Album Sales Week Of 5/19

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Whattup everybody?  Sorry, I missed last week… chalk it up to a mild case of the Swine Flu… but i’m back with that crack for all you music-industry addicts, so without further delay, here’s your fix:

Album sales week of 5/19

Eminem “Relapse” – 609,118 – (20% digital)
Method Man and Redman “Blackout 2” – 63,448 (15% digital)
Busta Rhymes “Back on my B.S.” – 59,317 (13% digital)
Freeway “Philadelphia Freeway Vol. 2” – 5,311
Killah Priest “Exorcist” – 335

Album Sales Week of 5/12

Cam’ron “Crime Pays” – 58,402 (42,000 1st week…  70% drop)
Gucci Mane “Murder Was the Case” – 25,463 (11k 2nd week)
Paul Wall “Fast Life” – 30,454 (8,700 2nd week)
Tanya Morgan “Brooklynati” (1,151 – 450 2nd week) – (70% digital)

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And in unrelated industry news:

• Harvard law prof claims that P2P filesharing falls under “Fair Use”
Funny enough… I actually know this guy. “Friend of the family.”  Definitely an interesting step in the battle for file sharing, ownership and copyright law.

• CD sales down 19.3% through May 10
Surprised?  clearly you haven’t been looking at the numbers.  Last week, the No. 1 album on Billboard’s charts was Green Day @ 83,000 units.  that’s rough.

• Napster to offer $5 / month music subscription service

I saw this in a couple of different places, but wasn’t aware until I checked out the NYTimes Bits blog that Napster is now owned by Best Buy.  The times they are a changin’ huh?  Once the biggest detractor (and what probably accelerated, if not started the death knell) of physical retail, is now owned and operated by one of the five four three two remaining retailers

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• Carriers offering “Comes with music” service for phones…

More news of bundles, subscriptions and pre-paids, oh my!  We’ve seen this coming a little bit, right?  Napster is now doing the subscription thing, rhapsody, the pre-paid cell phone with music, etc. etc.  I do see a possibility of this model taking off.  The article says that carriers and ISPs are they key, and I agree with that.  If you have mobile devices (or land-locked computers), a subscription is only going to work as a convincing way to get music to someone (for $) insomuch as the service provider will make it accesible (and deny the accesibility of the free/illegal music).  How much is someone going to want to pay for an iPhone app per month that gives them unlimited music (I would pay $5/month for that), but what if there’s one they can get for free?  That’s the problem with the non-mobile option right now, and why the carriers are going to play a crucial role going forward.  What I don’t agree with in this article, is the following quote, from Neil Smith, VP of business management for Rhapsody America… “What the music industry does not want to do, Smith says, is offer something so attractive that it accelerates the decline in CD sales. The industry is more willing to experiment in other countries – like Spain – where music spending per capita is lower than it is in the U.S., he says.”  Ok.  1st of all, CD sales are declining about as fast as possible, and this kind of backwards thinking is exactly what got the music business in the hole that it’s in now.  We’re playing catch up.  Why put the most interesting forward thinking delivery methods in a sub-prime market?  Don’t be scurred…
• xbox 360 and zune

Zune annouced a partnership with Xbox 360.  Not exactly sure what this is going to look like, but could be another cool step in the subscription/mobile delivery model.  My immediate thoughts?  if you can give me a way to watch those Netflix on demand movies, on my zune, via the Xbox, sign me up.

• Piece of Facebook bought out (1.96% for 160 million dollars)

The Russians who bought a chunk of the company got a much better rate than Microsoft did a year ago.  Facebook now has capitalized roughly $600 million dollars of the company.

Till next time, get at me.