Posted August 24, 201113 yr Top singles selling 40% more than last year Source: MW Tuesday August 23, 2011 By Paul Williams The top end of the UK’s singles market is growing at more than three times the rate of the overall sector, with sales increasing this year by nearly 40%. While total singles sales this year have expanded year-on-year by 12.2%, according to the Official Charts Company, to break through the 100 million barrier in the fastest time yet in a calendar year, among 2011’s Top 10 sellers the rise has been even more impressive. Led by XL act Adele’s million-selling Someone Like You, the year’s 10 most commercially-successful singles have collectively sold around 2.1m units more than the equivalent 10 biggest sellers had managed at the same point last year. This represents a year-on-year rise in sales of the year’s Top 10 of 38.5%. The huge surge in sales at this end of the singles market is most clearly illustrated by Island’s Owl City single Fireflies, which at this stage in 2010 was the year’s biggest-selling single with 634,114 units sold. However, this year that total would only be good enough to be in eighth place for the year. “Adele has broken the million mark so far and Jessie J with Price Tag is in hot pursuit and heading towards 900,000,” said Island Records co-president Ted Cockle. “It’s buoyant and exciting and everybody knows, while there is so much doom and gloom, if you get it right with a single everyone will come to the party.” Alongside Someone Like You and Jessie J featuring B.o.B.’s Island/Lava single Price Tag, five other releases have topped 700,000 sales this year: the Interscope/ Polydor-issued Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock is on the verge of reaching 900,000 sales; Elektra/Atlantic act Bruno Mars’ Grenade will reach 800,000 sales this week; while also above 700,000 are J/RCA’s Give Me Everything by Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer; Def Jam/Mercury’s On The Floor by Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull; and another Adele single, Rolling In The Deep. But, while the entire singles market is growing to levels in unit terms that have never been seen before, a closer look at the figures does reveal the top end of the market is moving away from the rest of the field. If you strip out the Top 10 titles in 2010 and 2011 from the calculations then the rest of the singles sector has grown by 10.3%, still very positive but notably lower than the 12.2% reported for the entire market. Island’s Cockle suggested the disparity could partly be explained by a smaller pool of songs being supported by some radio stations – most specifically within commercial radio. “But if you do get your song on these stations they perform massively,” he said. Even though the rest of the singles market is not growing anywhere near as fast as the top end is, the expansion in sales is still significant. The year to date’s entire Top 100 sellers have all sold more than 100,000 copies; as recently as three years ago only the top 55 titles had reached the same landmark at this stage in the year. Another factor driving the market forward is the continuing strong sales of titles months, sometimes years, after they first came out. Although, whether this is driving business away from newer titles and artists and the albums market is another matter. “I’m seeing Mumford & Sons and Taio Cruz singles selling 60-70,000 this year when they were out 18 months ago,” said Cockle. “Singles used to be of the moment, but they have a much longer life now.” Atlantic Records UK chairman Max Lousada, whose company has two Bruno Mars singles among the year’s Top 10 sellers with Grenade accompanied by the half-million-selling The Lazy Song, said the growth in singles sales showed just how much technology could influence consumer habits to buy more music. That is certainly reflected in the figures with the singles market at this point in the calendar of 2005 – only a year into iTunes’ UK launch – having been just 22.3m units; that is almost five times smaller than it is now. But Lousada also noted it was generally “a very certain type of record” that was selling in huge sales quantities, the vast majority of these urban and rhythmic pop records coming out of the States. There are exceptions, an obvious one being Atlantic-signed singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran whose The A Team spent its 10th consecutive week last Sunday in the Official Charts Company Top 10 and should reach 500,000 domestic sales in around the next fortnight. “It’s been refreshing a song of that nature is competing in a US-dominated chart and hopefully that’s the start of change. The Maroon 5/Christina Aguilera single is also a very different song that is totally cutting through,” he said. But Lousada believed the industry’s “big challenge” was not to give up on the album in the face of a rapidly-expanding singles market. “A body of work can much better reflect an artist’s personality than a one-off single and we’re already seeing album sales increasing at iTunes,” he said.
August 24, 201113 yr Author Singles sales smash 100 million barrier Source: MW Tuesday August 23, 2011 By Paul Williams The UK singles market has smashed through the 100 million unit barrier in record time this year with annual sales set to surpass 160 million for the first time. Sales hit the milestone at the beginning of last week, according to Official Charts Company figures, achieving the landmark more than a month earlier than in 2010. In 2009 it took until the beginning of October for year-to-date sales to reach 100 million units. The singles sector is currently 12.2% bigger than it was at this stage of the year in 2010, growing at a much faster rate than 12 months ago when the market had expanded by 7.2% up to mid-August. This massive growth has been led by a dozen titles having each sold more than 500,000 copies this year – just four had done so over the same timeframe two years ago. The roll-call includes XL act Adele’s Someone Like You, which is the first single in six years to have sold more than 1 million copies by this point of a year. Atlantic Records UK chairman Max Lousada, whose company has two Bruno Mars singles among the year-to-date’s Top 10 sellers, suggested there were two or three elements at play to cause the singles market to grow so rapidly. “It’s the maturing of iTunes, the excitement of the Sunday release date (pre-digital new singles traditionally came out on a Monday) and the iTunes chart, which has re-energised a singles consumer who had become fatigued about hits,” he said. “There is the instant gratification of success, seeing something become a hit or not and having some ownership of control [of the chart] is adding fuel to the fire.” Going by the present rate of annual expansion, the UK’s singles sector is on course to grow to around 160 to 165 million units this year. This will comfortably be a record: the market last year increased to an annual high of 146.8 million units, while the two previous years were the first in which the sector had breached the 100 million mark. If the increase in sales does continue at the current rate for the rest of the year it will leave the market more than twice the size it was in 2007 when 79.3 million singles were purchased, while in 2005 – the year after iTunes launched in the UK – the sector stood at 42.2m units. The improving fortunes of the UK’s singles market contrasts with an albums sector in which the Official Charts Company’s weekly figures show is 4.2% down year-on-year in unit terms. This decline has accelerated in recent weeks having been only around 2% a month ago. However, in reality the drop is likely to be steeper as the OCC weekly stats do not include sales of “unmatched” titles – releases that cannot automatically be identified as either being digital singles and albums. When they were factored in at the halfway point of 2011 they showed the total albums market was down 2.2% on the year, rather than 1.1% as the weekly OCC figures were suggesting.
August 24, 201113 yr However, in reality the drop is likely to be steeper as the OCC weekly stats do not include sales of “unmatched” titles – releases that cannot automatically be identified as either being digital singles and albums. When they were factored in at the halfway point of 2011 they showed the total albums market was down 2.2% on the year, rather than 1.1% as the weekly OCC figures were suggesting. What do they mean by this exactly? Their explanation didn't clear it up in my mind :lol: I wouldn't say that US club bangers are the only singles that will ever be able to sell in huge quantities, it's just been the 'in sound' during the first six months of this year. The top two of the year don't fall into this category...The fad does seem to be dying down a bit now thankfully looking at the current iTunes top 10. Only really Little Bad Girl falls into that category.
August 24, 201113 yr Top singles selling 40% more than last year Source: MW Tuesday August 23, 2011 By Paul Williams The top end of the UK’s singles market is growing at more than three times the rate of the overall sector, with sales increasing this year by nearly 40%. While total singles sales this year have expanded year-on-year by 12.2%, according to the Official Charts Company, to break through the 100 million barrier in the fastest time yet in a calendar year, among 2011’s Top 10 sellers the rise has been even more impressive. It's interesting that a few years ago when downloads became prevalent total single sales rose to record levels, but this was due to the 'long tail' of so many more tracks selling in modest amounts than was ever possible before. Sales towards the top end stayed very low compared to previous years which had considerably lower total sales. Looks like now the 'head' as it were, is starting to catch up. Edited August 24, 201113 yr by Col1967
August 24, 201113 yr What do they mean by this exactly? Their explanation didn't clear it up in my mind :lol: I wouldn't say that US club bangers are the only singles that will ever be able to sell in huge quantities, it's just been the 'in sound' during the first six months of this year. The top two of the year don't fall into this category...The fad does seem to be dying down a bit now thankfully looking at the current iTunes top 10. Only really Little Bad Girl falls into that category. Agree with this. US dance-pop music has definitely been the dominant genre this year, which is why those songs have sold so much, rather than the other way around. Not only in the UK, but also in the US, it seems club music is diminishing now. So if the UK is going to continue to follow US music, it looks like it can change for next year, hopefully. I really haven't like this year tbh. Probably my least favourite year along with 2009 (but the charts are very good at this particular moment in time, so if we can keep this up until December I might think 2011 was better than 2009). The success of Ed Sheeran makes no sense at all in the current sales climate. In terms of his genre, yes, I agree. It's a bit baffling, but also pleasing to see. However, I can kind of understand why he's been so successful. He accumulated a big enough original fanbase to get him into the top 10 on release week. And I think from there, he went a bit like we saw with Jessie J a few months beforehand. I probably won't express my thoughts very well, but I think some people kind of saw them as "the next big thing", so they wanted to support them as soon as possible, like trying to be the first. I probably haven't explained this very well. :lol: Edited August 24, 201113 yr by Eric_Blob
August 25, 201113 yr Its good news for single sales but album sales look dire this year and we're 8 months into the year and apart from Adele, no other albums are near 1 million yet.
August 25, 201113 yr The success of Ed Sheeran makes no sense at all in the current sales climate. All the more so if you've *heard* his music... :P It's interesting that a few years ago when downloads became prevalent total single sales rose to record levels, but this was due to the 'long tail' of so many more tracks selling in modest amounts than was ever possible before. Sales towards the top end stayed very low compared to previous years which had considerably lower total sales. Looks like now the 'head' as it were, is starting to catch up. Actually, that process is pretty much complete.
August 25, 201113 yr Its good news for single sales but album sales look dire this year and we're 8 months into the year and apart from Adele, no other albums are near 1 million yet. Isn't that usually the case at this point of the year, and then near Xmas when the sales increase dramatically a whole plethora of them shoot over the 1 million mark?
August 25, 201113 yr Isn't that usually the case at this point of the year, and then near Xmas when the sales increase dramatically a whole plethora of them shoot over the 1 million mark? Not in the past year or two, compared to 5-6 years ago. :cry:
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