Kanye Couldn't Save Fall

--Rolling Stone

Last fall, music executives and record stores were full of optimism: Sales were up about seven percent for the year, and sure things like Eminem's Encore and U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb were due in stores before Christmas. In 2005, sales have been dropping all year, with fall numbers down 8 percent for the Top Ten and 5.5 percent for the Top Twenty-five, and very little relief is in sight. "The release schedule is weaker this year than it was last year," says Jim Urie, president of Universal Music and Video Distribution. "Part of that is because last year was truly extraordinary -- we literally had a record from every single superstar on the roster."
Since Labor Day, many heavily anticipated albums have fizzled: Ashlee Simpson's I Am Me debuted at Number One with 220,300 copies sold but dropped to 73,000 the second week; Alicia Keys' Unplugged went from just under 200,000 copies to 83,000; and Rod Stewart's Great American Songbook Vol. IV fell from 193,000 to 90,800. The week of October 23rd, Destiny's Child's #1's scored the top spot with just 113,000 copies sold. And overall CD sales are down more than seven percent for the year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (If you factor in digital downloads, which have tripled so far this year, album sales are down just 4.6 percent.)

A few records have avoided the carnage and put up big numbers -- Nickelback's All the Right Reasons hit Number One with a healthy 325,000 copies in October, and Kanye West's Labor Day Late Registration debut was an Eminem-level 860,000. Universal's Urie has high hopes for Eminem's greatest-hits Curtain Call (due out December 6th). Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor hits stores today, and 50 Cent's soundtrack for Get Rich or Die Tryin' was doing strong business at press time. "As the 'event releases' start to come online, I think we're going to have a very strong November and December," says Tom Corson, general manager of Arista/J Records, which released Carrie Underwood and Santana CDs this fall.

But record-store owners are beginning to worry about the lower-than-expected fall numbers. "In general, there's a lot of nervousness right now," says Clark Benson, of the market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail. "The year's been down -- we all knew that. But we were hoping things would pick up, and frankly they haven't yet."



STEVE KNOPPER
(Posted Nov 15, 2005)

One thing we should do is to pick two music retailers apiece and write their corporate office a letter stating that part of the reason they are getting bad numbers is the boycott of RIAA products.

We not only need to let the RIAA know that we won't buy, but the front-line sales forces know as well.

I'd rather we keep it "our little secret" for now... then clunk them over the head once we build up critical mass.

(I say that only pretending that the RIAA labels don't already know we are out here. They do quite a bit of damage-control already keeping news of our "movement" out of the press already... let's stay "underground" just a little longer. lol)

Hmm, why keep it "underground" im? I'm thinking that letting the retailers know what we are doing just gets the word out there a little more as then RIAA would be hearing directly from us in small numbers and indirectly through their retailers. Fill me in on the plan. Just wondering why we'd want to wait for "critical mass" before doing anything. Don't you think getting as many people informed would help reach that magical number more quickly?

This article right here show's what's wrong with the Big music industry!!!!! Instead of caring about what great music cd's and great song's were released this year all they focus on is Sales !!!!! Don't get me wrong nothing against sales but if you put out great Music you will get your sales!!!! Forget about what someone looks like or the hype or their age or image you try to give an artists give me a fricking garage band who can play kick ass music and you will get sales!!!!! also lower you damn price's won't hurt either!!!! and I'm sure that suing your customer's and pissing people off hasn't helped as well!!!! Over 55% of folks polled on an aol poll said that they would never buy another Sony cd ever!!!! I only hope the rest of the major label's do the same type of DRM sony used here lately and this battle will be over!!!! Come on guy's put out your cd's with DRM on them so we can watch your sales continue to drop like a Rock!!!!!!!

The christmas sales should be interesting - you cant give downloads as a present, so they should be unaffected by internet infringement. If they are down, that would ruin the RIAA's "Internet piracy is killing music!" line.

goldenpi,
Theorectically, you COULD buy a Napster or other card that allows you to logon to a website and receive downloads that way.

The bigger question is 'if the level of competition increases and a product does not become more competitive, wouldn't the product would logically lose ground to other more competitive products?'