2013 Mid-Year SoundScan Charts: Justin #1 Alb. M&RL #1 Sin.

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/chart-alert/1568845/justin-timberlake-macklemore-ryan-lewis-lead-2013-mid-year

Justin Timberlake, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Lead 2013 Mid-Year SoundScan Charts

By Keith Caulfield, Los Angeles | July 03, 2013 11:00 AM EDT

At the midway point in 2013, Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience" and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop" (featuring Wanz), lead as the year's biggest-selling album and digital song in the United States,., respectively -- selling 2.04 million and 5.58 million according to Nielsen SoundScan (charts below).

Through the sales week that ended on June 30, the halfway point of SoundScan's tracking year, "The 20/20 Experience" is the only album to sell over a million copies. The next biggest seller is Bruno Mars' "Unorthodox Jukebox," which has shifted 985,000.

Adele, Katy Perry Rule Mid-Year SoundScan Charts

In SoundScan's 22-year history, this is only the second year -- following 2012 -- where only one album has sold a million at the year's mid-way point. A year ago at this point, Adele's "21" was the only million-seller, having moved 3.69 million.

"The 20/20 Experience" debuted at No. 1 earlier this year on the weekly Billboard 200 chart, selling 968,000 copies in its first week. That opener continues to be the largest single sales week for any album in 2013. The set's first two singles -- "Suit & Tie" and "Mirrors" -- have both reached the top three on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

So far in 2013, 15 albums have sold at least 500,000 copies. A year ago at this point (through the week ending July 1, 2012), 11 albums had moved a half-million.

Six of 2013's top 20 selling albums were released this year, while the other 13 dropped in 2012. One of the top 20 albums, Adele's never-say-die "21," was released in April of 2011. "21" is currently the No. 20 selling album of 2013. A year ago at this point, nine of the top selling sets were released in 2012, another nine dropped in 2011, and then two more (including "21") were issued even earlier.

This year's second-largest seller, Mars' "Unorthodox Jukebox," was released in December of last year, and debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart. 11 weeks later, it rose to No. 1, marking the first chart-topper for the singer. In total, the album has sold 1.47 million copies since its release.

The latest Grammy Award winner for album of the year, Mumford & Sons' "Babel," is the third-biggest set of 2013, with 884,000 sold. Released last September, the set finished 2012 as the year's fourth-biggest album (1.46 million sold last year). Its cumulative sales tally now stands at 2.35 million.

The year's biggest selling country release is next on the list, as Blake Shelton's recent release "Based On a True Story" is the fourth-biggest album so far in 2013, with 703,000. A year ago, the top country album was Lionel Richie's "Tuskegee," with 912,000 sold. It was the No. 2 title overall at the time.

Rounding out the year-to-date top five selling albums is Imagine Dragons' "Night Visions" with 692,000.

Three of the year's top 10 albums are independently distributed: "Babel," Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "The Heist" (No. 7 with 653,000) and the Lumineers' self-titled set (No. 8 with 649,000). A year ago, zero albums among the mid-year's top 10 were indie sets.

"Babel" is distributed the RED Distribution, while "The Lumineers" and "The Heist" go through Alternative Distribution Alliance. The former is Sony Music's indie distribution arm, while the latter is Warner Music's equivalent indie branch.

Speaking of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the duo owns two of the top 10 selling digital songs of the year. "Thrift Shop," which features Wanz, is No. 1 with 5.56 million, while "Can't Hold Us," featuring Ray Dalton, is No. 6 with 3.13 million.

"Thrift Shop" is the fastest selling song of any calendar year's first six months. A year ago, Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" held that record, when it had shifted 5.50 million downloads by the mid-year point.

This year, 51 songs have sold a million downloads, up from 47 at this point a year ago. 13 titles have moved two million or more, as compared to 15 a year ago.

Two of the top 10 selling digital songs are also the first Hot 100 chart hits for their respective acts. "Thrift Shop" was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' first chart hit, while Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise" (No. 7 with 3.11 million) was the country duo's first entry.

Comparatively, a year ago, there were five chart debuts among the top 10 from Gotye, fun., Carly Rae Jepsen, the Wanted and One Direction. Of those, Gotye, fun. and Jepsen led the pack at Nos. 1-3, respectively, with "Somebody," "We Are Young" and "Call Me Maybe."

Digital track sales stand at 682.19 million this year -- down by 2%. It's the first time track sales have been down at the mid-year point since 2010. A year ago, 698.12 million had been sold -- a growth of 6% versus the same time period of 2011.

Album sales are down by 6% this year versus the same time span a year ago. 142 million albums have been sold in 2013, compared to 150.46 million a year ago at this point.

Top 20 Selling Albums, Year To Date
Artist Title Year to Date Sales

1 Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience 2,037,000
2 Bruno Mars Unorthodox Jukebox 985,000
3 Mumford & Sons Babel 884,000
4 Blake Shelton Based On a True Story 703,000
5 Imagine Dragons Night Visions 692,000
6 P!nk The Truth About Love 674,000
7 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis The Heist 653,000
8 The Lumineers The Lumineers 649,000
9 Taylor Swift Red 616,000
10 Daft Punk Random Access Memories 614,000
11 Florida Georgia Line Here's to the Good Times 610,000
12 Soundtrack Pitch Perfect 541,000
13 Michael Buble To Be Loved 528,000
14 fun. Some Nights 506,000
15 Lil Wayne I Am Not a Human Being II 503,000
16 Rihanna Unapologetic 494,000
17 Soundtrack Les Miserables 458,000
18 Luke Bryan Spring Break…Here to Party 452,000
19 Various Artists Now 45 441,000
20 Adele 21 426,000

SOURCE: NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN, year to date sales through the week ending June 30


Top 20 Selling Digital Songs, Year To Date
Artist Title Year to Date Sales

1 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz Thrift Shop 5.558,000
2 P!nk featuring Nate Ruess Just Give Me a Reason 3,524,000
3 Bruno Mars When I Was Your Man 3,424,000
4 Rihanna featuring Mikky Ekko Stay 3,298,000
5 Imagine Dragons Radioactive 3,246,000
6 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Ray Dalton Can't Hold Us 3,129,000
7 Florida Georgia Line Cruise 3,112,000
8 Justin Timberlake featuring Jay-Z Suit & Tie 2,574,000
9 Taylor Swift I Knew You Were Trouble 2,455,000
10 Robin Thicke featuring Pharrell & T.I. Blurred Lines 2,406,000
11 will.i.am & Britney Spears Scream & Shout 2,270,000
12 Justin Timberlake Mirrors 2,243,000
13 Icona Pop featuring Charli XCX I Love It 2,025,000
14 The Lumineers Ho Hey 1,971,000
15 Fall Out Boy My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light 'Em Up) 1,967,000
16 Bruno Mars Locked Out of Heaven 1,846,000
17 Pitbull featuring Christina Aguilera Feel This Moment 1,833,000
18 Darius Rucker Wagon Wheel 1,768,000
19 Baauer Harlem Shake 1,735,273
20 Drake Started From the Bottom 1,703,000

SOURCE: NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN, year to date sales through the week ending June 30

[slicknickshady]

Wish Eminem or Tool put out albums this year like they planned. I'm not betting on either coming out before the deadline for the 2014 Grammys.

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1568871/nielsen-soundscan-mid-year-report-digital-album-and-single-sales-slow


Nielsen SoundScan Mid-Year Report: Digital Album and Single Sales Slow

By Ed Christman, New York | July 03, 2013

Digital tracks sales are on the decline and the trend is accelerating.

For the year to date as of June 30, digital track sales have declined 2.3% to 682.2 million units from the 698 million units that tracks scanned in the first half of 2012, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In the first quarter, track sales declined 1.34% to 356.5 million from the 361.3 million. In the second quarter the decline more than doubled to 3.3%, with track sales totaling 325.7 million units this year versus 336.7 million in the second quarter of 2012.

At mid-year, 51 songs had scanned more than 1 million units. Thirteen of them scanned two million units or more, led by the 5.6 million units garnered by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ "Thrift Shop" (featuring Wanz).

Last year, two titles accomplished the feat of scanning more than five million units -- Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" (featuring Kimbra) and Fun's "We Are Young" (featuring Janelle Monae). A total of 47 titles hit the 1 million unit mark, of which 13 were more than million scans.

So far, Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience" is the best-selling album with 2.04 million scans. It is in fact, the only million-seller as Bruno Mars "Unorthodox Jukebox" -- with scans at 985,000 units -- looks like it will need another week to break the million-unit milestone. Last year, only one album had scanned more than 1 million units -- Adele's "21," which had scanned 3.7 million units.

One bight note, at the mid-year point 15 albums had scanned more than 500,000 units, compared with last year when only 11 albums had accomplished that feat at the mid-year point in 2012. Total units counted by SoundScan fell 2.9% to 825.9 million units from the 850.2 million units monitored last year.

Getting back to the softness in tracks, the decline can be attributed to a 20 million unit decrease in catalog sales, which at the mid-year point fell to 366.7 million units from the 386.9 million units that were scanned at the mid-year 2012. Meanwhile, current track sales grew slightly to 315.5 million from 311 million units.

If the decline had been in current tracks, a case could be made that streaming might be impacting track sales -- even as industry executives continue to insist that streaming does not impact album sales. But with the decline in catalog sales, it’s more likely that the decline is due to the growing popularity of complete my album features at download stores, and the possible repricing of catalog sales up to 99 cents and $1.29 price points from the 69 cent tracks that was rolled out to catalog song titles when iTunes first embraced variable pricing in 2009.

In another alarming turn of events, album sales continue to decline, with the configuration experiencing a 5.6% decrease to 142 million units at the mid-year point, down from 150.5 million units garnered by the middle of 2012. That represents a decline of 5.6%.

Like with tracks, the decline accelerated in the second quarter with album sales falling 6.4%, versus the 4.9% decline at the end of the first quarter for the configuration. Within album sales, the digital album growth slowed during the second quarter to a 1.9% increase up to 28.3 million from 27.8 million units in the corresponding period last year. For the full year to date, digital albums sales are up 6.3% to 60.8 million units from the 57.2 million units scanned during the first half of 2012.

Moving over to market share, the Universal Music Group leads the industry with a 37.6% share in albums plus track equivalents albums, whereby 10 tracks equal one album. That represents a seven point percentage gain from the 30.1% it had posted last year before it completed its acquisition of the majority of EMI assets.

Sony Music Group comes in a strong second with 29.6% in market share, which is up from the 28.9% it posted in the first half of last year.

The Warner Music Group, which should benefit from the Parlophone assets it acquired in the rest of the year, doesn't have any of that market share yet included in its results, as it only completed the acquisition after the mid-year point. But even without EMI, WMG posted a market share gain, growing to 20.2% from the 18.4% it had in the first half of 2012.

Independents, meanwhile, finished with 12.1% down from 12.7%, but that's only if you count market share by distribution ownership. If you count market share by label ownership, that is a dramatically different picture with indies usually claiming upwards of 30% market share. For a complete market share tally based on label ownership, see next week's issue of Billboard.

Moving over to the retail sector, chains and the mass merchant category suffered equal ruing the first half of the year, with chain sales down 17.3% to 19.3 million units from 23.3 million units. The discount department store chains did slightly worse with a 17.4% decline to 36 million units from 43.6 million units last year.

Independent stores also declined with a 10.7% drop in scans to 9.4 million units from the 10.5 million units that sector had at the mid-year point last year. And, of course, online merchants (whether digital or physical) continue to gain market share. Download stores experienced a 6.3% increase, while online, mail order and concert venues experienced a 5.7% gain to 15.2 million units from the 14.4 million units scanned in the first half of 2012.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

spotify and rdio and the like have slowed digital sales growth.

[Linnethia Monique]

Adele.... Savior of Soundscan 2011 and 2012.

[Glove Slap]

Jul 5, 2013 11:26:59 GMT -5 Linnethia Monique said:

Adele.... Savior of Soundscan 2011 and 2012.

She's not a savior, she's an anomaly and that's it. A true savior would re-energize the market and increase sales across the board (i.e. record sales increasing in the 80s for all acts in general during/after Thriller and MTV). If you take her out, nothing has changed much.

[Linnethia Monique]

Jul 5, 2013 20:10:53 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

Jul 5, 2013 11:26:59 GMT -5 Linnethia Monique said:

Adele.... Savior of Soundscan 2011 and 2012.

She's not a savior, she's an anomaly and that's it. A true savior would re-energize the market and increase sales across the board (i.e. record sales increasing in the 80s for all acts in general during/after Thriller and MTV). If you take her out, nothing has changed much.

Without the release of 21 and it's singles the music industry would not have seen growth during the past 2 years. She SAVED those years from going into the red percentage wise. I never stated that she helped boost the industry as a whole and brought an insurgence of album buyers to the plate that helped continue to thrive the industry. I specifically stated the 2 years where in many publications, it was noted that without her sales it would've been just another declining year.

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-615/1568807/blake-shelton-florida-georgia-line-lead-2013-mid-year-soundscan

Blake Shelton, Florida Georgia Line Lead 2013 Mid-Year SoundScan Country Charts
By Wade Jessen, Nashville | July 03, 2013

During the first six months of 2013, Blake Shelton's "Based on a True Story" and Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise" dominate country album and digital song tallies, selling 703,000 and 3.1 million respectively, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Shelton's set benefits from his exposure as a celebrity coach on NBC’s "The Voice" and the album's first two singles: "Sure Be Cool If You Did" and "Boys 'Round Here." Both spent time at No. 1 on the Nielsen BDS-driven Country Airplay chart during the first half of the year, and they appear at Nos. 3 and No. 5 on the year-to-date top 10 Country Digital Songs list.

Florida Georgia Line's track dominated the country radio chart in the closing weeks of 2012, and due mostly to a remix with rapper Nelly, is now climbing the Top 40 charts and dominates the Hot Country Songs tally for an 18th cumulative week (July 13 chart). The multi-platform exposure is evidenced by the huge lead the track commands so far this year, roughly 1.3 million downloads more than the No. 2 song, Darius Rucker's "Wagon Wheel." The duo's "Here's to the Good Times" album also ranks as the year's third-biggest selling country album.

On the January through June 2013 country digital songs list, all but three of the top 10 titles have sold more than one million. For the same period last year, only four of the top 10 songs sold more than a million, led by Luke Bryan’s “Drunk on You,” which moved 1.4 million during that time frame. All of the titles on the 2013 recap were major hits at country radio, compared to the 2012 recap which included Taylor Swift’s “Eyes Open” and “Safe & Sound” (featuring the Civil Wars), neither of which were embraced by country radio.

The top selling album for the first half of 2012 was Lionel Richie’s duets set, titled “Tuskegee,” which sold 912,000 during the period. Ranking at No. 2 on last year’s recap, the top selling set by a core artist was Carrie Underwood’s “Blown Away” (602,000). This year, Taylor Swift’s “Red” ranks at No. 2, buoyed by crossover drivers such as “I Knew You Were Trouble,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 in January.

Overall country album sales stand at 19.54 million this year -- up less than 1% compared to a year ago (19.47 million). Country digital song sales are at 92.53 million for 2013 thus far -- up 11% versus a year ago (83.55 million). To compare, overall album sales are down by 6%, while overall song sales slide by 2%.

Mid-Year 2013 Top Country Albums
Artist Title YTD Sales

1 Blake Shelton Based on a True Story 703,000
2 Taylor Swift Red 616,000
3 Florida Georgia Line Here's to the Good Times 610,000
4 Luke Bryan Spring Break...Here to Party 452,000
5 Tim McGraw Two Lanes of Freedom 373,000
6 The Band Perry Pioneer 366,000
7 Lady Antebellum Golden 344,000
8 Hunter Hayes Hunter Hayes 337,000
9 Little Big Town Tornado 319,000
10 Jason Aldean Night Train 305,000

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/1568808/justin-timberlake-macklemore-ryan-lewis-lead-2013-mid-year

Mid-Year 2013 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Artist Title YTD Sales

1 Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience 2,037,000
2 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis The Heist 653,000
3 Lil Wayne I Am Not a Human Being II 503,000
4 Rihanna Unapologetic 493,000
5 Kanye West Yeezus 392,000
6 J. Cole Born Sinner 381,000
7 A$AP Rocky Long.Live.A$AP 378,000
8 Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city 364,000
9 Alicia Keys Girl on Fire 287,000
10 T.I. Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head 231,000

*SOURCE: NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN,
year to date sales through the week ending June 30, 2013

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/1568810/mumford-sons-imagine-dragons-lead-2013-mid-year-soundscan-rock

Mid-Year 2013 Top Rock Albums
Artist Title Year to Date Sales

1 Mumford & Sons Babel 884,000
2 Imagine Dragons Night Visions 692,000
3 The Lumineers The Lumineers 649,000
4 fun. Some Nights 506,000
5 Soundtrack The Great Gatsby 387,000
6 Phillip Phillips The World From the Side of the Moon 385,000
7 Various Artists 2013 Grammy Nominees 324,000
8 Fall Out Boy Save Rock & Roll 321,000
9 Ed Sheerhan + 289,000
10 Of Monsters and Men My Head Is An Animal 272,000

*SOURCE: NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN,
year to date sales through the week ending June 30, 2013

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/code/1568861/daft-punk-william-britney-spears-lead-2013-mid-year-soundscan

Mid-Year 2013 Top Dance/Electronic Albums
Artist Title YTD Sales*

1 Daft Punk Random Access Memories 614,000
2 Atoms for Peace Amok 100,000
3 Lindsey Stiring Lindsey Stirling 97,000
4 Skrillex Banagarng (EP) 87,000
5 Flo Rida Wild Ones 85,000
6 Skrillex Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP 75,000
7 Calvin Harris 18 Months 75,000
8 David Guetta Nothing But the Beat 68,000
9 Swedish House Mafia Until Now 67,000
10 will.i.am. #willpower 64,000

[Deleted]

3 Lindsey Stiring Lindsey Stirling 97,000

Wow!!!!!!! Does anyone know the overall sales?

[areyoureadytojump]

^147k.

[Deleted]

Jul 3, 2013 19:54:34 GMT -5 slicknickshady said:

Wish Eminem or Tool put out albums this year like they planned. I'm not betting on either coming out before the deadline for the 2014 Grammys.

I agree with you can not wait for both albums but I dont think tool release their album in 2013

[josh]

EDM sales are such shit.

[Glove Slap]

Dance albums never sell much usually though. It's always been a genre that's concentrated more on single records than LPs.