Breakthrough acts hit post-millennium low

Source: MW

10:29 | Monday January 31, 2011

 

The struggle to create new UK album stars has been laid bare by exclusive Music Week research, which reveals the number of breakthrough acts hit a post-millennium low in 2010.

 

Just 10 new domestic signings cracked the OCC’s Top 100 artist albums chart of 2010, the joint worst annual return since 2000 and seven fewer than the peak year of 2006, when the Arctic Monkeys led a charge of 17 new UK acts into the year-end chart.

 

Plan B, Mumford & Sons, Olly Murs, Tinie Tempah and The xx were among the select few who last year fulfilled the qualifying criteria by scoring a gold or platinum album for the first time and appearing in the year’s Top 100. However, our three-page study inside reveals 2010 was the fourth year in a row the number of breaking UK acts in the year-end Top 100 fell, having hit 17 in 2006, 16 in 2007, 14 in 2008 and 11 in 2009.

 

Not only is the number of artists coming through in the albums market dropping, but fewer of those who do make it are achieving significant album sales quickly.

 

Some debut albums, like The xx’s self-titled debut, are taking many months to peak, while for other acts sales only kick in properly after a series of hit singles rather than after one big hit as was frequently the case.

 

The study further suggests a drop in the number of acts being signed by labels is affecting the level of album breakthroughs, as is a market shift away from album-friendly genres like rock towards the more singles-based pop and urban genres.

This makes sense to me - the greater the musical variety, especially when heard on R1, the greater the opportunity for new breakthough acts.

 

When one genre dominates though, the market soon becomes saturated, leaving minimal opportunities for others to make the grade.

We all know there have been loads of non-UK new acts on charts recently. The fact that UK acts don't do well doesn't mean that new acts don't do well in general

 

One big problem is that the shortlist of BBC Sound of dominates so hard that it's very difficult to get any attention outside it. That means we have fewer really potential breakthrough acts because basically all the hyped ones get the attention at the same time when the list comes out.