Tag: album sales

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Billboard Changes Chart Rules: No More Ticket & Merch Bundles

billboard charts

Reversing a rule implemented in January, Billboard has updated the rules regarding album sales and charts to reflect consumer intent better.

Achieving success on the Billboard charts is a lot like trying to win a presidential election. You can do your best to make as many people as possible buy your music outright, or you can find smart ways around traditional album sales. One example of the latter is bundling, which combines a digital or physical album with the purchase of merchandise or concert tickets. Such tactics have helped several performers appear to move massive units of their latest record and top the chart, but thanks to new guidelines, that approach no longer works.

Billboard is changing the rules to its Billboard 200, Hot 100, and other album and song charts. The announcement comes to rectify how sales are counted with respect to album bundles with merchandise and concert tickets, as well as instant digital sales attached to purchases for physical albums delivered at a later date.  

On the issue of bundling, the latest rule changes supersede several others that were previously instituted in January. Those included a requirement that albums bundled with merchandise be available for purchase concurrently and individually on the same website, as well as a condition that merchandise sold on its own be priced lower than bundles that included the album. Additionally, merchandise/album bundles could only be sold on an artist’s official direct-to-consumer web store and not via third-party sites.

Billboard is now acknowledging what many critics have claimed to be true. Album sold in bundles with merch and tickets may not accurately reflect consumer intent. There are many cases of fans buying tickets or merchandise without realizing (i.e., caring) that the sale included an artist’s new album. So, if the fan doesn’t buy the bundle specifically for the release, why should the sale count toward the total units of that album sold?

Billboard will also no longer allow sales of physical albums or singles that are bundled with digital downloads to be reported as digital sales. That decision eliminates the practice of “spontaneous” non-manufactured items being used to influence first-week chart rankings. Only when the real thing — that is, what the consumer is buying — is shipped, will it be counted in Billboard’s official tallies.

The practice of selling vinyl, CDs, and other physical releases that won’t be manufactured and shipped to consumers for weeks or months — while offering a digital download that can be redeemed instantly — has become widespread as of late. Especially in the age of COVID-19, when manufacturing delays are rampant, many artists are using the promise of a physical item later to boost “sales” in the present.

Billboard recognizes that the use of bundling has been commonplace in music for decades. However, the practice of using merch and ticket bundles to boost album sales has been rampant as traditional record sales have fallen. The goal of the Billboard charts is to capture consumer intent, and the company believes it is impossible to gauge whether or not the sale of bundles reflects a clear desire to own the release rather than a piece of merchandise or attendance at a live event.

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The Black Dahlia Murder Reach #4 On Billboard Album Sales Chart With ‘Verminous’

American death metal titans The Black Dahlia Murder continue their reign as one of the genre’s all-time most successful bands.

Not even the coronavirus can stop The Black Dahlia Murder. The Michigan-born band’s ninth studio album, Verminous, made a massive impact on the Billboard charts during its first week of release. The incredibly LP moved over 7800 unites in pure sales, which led to a fourth-place finish on the top album sales chart. It was only beaten by new releases from Fiona Apple, Upchurch, and Dababy.

Verminous also made a splash on the Billboard 200 chart, which combines sales and streams. The album opened at 99, which is a huge accomplishment for any heavy band, let alone one nearly two decades into a career without virtually no radio play or active touring efforts.

The downside to this news is that the performance of Verminous slightly below the first-week debuts for the two previous Black Dahlia Murder records. The most likely reason for that is the current pandemic, which is preventing record stores from operating and stopping bands from performing. Those factors are the most likely reasons for the dip, as fans and critics agree the record is the band’s best to date, and they speak to why others in the industry are cautious about releasing music in the current climate.

Still, a fourth place chart position is a monumental moment for metal. The Black Dahlia Murder will no doubt recoup any lost sales once touring resumes, and they will continue to move tons of merch and song streams until that time. There is no reason to focus on the negatives. The success of Verminous is a success story for everyone that likes their music heavy.

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26% of All Physical Album Sales in 2019 in the U.S. Were Vinyl

Vinyl sales hit a fourteen-year high in 2019 while overall physical album sales continued to decline.

People like to argue about the longevity of physical media. Buying albums, they say, guarantees a record will be part of your collection for the foreseeable future. Streaming gives us access to virtually all music, but for how long? What is stopping Spotify from tucking specific releases behind a premium plan? Can anyone guarantee artists won’t decide to pull their catalogs from streaming platforms until royalty rates rise? 

The individuals that like to make these arguments are correct in their beliefs regarding physical media. Streaming makes everything easy, but despite the popularity of services like Spotify, the future for the medium remains unclear. If you absolutely must have an album in your life, the best way to do so is to buy a physical copy. 

Sadly, it seems, people want to own albums less and less. In 2019, Americans purchased 73.5 million records in some physical format, be it CD, vinyl, or even cassette tape. Of that figure, 18.84 million were vinyl, which is up over 14% from the year prior, according to data shared by Nielsen Music in its annual year-end report on how the music industry is doing. 

In total, vinyl now accounts for more than one-fourth of all physical media sales.

A large portion of the vinyl album sold in 2019 stems from records widely considered to be classic. The Beatles sold more vinyl records than any other group last year. Bob Marley, Queen, The Beach Boys, and Fleetwood Mac also sold incredibly well.

When it came to new talent, Billie Eilish was ahead of the pack. The teenage pop singer sold more than 175,000 copies of her debut record, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, on vinyl. That’s more physical sales than most artists see from all physical formats combined.

It seems likely that vinyl will continue to lead physical media sales in 2020. Older generations are clinging to their favorite format, and younger generations have fallen in love with the sound and look of great records. Vinyl is a high-risk investment for young artists, but it can yield high returns with the right audience

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Albums are neither dead nor dying, so why do people claim otherwise?

RIP Albums

The industry is changing. Aside from the rise of streaming, which has completely altered the way people consume music and the way artists make money, the business as a whole seems more uncertain than ever about what might come next. Will festivals continue to grow in popularity? Will radius clauses force up and coming acts to choose between high-profile gigs and a series of smaller, more intimate performances? Will venues demand more substantial cuts of merch sales? Will fans still want physical media, and if so, in what format?

These questions and many more are pondered in offices and at conferences every year. They each create an excellent foundation for conversation, but the outcome is usually the same: We won’t know until it happens. Maybe the festival bubble will burst, but then again, perhaps it won’t. Maybe smaller artists will breakout from a single high-profile appearance, but they may fair better with smaller gigs that provide fans more access to the talent. It’s all up in the air all the time, and more importantly, not every answer works for everyone.

One thing that is certain: We will continue to debate the livelihood of albums until the end of time.

Every year for the past decade there comes a time, usually in the fall or winter, when significant publications debate whether or not the albums are practical. The most recent outlet to hop on this bandwagon is Rolling Stone, who just this week published an article claiming records are ‘in deep trouble.’

For those who prefer a TL;DR explanation, the latest round of ‘RIP Albums’ posts stem from a report released by the RIAA a couple months back regarding sales in 2018. According to the numbers, total album sales for the first half of 2018 were down 25% compared to the first half of 2017. If that figure continues for the second half of the year, which many believe it will, then total album sales will plummet 50% compared to the previous year. That is a major drop, and it’s being said that track-led consumption through streaming services. In other words, people love singles, and the popularity of playlists in the streaming arena has made the success of a single track, not to mention its ability to be placed, over the quality of albums.

But there’s more to the drop in sales than the popularity of singles. Cultural trends play a part in consumer behavior as well, and right now there are no two genres of music more popular than hip-hop and EDM. An artist in these areas can make a career out of one song. Sheck Wes, for example, landed a record deal with Kanye West’s GOOD Music off the strength of his viral hit “Mo Bamba.” Similarly, Cardi B found international success with “Bodak Yellow.” She was hailed as a new artist because of the release, despite the fact she had previously released multiple mixtapes.

Both Sheck Wes and Cardi B released albums in 2018, but when discussing their successes and failures, it’s the singles that lead any conversation.

And speaking of conversation, you can probably add social media to the list of things contributing to the belief albums are dead. It is far easier to not only digest single tracks but also to discuss them. It takes less than five minutes to stream most singles, and just a matter of seconds to tweet out one’s thoughts on the material. Albums, on the other hand, require far more time and attention. You could easily spend an hour listening to a record, and expressing your thoughts on the material in full will likely require more than 280 characters (the maximum length of a tweet). Culture has trained people to believe that if they’re not contributing to the endless chatroom that is social media, then they are somehow missing out, which in turn encourages people to stay on top of everything that can be consumed at a moments notice. Singles are more accessible, which means more people can make time to consume them. More people = more conversation.

Rock and country music work differently. Artists hoping to make it in those areas of music need to not only have good singles but also must tour heavily, which means performing numerous songs any given night. One great track may help start a conversation, or even land a meeting with label execs, but those who become household names must also possess a catalog of potential hits. Fans of these genres still buy albums, but because country and rock are less popular than they were ten or even twenty years ago the most successful LPs cannot hold a candle to the streaming numbers artists achieve in other genres of music.

Albums are not dead, and they never will be, but as consumer behavior continues to evolve there may be less of them garnering attention. This same trend can be found in all areas of entertainment. Paintings, for example, were once the height of entertainment. Most people can name iconic talents such as Van Gogh or Picasso, but how many modern painters do you know? There are galleries of all sizes in cities all over the world showcasing current talent all the time, so surely someone is paying attention.

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4 Things Every Artist Can Learn From The Incredible First Week Sales Of Adele’s New Album

The first week sales numbers for Adele’s third album are in, and the results are even better than the most absurd predictions suggested they would be. With no streams made available through any service and only one single released to radio, Adele’s 25 moved just over three-million copies in the United States during the week ending last Friday, November 27. That number is almost a million units above the previous best first-week sales, which was set by the boy band *NSYNC in a year when the industry as a whole moved over 700 million units. This year, the industry will move just over 200 million units, meaning Adele’s sales already account for money than 1% of all music sold in America during 2015, and that number is going to continue to rise as we head further into the holiday shopping season.

There are many things that can be inferred from these numbers, and in the coming weeks there will no doubt be a number of sites hoping to highlight these points in one or more listicles. We probably haven’t covered everything, but there are four major takeaways from this news we felt were important to highlight here on the blog…

Despite streaming figures that might suggest otherwise, quality still trumps quantity when it comes to winning over consumers

25 is the first release from Adele in years. In the time since her last album the pop superstar has made it a point to keep details regarding new material to a minimum, and she has spent very little time fussing over social media or the way she is perceived in the press. In an age where almost every marketing book will tell you that developing and maintaining constant fan engagement is the key to success Adele has proven such efforts matter very little if you have quality music to share. She understand that no amount of marketing or witty public observations can compare to the selling power of a great song, so she chooses to focus her time on crafting the best new material possible. Everything else comes second, and because the quality of her work is so high fans are willing to accept this fact. More importantly, they are willing to pay to ensure it continues.

Word of mouth is everything

Adele only allowed a select number of critics to hear 25 in its entirety prior to release, and most did not share their reviews until he album was made available to the public, so it’s a little hard to say critical acclaim played any role in the album’s success. While I am confident Adele’s numerous appearances in the press did bring more attention to her new release than what would have existed if she had chosen to remain silent, the real motivating factor behind the initial album sales appears to have been the court of public opinion. People of all ages and races connect with Adele for one reason or another, and anytime she chooses to share new material there are people who are willing to share it with everyone they know. If fact, she doesn’t even have to ask for help. People share Adele’s music and videos because it makes them feel something they otherwise might not have felt, and they long to share that feeling with other people. As long as she continues to deliver powerful observations on life and love through music that trend will continue to develop, which means more and more people being exposed to her art.

Sticking with what has always worked instead of taking creative risks isn’t always such a bad idea.

I would never suggest someone try and force their creativity to fit one idea or style, but there is something to be said for choosing to master one sound instead of becoming sufficiently good at numerous styles of music. 25 is an album filled with the same grandiose ballads that have been found on all of Adele’s albums, and outside of the radio-ready pop sound of “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” there are very few surprises on the record. For most artists that would be received by critics and fans as playing it safe, but I have seen very few people complain about what Adele has created with her new album. The only explanation is, again, that the quality of the material is so good it essentially voids most basic complaints. Would it be cool to hear Adele try something a bit more in the style of, say, Fleetwood Mac? Hell yes. Am I going to complain that power-ballads like “When We Were Young” were recorded instead? Hell no. Adele has made it a point to perfect her sound a bit more with each album, and that, to me, is just as exciting as taking risks.

Streaming may help sell records, or it may not.

Adele chose to keep 25 off of every streaming service on the planet, and there were many industry analysts who thought this might spell disaster for first week sales. Full album streams, they suggest, are what sells people on buying an album. They think music fans have become so fickle that they will not risk making a bad investment on an album they haven’t heard. While that may be true for some consumers, the success of 25 proves that many simply are not sold on certain artists’ ability to create an album filled with quality material. Most, it seems, are believed to be better at making singles.

I think it’s smart for all developing artists to make sure their initial recordings are available everywhere imaginable, but as their careers continues to develop they should continually reevaluate just what, if any, direct impact streaming has on their sales. Are you moving units on the strength of singles and digital promotion? If so, maybe there is no immediate rush to stream your first full length. What matters most is that you never take for granted what does and doesn’t work for your career. You and your music are unique, so you should never expect what works for others to also help your career.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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If “nobody” buys music anymore, I’ll take some of these band’s 10,000 first week sales

It’s hard enough to get people to click play, or Like, or Favorite, or whatever else, but to get someone to pay money for any album in 2015? Who does that? Ask any number of mid-level bands who are still managing to sell 5,000+ in first week sales. Great numbers compared for 2003? Of course not, but I’ll take 1,250 in sales than 72,000 “Likes” any day.

In a fantastic bit from ’Why Your Music Is Worthless (And How To Sell It Anyway),‘ as pointed out by Sophie Benjamin in her latest newsletter Simon Indelicate lays it out pretty well:

“You can’t transform the record buying public into a million clones of your mum, sadly, but you can still apply this lesson: People value music that they are personally connected to and such music is scarce – therefore it is not worthless … People who have no reason at all to pay anything for 45 minutes of generic recorded music have a host of reasons to pay for 45 minutes of music that they know will explore the happy side of a depression that they recognise in themselves recorded by that nice girl who played in their local, chats to them about Geordie Shore on twitter, wrote that great blog post about economics and such; and who seems like a nice person who you could approach if your download didn’t work properly.”

Can you know all 1,000 people who bought your album in the first week? No, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to have a few hundred of those emails. Probably a few of your followers on Twitter bought your album, and some even came to your show.

There’s no shortage of jerk-asses that get press everyday for stupid shit. But there are probably so many albums out there that people are crying to in their bedrooms at night, or screaming along to in their cars at night. Bands that aren’t just “music,” but they mean the world to some folks. Strive to make that sort of music first and foremost. Count your successes in the number of people who thank you after the show, or shoot you an email, not in magazine covers or music blog mentions.

Maybe “nobody” buys music in 2015, but if only one person buys your album this month make them feel like they’re somebody.

Seth Werkheiser is the quiz master of metal trivia at Skulltoaster. He’s also the founder of some music sites you may have heard of, including Noise Creep (2009) + Buzzgrinder (2001). He’s anti-Facebook, anti-clickbait, and anti-growth hacking. You should most definitely follow him on Twitter. Yes, right now.

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