Album Sales (Week of 8/18) & Industry News

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Album Sales Week of 8/18

Sean Paul “Imperial Blaze” – 28,632 (19% Digital)

Otep “Smash The Control” – 10,377 (8% Digital)

Joe Budden “Escape Route” – 2,777 (1,600 first week, 1,098 2nd week – 100% Digital)

Rasheeda “Certified Hot chick” – 151

Big Twins “Project Kid” – 132

Fresh Daily “Gorgeous Killer in Crimes of Passion” – 118

Che Grand “Everything’s Good Ugly” – 94

Don’t get it twisted… it’s ugly out there.  Just to give you an idea of what we’re looking at, Sean Paul did roughly 107,000 units in his first week with “The Trinity” which came out in 2005.  The general wisdom is that sales are going down roughly 20% per year, so this holds that up: if dude did 107,000 in his 1st week in ’05, then it makes sense that in ’09 his first week sales are around 30k.  Now, something interesting to note is that Digital sales are supposed to equal, and then surpass physical sales in the next year or so.  However, for various reasons (market penetration, broadband internet access etc.) Hip-Hop sales are hovering around 20-25% digital, whereas Indie Rock, for example, tends to have 40-50% Digital Sales.  So there’s going to be (in my opinion) this lag-time until Hip-Hop sales catch up to the rest of music with digital purchases.  Looks like selling CD’s out the trunk of the car is going to hold up for a little while longer.  Let’s take a look at Joe Budden, who is succesful in the digital world.  His album “Padded Room” that dropped as a physical CD as well sold 13,000+ units in it’s first week.  Compare that to the 1,600 units he did first week on “Escape Route” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  Even though digital is the future, there’s still a lot of sales to be had from pushing plastic Discs…

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Industry News:

• Radio Revenue down 23% in 1st half of ’09

• The Piracy is unstoppable
Pirate Bay was taken off line by Swedish authorities.  It took them 3 hours to get rehosted at another DNS.  While it was down, the traffic on other torrent sites spiked HUGELY.  Can’t stop.  Won’t Stop.
• Roccatune (German Streaming Music Site) files for insolvency
In case you still thought that streaming music sites are the future (which they might be a part of), another ad-funded music startup hit the wall…  The German streaming service Roccatune has filed for insolvency, with the CEO blaming a failed round of financing.  I blame:

1) major lables for fucking up way back when (napster + iTunes)

2) Fans (including myself) for their insatiable need to consume music at no cost

3) The internet, for making people realize that ad revenue is not going to hold up all the media and information industries

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Till next time, get at me as always with questions, comments etc.