For The Second Time Since SoundScan Started Counting Downloads In 2003, Track Sales Suffered A Sales

For the second time since SoundScan started counting downloads in 2003, track sales suffered a sales decline, something that occurred in the first three quarters of 2010. So far this year, track sales are down 1.3% as of March 31, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

This year, industry executives attribute the decline to a lack of hits. Last time in 2010, they blamed LimeWire. But after the peer-to-peer site was shutdown, track sales rallied and closed out the year with a 1.1% increase.

In 2013, only 15 songs have reached the 1 million unit milestone so far, while last year 21 songs accomplished that feat. But this year's best selling song download, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop," has scanned almost 4.2 million units. Last year's best selling title for the first quarter was Fun.'s "We Are Young" (featuring Janelle Monae), which scanned 2.75 million units.

Against that, album sales totaled 74 million during the first quarter, down from 77.8 million units, a drop of 4.9%. Within that, CD sales were down 15.4% to 40 million from 47.4 million in the first quarter of 2012; digital album sales increased 10.4% to 32.4 million units, up from 29.4 million units.

With nearly 1.3 million in scans, Justin Timberlake's new album, "The 20/20 Experience," is the top selling album this year, as well as the top selling digital album with 558,000 downloads.

Overall, albums (plus track equivalent ones whereby 10 tracks equal one album) dropped 3.8% to 109.7 million units, down from 114 million units in the first quarter of 2012.

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The strength of the live music industry can be measured in many ways, from the year-end reports of talent buyers and sellers, to the keen interest in the proposed sale of AEG Live, to the rapid sellouts of one's favorite act at the local concert venue. To add to those indicators, Billboard offers another way to judge the bullish outlook for the live business: the millions of dollars being invested in the buildings to host events. For existing venues to remain financially solid and attract talent, they must stay up to par in fan amenities, production capabilities and methods to drive ancillary revenue with concessions, sponsorships and premium seating. For a marketplace to be competitive in drawing top-tier content, it must have a competitive venue-even if it has to build a new one. Clearly, plenty of markets and venues want to stay in the game at the highest level, as evidenced by Billboard's annual state-of-the-market look at new and renovated venues.

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Management Panel - How Can I Be Down (1996)

[Chris Lighty, Steve Stoute, Dame Dash & Shakim Compere]

                        Music subscriptions services, which provide an alternative to purchasing songs on sites like iTunes, continue to gain in popularity. One example is Sweden-based Spotify, which is expanding rapidly across the globe and has now added another 1 million paid subscribers in the last three months.

According to figures reported by CNET and confirmed by Spotify, the company now has 24 million active users and 6 million paying subscribers across the world. Spotify is also growing rapidly in the United States, where it arrived in July of 2011 and is this week hosting musicians at its “Spotify House” at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

Despite the hype, the underlying economics of Spotify’s business model remain uncertain. The service is beholden to musicians and studios, which request a 70 percent cut, and it must contend with a growing list of competitors that include Pandora, Rdio and SoundCloud. Meanwhile, YouTube is expected to launch a subscription service of its own in coming months and even Apple is expected to get into the streaming game too.

This competition validates the underlying premise of Spotify — that people want access to a giant catalog of music instead of buying it piecemeal through iTunes — but the arrival of deep-pocketed rivals may hurt Spotify’s ability to compete in the longterm.

An outcry is being heard in the D.C. Facebook Community over Wale’s comments during a recent interview on MTV’s Rap Fix Live.  Shout out to Crank Brothers for bringing this to my attention!

This is what people are saying:

“SMH!!! Thank you Wale for digging a deeper hole for GoGo. With the platform that he has and represents, he is in a position where whatever he said is a stampage. Music is never violent. Yes… the meeting place for violence is at the Go-Go but saying gogo is violent on an international TV station (MTV) is reckless and disrespectful. That’s like dialing 911 and telling the police you rob banks. Now they got you in a scope not trusting your every move. Crazy how he forgot his “first hit” was a Go-Go song and second was too.  Had to share this fam...” -Crank Brothers

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81% say same-day concert marketing is critical to drive awareness.

We recently surveyed 470 music venues around the world and their answers revealed that the majority of music venues sell most of their tickets at the door through walk-up traffic. Over eighty percent described day-of-show marketing and promotion as ‘important’ to driving that attendance.

While this may not come as a surprise to touring artists working to pack a house, these statistics suggest that consumers have a lot of choice when it comes to things to do on a Saturday night. And that many of them may be making their decisions about whether to go to the basketball game, the movies, or the concert, on the day of the event.

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