As I previously stated I love looking at Soundscan. Its been my Wednesday ritual for the past 5 years. Today is no exception. All it takes is a quick glance to see that the sound recording industry ( at least that is the category I used on my taxes yesterday) is in trouble. There is not a single album over 100,000. More than that though the drop off is precipitous after the top ten, and artists that are getting a lot of traction are selling no albums.
Bob Lefsetz (A curmudgeonly Ski Bum who occasionally writes about the music industry) recently started a thread about Brandi Carlisle. He said she was everywhere. I personally only noticed a review of her Troubador show on Hits but even that generally means that an artist is being talked about a great deal. Brandi Carlisle sold 1196 albums this week and 934 last week. An artist who moves barely 2000 albums is somehow a story. There is already a backlash and this girl isn't selling anything. She gets her own music video at the end of Greys Anatomy and she sells 300 more albums. This is just sad.
Other chart notables are the number 1 album Now 24: A collection of singles. This is the best we have. I promise not to be negative in this blog, but soundscan day is now disappointing. No longer do I look forward to taking some time off going to Barnes and Noble and just going over the numbers. Sales are down 23% compared to last week and 32% compared to the same week last year. There is 1/3 as much volume.
What does all this mean for A&R staffs.
1) We have to redefine hit. I'd be much more interested in profit margin over number of sales. The movie business defines its stars by gross receipts, the music business by gross units. The music business will never define hits by money because then they might have to be more transparent about royalties.
2) Well i don't have a two just yet, but I will. This isn't over. I'll go over soundscan every week and as I get better at this writing thing it will become clearer.
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