Music barons press the panic button
However, music industry executives note that this year's roster of superstar releases has been particularly thin.
''What happened was the industry got off to a slow start in 2007 given the fact that it was a fairly lackluster new release schedule,'' says Anderson. ''The real success stories were somewhat few and far between.''
But even CDs that seemed destined to be strong sellers weren't the smashes that people had hoped for, including ones by T.I. and Kelly Clarkson, who had respectable but not stellar sales. The top-selling album of the year has been the band Daughtry's self-titled release, which, according to Nielsen SoundScan, has sold 1.9 million copies. At that pace, there might not be an album that sells more than 3 million this year.
Industry optimists are hopeful that will turn around with the fourth quarter, which has been the traditional period for marquee-name releases, in time for the holiday buying season.
''We have some very very exciting material that should be released between now and the end of the year to increase our numbers,'' says Tammy Genovese, chief operating officer of the Country Music Association, noting upcoming releases by Underwood, Chesney, Rascal Flatts and others.
''There's always a sense of urgency when your numbers are down but I don't look at it,'' she said. "I cannot imagine with the releases that are coming out this year that we can't exceed the numbers from last year. Will we? I don't know, but there's certainly an opportunity for us to catch up.''
The names alone on the coming CDs spark memories of the industry's better days. Carey, who has sold more than 60 million records in her career and who owned 2005's best-seller, the five-times platinum The Emancipation of Mimi, is expected to release her follow-up for Def Jam of Island Def Jam Group; Garth Brooks, who trails only Elvis Presley and the Beatles in units sold, is releasing a greatest-hits disc with four new tracks; and 50-million seller Celine Dion, who has been off the pop scene while performing in Las Vegas for the past few years, has a No 13 release date.
Dion's competition that day, Spears, who hasn't released a new album in four years. While better known now as a tabloid train wreck, she is one of the best-selling and lucrative acts of the past decade, and her headline-making behavior, no matter how erratic, is guaranteed to draw interest to any new project.
