Music barons press the panic button
After a particularly anemic year that saw double-digit declines in album sales and no true blockbuster CDs, the recording industry is looking to its fall releases to deliver some much needed multiplatinum magic.
There's reason for some hope, as the acts expected to release CDs before year's end have in the past delivered more sales phenomenons than flops: Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood and even Britney Spears. And next week, the fall season begins with what is being hyped as an epic sales battle, with Kanye West and 50 Cent (and Kenny Chesney) putting out CDs on the same day.
But whether any of them can sell the type of huge numbers that the industry enjoyed two, three years ago or even last year remains to be seen. While music sales have been on the downward trend the past few years, this year's slippage has reached alarming levels, and it's unclear whether the release of any artist even two powerhouses on the same day will prompt consumers to reach for their wallets.
''We need both of those albums to be successful, those are two of our superstars,'' says music publishing executive Big Jon Platt of the Kanye-50 battle. ''It's been a trying year for the business, in urban music for sure.''
''It's impossible to predict which artist will have the runaway hit to 'save' the industry, but there are some very very strong candidates,'' said Bob Anderson, senior vice president of national sales at SonyBMG's Zomba label group, which includes Jive Records, home to Justin Timberlake, R. Kelly and Ciara.
''It's really the aggregate of all these releases that will really help strengthen the industry for the year 2007.''
According to Nielsen SoundScan, album sales are down 14 percent compared to this time last year (sales for 2006 dipped 4.9 percent compared to 2005), and multiplatinum stars are finding themselves a little less multi- these days. For example, Norah Jones' second album, Feels Like Home, sold more than one million albums its first week when it was released in 2004, but her latest, Not Too Late, topped the charts with just over 400,000 sales and was one of the biggest openings of the year.
So far, the top debut of the year was Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight album, which sold 623,000 copies for Warner Bros. of Warner Music Group Corp. The soundtrack to the Disney TV phenomenon High School Musical 2 was close behind, with 615,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
