.

The thing that people dont realize is that CD's were the initial death of albums, basically everyone in the 90's went through a faze of filling cd's with 19 tracks and 80 minutes, which led to a decade or so of NO great albums. Now labels dont even want you to do an album because its all a loss for them, singles and rintones are THEIR cash cow, not the artists. So let Soulja Boy brage about selling 2 million ringtones, he just netted about 20,000 if he's lucky.

I never again want to read "McCartney" in a music article as a shortened form of Jesse McCartney's name. Please.

lastdecember said:

I wonder if some of the electronic music genres (especially house & breakbeats) can do better in this current state of the industry than hip-hop/r&b. If singles can sell a lot better than albums, then this is a golden opportunity to bring back electronic rave culture because hip-hop is more "dead" now than last year.
[Edited 10/3/08 15:13pm]

TonyVanDam said:

The genres that are affected the most by this are the RB, Rap,and most POP acts. Genres like Latin Music and Country and of course artists with Longevity like U2 or Bon Jovi, Metallica etc..dont really suffer at all, plus they have tours and overseas and they still sell albums here for the most part

It's coming full circle. The single is the rock and roll business model in the 21st century, as it was a half-century ago. No longer are albums considered artistic statements, OR profit centers.

I agree with lastdecember, the CD compelled a lot of acts to punch above their weight, cutting more songs per album than was necessary. Especially hip-hop acts, filling their albums with mediocre tracks that sounded just like the mediocre ones that I skipped through 4 tracks before, and dumb skits (damn you, De La Soul!).

The record labels are so busy trying to hit the big licks with their marquee artists that they spend millions trying to float albums that couldn't sell millions on their own merits.

The gaudy sales of the 1980's -- Thriller, Like A Virgin, Born In The USA, The Joshua Tree, Purple Rain -- were the exceptions. And a business model was built around those exceptions.

Now look at where we are.

as long as we can still have something resembling album covers to go along with our music. i love album art, even if it looks a bit stale, weak or overly fluffy...

namepeace said:

Like i posted a few weeks about how labels REFUSE to put out more than one top artist at a time, that shit didnt even matter years ago, you had George Michael,MJ, Prince,Bruce,Janet and Madonna and tons of others that were selling alot of albums and SINGLESm the single was not always a death to an albums sales, in fact it almost never was. Now labels will shelve records because another label puts something out. The Kanye West album is moving NOT because he feels it should be moved (like his ego told us it did) its moving to get away from BRITNEY's release as to not have to compete for market time. Also gone are classic albums being in the mainstream, dont get me wrong their have been good ones, but the days of GREAT albums are gone, long gone.

Like I said in a previous thread...pretty soon,reaching gold status is gonna be seen as a major accomplishment These days,many artists are having a hard time getting a gold album,much less a platinum album.People don't buy entire CDs anymore...they just download the hit single.Albums are becoming irrelevent,which is sad.

lastdecember said:

i´m still buying albums(VINYL)

I think what we're seeing is singles dropping way before an album comes out, which is supposed to drive the sale of the single up, that's why the numbers are like that.

Plus, there ain't no chart for non-single, album tracks, so there's nothing to build an argument about albums on.

Cinnie said:

I was gonna say the same thing.

Timmy84 said:

True but the singles are the be all end all to an albums sales, that simple, the times are different, the album is not important anymore because there is NO investment in the artist from any standpoint, neither from the listener nor the label, its a bottom line. This is why when i hear people go on and on about a new artist like a duffy, or amy whinehouse or whomever, i say TALK TO ME when you have 10 years in the game and a catalog of work. Theres too much out of the box HYPE and no delivery and no room for not having a HIT, thats the real bottom line.

lastdecember said:

Well stated.

lastdecember said:

Ah I see... lol

Okay, so would any of you sell your lp collection?

lastdecember said:

TonyVanDam said:

the cdr/hard drive/ internet/ killed the album sales..... before the internet/dvd - cd media.... the albums sales were allright,,,, i bought ALL my cd albums.... now i CAN download.. because i can... before i couldn´t,,,

some of you are very knowledgeable.

this thread is a very informative read.