Pop & Rock Rule Mid-Year Music Sales Charts
With the year half-over, let's take a closer look at some of the biggest selling albums and songs across the major genres of music: pop, rock, R&B/hip-hop, country and Latin.
TOP ALBUMS
A year ago at this point, a full half of the top 20 selling albums were pop efforts. The genre's dominance has scaled back a bit -- at least in terms of the top sellers -- as only six of the top 20 in 2012 are pop titles.
Adele's "21" leads the pop charge with 3.69 million, while One Direction's "Up All Night" (899,000), the "Now 41" compilation (714,000), Adele's "19" (539,000), Justin Bieber's "Believe" (490,000) and Madonna's "MDNA" (484,000) also populate the top 20 at Nos. 3, 10, 12 and 13, respectively.
Pop, country, R&B/hip-hop and rock albums are evenly distributed in the top 20. The country genre nabs five sets, R&B/hip-hop takes four and rock owns five.
The highest selling country title this year is Lionel Richie's surprise hit "Tuskegee," with 912,000 sold. The album contains country-styled covers of the veteran artist's familiar hits, sung with a bevy of country superstars.
R&B/hip-hop's crown jewel in 2012 is the late Whitney Houston's "Whitney: The Greatest Hits," with 818,000. After Houston, Nicki Minaj's "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded" is the next biggest R&B/hip-hop set with 557,000.
Though rock earns five of the top 20 selling albums, its highest ranking set is at No. 11 on the overall top 20 list: Gotye's "Making Mirrors" with 538,000. At this point a year ago, Mumford & Sons' "Sigh No More" was the biggest rock set, at No. 3 with 982,000.
While no Latin albums rank among the year's top 20 overall selling sets, the No. 1 selling Latin release so far in 2012 is Romeo Santos' "Formula: Vol 1," with 91,000.
TOP DIGITAL SONGS
As for 2012's top 20 selling digital songs, pop still pretty much runs the world, with 12 of the top 20 coming from that genre. A year ago at this time, 14 of the top 20 selling songs were pop.
23% of all tracks sold this year are pop -- the same share at this point a year ago, when pop tunes outweighed all other genres.
This year, pop is actually outweighed by the rock genre, as rock represents 24% of all songs sold in 2012.
Rock's overall robust figure is aided by how 2012's top two songs are both rock tracks: Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" (5.50 million) and fun.'s "We Are Young" (featuring Janelle Monae) (5.09 million).
Both "Somebody That I Used to Know" and "We Are Young" reached No. 1 on Billboard's weekly Rock Songs airplay chart.
A year ago, the top 20 selling songs housed 14 pop tracks and six R&B/hip-hop cuts. This year, 12 are pop, three are R&B/hip-hop and five are rock. For the second straight year, not a single country title ranks among the top 20 sellers. The last country song to rank in the mid-year top 20 was Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now," which was the fourth-largest selling song mid-way through 2010.
This year's highest selling R&B/hip-hop song is "Young, Wild & Free" by Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa featuring Bruno Mars (No. 15 with 2.03 million). While there are a couple of rhythmic-leaning tunes that have sold more (like Nicki Minaj's "Starhips" and Flo Rida's "Wild Ones"), those are categorized as pop tracks.
It's a man's world among the top 20 selling digital songs, as 15 of the top 20 are led by men or male-fronted groups. The only female-led songs are Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" (No. 3 with 4.06 million), Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" (No. 4 with 3.32 million), Nicki Minaj's "Starhips" (No. 5 with 3.16 million), Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain" (No. 11 with 2.53 million) and Katy Perry's "Part of Me" (No. 14 with 2.08 million).
A year ago, women were more robustly featured in the top 20, with nine of those songs female-fronted. And, a full five of the top six were all by ladies.
Top Selling R&B/Hip-Hop Albums: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Whitney Houston Whitney: The Greatest Hits 818,000
2. Nicki Minaj Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded 557,000
3. Drake Take Care 549,000
4. Rihanna Talk That Talk 424,000
5. Young Jeezy TM 103: Hustlerz Ambition 312,000
6. Tyga Careless World 257,000
7. Lil Wayne Tha Carter IV 246,000
8. Jay-Z & Kanye West Watch the Throne 225,000
9. Mary J. Blige My Life II: The Journey Continues 218,000
10. Whitney Houston The Bodyguard 212,000
Top Selling R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Songs: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa feat. Bruno Mars Young, Wild & Free 2,029,000
2. Tyga Rack City 1,932,000
3. Drake feat. Lil Wayne The Motto 1,823,000
4. Drake feat. Rihanna Take Care 1,470,000
5. Jay-Z & Kanye West Ni**as in Paris 1,309,000
6. B.o.B So Good 1,248,000
7. Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T, 2 Chainz Mercy 1,059,000
8. Big Sean feat. Nicki Minaj Dance (A$$) 1,042,000
9. Tyga feat. Lil Wayne Faded 930,000
10. Whitney Houston I Will Always Love You 872,000
Top Selling Latin Albums: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Romeo Santos Formula: Vol. 1 91,000
2. Prince Royce Phase II 73,000
3. 3BallMTY Intentalo 50,000
4. La Arrolladora Banda El Limon De Rene Camacho Irreversible ... 2012 46,000
5. Prince Royce Prince Royce 43,000
6. Don Omar Don Omar Presents MT02: New Generation 38,000
7. Various Artists Las Bandas Romanticas De America 2012 33,000
8. Ricardo Arjona Independiente 33,000
9. Gerardo Ortiz Entre Dios y El Diablo 31,000
10. Mana Drama Y Luz 30,000
Top Selling Latin Digital Songs: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Don Omar & Lucenzo Danza Kuduro 278,000
2. Michel Telo Ai Se Eu Te Pego 191,000
3. Shakira feat. FreshlyGround Waka Waka (This Time For Africa) 143,000
4. Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean Hips Don't Lie 116,000
5. 3BallMTY featuring El Bebeto y America Sierra Intentalo 110,000
6. Romeo Santos feat. Usher Promise 105,000
7. Don Omar feat. Natty Natasha Dutty Love 81,000
8. Enrique Iglesias Hero 80,000
9. Pitbull Bon, Bon 78,000
10. Pitbull feat. Lil Jon The Anthem 73,000
Top Selling Rock Albums: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Gotye Making Mirrors 538,000
2. Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball 425,000
3. The Black Keys El Camino 424,000
4. Coldplay Mylo Xyloto 415,000
5. Soundtrack The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 & Beyond 402,000
6. Van Halen A Different Kind of Truth 395,000
7. John Mayer Born & Raised 382,000
8. fun. Some Nights 373,000
9. Jack White Blunderbuss 324,000
10. Norah Jones Little Broken Hearts 309,000
Top Selling Rock Digital Songs: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Gotye Somebody I Used to Know 5,501,000
2. fun. feat. Janelle Monae We Are Young 5,087,000
3. Adele Set Fire to the Rain 2,534,000
4. Train Drive By 2.095,000
5. Jason Mraz I Won't Give Up 1,711,000
6. Adele Rolling in the Deep 1,364,000
7. Coldplay Paradise 1,321,000
8. Adele Someone Like You 1,320,000
9. Adele Rumour Has It 1,123,000
10. Neon Trees Everybody Talks 913,000
Top Selling Country Albums: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Lionel Richie Tuskegee 912,000
2. Carrie Underwood Blown Away 602,000
3. Luke Bryan Tailgates & Tanlines 575,000
4. Lady Antebellum Own the Night 465,000
5. Jason Aldean My Kinda Party 399,000
6. Eric Church Chief 363,000
7. Rascal Flatts Changed 303,000
8. The Band Perry The Band Perry 262,000
9. Kenny Chesney Welcome to the Fishbowl 255,000
10. Tim McGraw Emotional Traffic 245,000
Top Selling Country Digital Songs: Year-To-Date 2012
Artist Title Year to Date Sales*
1. Luke Bryan Drunk On You 1,376,000
2. Eric Chruch Springsteen 1,313,000
3. Carrie Underwood Good Girl 1,157,000
4. Toby Keith Red Solo Truck 1,056,000
5. Kip Moore Somethin' 'Bout a Truck 994,000
6. Luke Bryan I Don't Want This Night to End 986,000
7. Taylor Swift Eyes Open 984,000
8. Lee Brice A Woman Like You 955,000
9. Taylor Swift Safe & Sound 928,000
10. Miranda Lambert Over You 832,000
http://www.billboard.com/#/news/pop-...2.story?page=1
SoundScan Mid-Year Report: Unit Sales Up 4 Percent, Although Album Sales Dropped 3.2 Percent
Quote:
It's beginning to look like the party begun in 2011 for the revival of U.S. album sales is over: In the first six months of 2012, album sales dropped 3.2% to 150.5 million units, according to Nielsen SoundScan (versus 155.5 million units in the corresponding period of 2011), due to a renewed acceleration in the decline of CD-album sales.
In 2011, album sales grew 1.4% to 330.6 million units -- the first annual album growth since 2004 -- thanks largely to CD sales declining more slowly than they had in previous years.
This year, although digital album scans continued to enjoy robust growth -- jumping 13.8% to 57.2 million units in the first six months of 2012, from 50.3 million units the corresponding period last year -- that was not large enough to offset the decline in CD album sales. Also, the growth of digital track sales slowed down in the first half of this year -- growing 5.6% to 698 million, a big drop from the 10.6% increase in the first half of 2011, which saw scans climbing to 660.8 million from the 597.4 million units in the first six months of 2010.
In the second quarter of this year, the CD album again began to act like it did during 2006-2010, when the format saw annual sales declines in the 18%-20% range. For the second quarter of 2012, CDs sales declined 15.1% to 42.6 million units, as compared to the 51.4 million units scanned in the second quarter of 2011, when that tally represented a 0.8% increase over the second quarter of 2010 when scans totaled 50 million units.
Overall in the first half of 2012, the CD posted an 11.8% sales decline to 91.06 million units, versus the 101.3 million units scanned in the first half of 2011. That 11.8% decline is more than double the pace that the CD set for all of 2011, when its unit scans dropped 5.7%.
As a result of the accelerating CD decline and the somewhat slower digital-track growth, albums -- including track-equivalent albums (TEA), whereby 10 tracks equal one album units -- fell back into red for the first time in over a year, with scans in the first half totaling 220.3 million units, versus 221.5 million units in the first half of 2011, a decline of 0.6%.
However, overall unit sales for all configurations remain positive in the U.S. with 4% growth thanks to albums, digital tracks and singles reaching 850.2 million units, up from 817.7 million units in the first half of 2011.
Moreover, when looking at digital album sales plus track equivalent albums (TEA) combined, they totaled 129.2 million units, a 9.2% increase over the 118.3 million units digital plus TEA scanned in the first half of 2011. Currently, digital albums plus TEA comprise 58.7% of album sales, while physical albums total 41.3%. Looking at albums minus TEA, digital comprised 38% of album sales while physical formats combined equal 62% of scans.
Of course, the powerhouse album of the past 18 months has been Adele's "21," which has scanned a whopping 9.5 million U.S. units since its release in January of last year, and enjoyed a second wind in the wake of her big night at the Grammy Awards in February. "21" is the No. 1 selling album of 2012 so far, with 3.67 million units.
Looking at digital songs, two titles have achieved the distinction of passing the 5 million unit mark by midyear: Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" (featuring Kimbra), with scans of 5.5 million units, and fun.'s "We Are Young" (featuring Janelle Monae), which has scans of nearly 5.1 million units.
But reflecting the slighter softer year for digital track sales, only 15 titles sold more than 2 million units and 47, including those 15, tallied more than 1 million units in the first half of the year, versus 2011 when 17 titles passed the 2 million units milestone and 52 titles in total hit the 1 million unit mark.
Looking at store types, the chain category, which includes stores like FYE and Barnes & Noble, continues to be the hardest hit sector with sales dropping 25.6% to 23.3 million units while non-traditional stores are the only sector in the physical album space showing growth alongside download stores. As previously indicated by the growth in digital albums, download stores posted a 13.8% increase in scans in the first half, while online CD stores and other non-traditional stores like Starbucks saw album scans rise 1.7% to 15.8% million units from 15.6 million units in the first half of 2011.
Meanwhile, mass merchants experienced a 5.4% unit drop to 43.6 million units in the first half this year from 46.1 million units in the corresponding period of 2010; and indie merchants suffered a 13.8% decline to 10.5 million units from 12.2 million units in the first half of 2010.
Moving over into album categories, of the large genres, the country genre was the only posting growth in the first half of the year, with a 5.8% increase in album scans to 19.5 million units, up from 18.4 million units in the first half of 2011. Rock and gospel/Christian also held up well in the first half, considering that the former category posted a 0.4% decline to 52.1 million units from 52.3 million units in the face of a 3.2% album decline for the entire U.S. album market; while the latter category only dropped 0.3% to 5.6 million units from 5.7 million units in the first half of 2011.
But looking at the other genres, Latin had the biggest drop, with units falling to 5 million units from 6.2 million units in the first half of 2011 -- a 19.7% decline. Also, R&B/rap fell 7% to 24.7 million units from 26.5%; while the industry's hot genre, electronic/EDM, also suffered a 6% unit decline to 4.9 million units from 5.2 million units in the first half of 2011 (though the genre's track sales jumped 65.2% to 46.6 million units from the 28.2 million units scanned in the first half of 2011).
|
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/indus...07502152.story
Business Matters: Six Things in SoundScan's 2012 Mid-Year Report to Be Optimistic About
Quote:
We're halfway through 2012 and the sales results are in: As Billboard.biz reported Wednesday and Thursday, album sales were down 3.2% and overall sales - albums plus track equivalents - were up 4%.
I spent some time digging deeper into the first-half sales figures. What I found is a music market with modest sales growth -- it varies by genre -- that coincides with growth in segments not covered here, such as performance royalties, sync royalties and revenue from ad-supported and subscription services. So if the sales figures from the first six months of 2012 don't exactly bowl you over, remember there is more to music than sales. And that's not to say the numbers are disappointing -- there's plenty of room for optimism.
1. A 3.2% decline in album sales at the mid-year point is worth a few cartwheels considering where year-to-date album stood in previous years. Prior to mid-year 2011 (at which point album sales were 1% over the previous year's pace, thanks in no small part to Adele), year-over-year change in album sales were -11%, -14% and -11% at the mid-year points of 2010, 2009 and 2008, respectively. (All figures come from Nielsen SoundScan.)
2. U.S. album sales look especially great when compared to those in the U.K. As the BPI announced earlier this week, U.K. album sales declined 13.8% in the first half of the year.
3. Digital spending on albums and tracks rose about $111 million at retail value and $78 million at trade value in the first six months of 2012, according to my quick math. Consumers have purchased 6.9 million more digital albums than they purchased through the first half of 2011. That's roughly $69 million at retail value and $48 million in trade value. Growth of digital track sales slowed to 5.6% from 10.6% in the first half of 2011, yet consumers purchased an additional 37.2 million tracks in the first six months of 2012. That incremental gain equates to about $42 million of retail spending (assuming the tracks are split evenly between $0.99 and $1.29 price points) and nearly $30 million in trade value.
On the other hand, CD sales dropped 11.8% in the first half of 2012. It's especially interesting to look at which genres did better and worse than the overall decline. Genres that had worse-than-average declines in CD sales were R&B (-15.7%), electronic (-16.3%), alternative (-18.7%), rap (-22.7%) and Latin (-23.7%). Better-than-average declines were seen in country (-1.5%), hard music (-5.3%) and rock (-10.8%).
4. Proving the public's interest in new releases and willingness to buy them, consumers bought far more current tracks and slightly fewer catalog tracks. Sales of current tracks rose 15% in the first half of 2012 while catalog tracks dropped 1%. This sales mix is much more biased toward current tracks than in the past. A year ago, current tracks were up 12% and catalog tracks were up 10%. Two years ago, current tracks were up 5% and catalog tracks were down 3%.
5. Country is doing its best to shed the "digital laggard" label it has earned over the years. The minor drop in CD sales (mentioned above) is misleading: Country fans aren't exactly clinging to the CD; they're just buying a lot of music in general. The genre's digital album sales rose 34.9% -- the most of the major genres -- and overall country album sales were up 5.8%. The same goes for digital tracks -- country was up a better-than-average 13.5%.
6. Latin, rap and R&B had impressive digital album growth in the first half of the year. Rap digital album sales rose 28% while Latin and R&B rose 23.5% and 18.9%, respectively. Track sales were a different story, however. Latin track growth was fairly average at 5.9%. Rap tracks grew 10% and R&B tracks fell 5%.
|
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/indus...07508152.story