'Frozen,' Pharrell Williams Lead Mid-Year SoundScan Charts

[onebuffalo]

Jul 3, 2014 9:52:06 GMT -5 Gary said:

Well it was meant to have limited production in the first place

I know that. I can not fathom it only selling 25,000 in six months. I know that the Christmas buying rush was way over (the box set was released on Thanksgiving).

[Kris]

but was Gaga really going anywhere after the first week? lol.

One top 10 single wasn't going to do much for it. 

[Duca]

Jul 3, 2014 1:09:12 GMT -5 @icantthinkofaname said:

My End Of Year Album Prediction

1. Frozen Cast "Frozen" 3,056,912
2. Adele "24" 1,243,483
3. Taylor Swift "Album 5" 980,236
4. Coldplay "Ghost Stories" 950,462
5. Maroon 5 "V" 886,930
6. Beyonce "Beyonce" 902,456
7. 5 Seconds Of Summer "5 Seconds Of Summer" 868,450
8. Eric Church "The Outsiders" 856,943
9. Ed Sheeran "X" 808,768
10. Ariana Grande "My Everything" 802,852

Right below the top 10

11. Lorde "Pure Heroine" 796,418
12. Sam Smith "In The Lonely Hour" 780,212

Oh, and Madonna's new album is going to flop again (like the last 2 did).

WTF at all of the 5's this year, 2015 is next year.

Also, there's 5 5's :O

Taylor will open with 1 million once again. She worked with Max Martin on most of the record. She's coming for blood.

[areyoureadytojump]

Jul 3, 2014 9:54:35 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

Jul 3, 2014 9:52:06 GMT -5 Gary said:

Well it was meant to have limited production in the first place

I know that. I can not fathom it only selling 25,000 in six months. I know that the Christmas buying rush was way over (the box set was released on Thanksgiving).

It was meant to be a Christmas present.

No single at radio.

After Christmas shoppers deserted Walmart, sales fell hard.

[Deleted]

Fancy will be top 5 in a few weeks...probably top 5 at the end of the year as well. Problem will certainly be top 10 by next week.

[areyoureadytojump]

Here's how the Top 20 finished for the end of 2013:

01 - 2,427,000 - THE 20/20 EXPERIENCE - Justin Timberlake
02 - 1,727,000 - THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP 2 - Eminem
03 - 1,521,000 - CRASH MY PARTY - Luke Bryan
04 - 1,402,000 - NIGHT VISIONS - Imagine Dragons
05 - 1,399,000 - UNORTHODOX JUKEBOX - Bruno Mars
06 - 1,350,000 - HERE'S TO THE GOOD TIMES - Florida Georgia Line
07 - 1,344,000 - NOTHING WAS THE SAME - Drake
08 - 1,301,000 - BEYONCÉ - Beyoncé
09 - 1,109,000 - BASED ON A TRUE STORY - Blake Shelton
10 - 1,099,000 - MAGNA CARTA...HOLY GRAIL - Jay-Z

11 - 1,096,000 - BABEL - Mumford & Sons
12 - 1,096,000 - MIDNIGHT MEMORIES - One Direction
13 - 1,018,000 - THE HEIST - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
14 - 968,000 - PRISM - Katy Perry
15 - 934,000 - THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE - Pink
16 - 870,000 - RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES - Daft Punk
17 - 856,000 - RED - Taylor Swift
18 - 843,000 - THE LUMINEERS - Lumineers
19 - 793,000 - PITCH PERFECT - Soundtrack
20 - 781,000 - THE 20/20 EXPERIENCE (2 OF 2) - Justin Timberlake

(Thanks to oldbloke)

[Deleted]

Jul 2, 2014 16:16:27 GMT -5 HolidayGuy said:

It ain't even close for No. 1 album of the year thus far. And "Happy" has a strong lead, as well.

This doesn't count November-December if I'm not mistaken. Still a decent lead though.

[HolidayGuy]

Meant the regular/SoundScan year. :) The Billboard year is December-November.

[areyoureadytojump]

^Yes, all these SoundScan charts are for the 2014 calendar year.

[Juanca]

Jul 3, 2014 2:56:10 GMT -5 YourFaveIsAFlop said:

Jul 2, 2014 23:07:24 GMT -5 pnobelysk said:

Dead at hips don't lie

I don't get where they get off classifying that and Waka Waka as Latin songs.

Also, they classify Born To Die as a rock album, but not Ultraviolence? And Team is a rock song? Ok...

Hips don't lie is a Latin song though. It's mostly a reggaeton song with a tiny bit of Cumbia, so its genre should be Latin. Same as for example I Need to Know or Smooth. They are Latin songs from a genre perspective.
Waka Waka is most likely there just because of Shakira tho

[onebuffalo]

Jul 3, 2014 10:03:35 GMT -5 areyoureadytojump said:

Jul 3, 2014 9:54:35 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

I know that. I can not fathom it only selling 25,000 in six months. I know that the Christmas buying rush was way over (the box set was released on Thanksgiving).

It was meant to be a Christmas present.

No single at radio.

After Christmas shoppers deserted Walmart, sales fell hard.

I'll take your comments in the order given:

1. You didn't buy me one.

2. Garth Brooks should have sent a single to radio. He charted with The Call with Trisha Yearwood.

3. We will blame the brutal winter for why shoppers deserted WalMart.

[HolidayGuy]

Like any veteran "diva" album, Madonna's probably will struggle to be a long-term hit. But I wouldn't rule out a decent opening (with or without an album/concert-ticket promo/tie-in).

Yesw, the Brooks album probably was limited (though not as limited as initial reports suggested, of course, after seeing how well it was selling).

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/6143270/beyonce-pharrell-williams-lead-mid-year-soundscan-rbhip-hop

Mid-Year 2014

Top 10 Selling R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, Year To Date
Artist Title Yr to Date Sales

1 Beyonce "Beyonce" 702,000
2 Pharrell Williams "GIRL" 452,000
3 Eminem "The Marshall Mathers LP 2" 419,000
4 Rick Ross "Mastermind" 362,000
5 Michael Jackson "Xscape" 339,000
6 John Legend "Love In The Future" 298,000
7 Schoolboy Q "Oxymoron" 278,000
8 Drake "Nothing Was the Same" 242,000
9 Justin Timberlake "The 20/20 Experience" 224,000
10 Toni Braxton & Babyface "Love, Marriage & Divorce" 211,000

SOURCE: Nielsen SoundScan, year to date sales through the week ending June 29

Mid-Year 2014
Top 10 Selling R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Songs, Year To Date
Artist Title Yr to Date Sales

1 Pharrell Williams "Happy" 5,633,000
2 John Legend "All Of Me" 3,854,000
3 Jason Derulo feat. 2 Chainz "Talk Dirty" 3,657,000
4 Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX "Fancy" 2,533,000
5 Aloe Blacc "The Man" 2,263,000
6 Beyonce feat. Jay Z "Drunk In Love" 1,441,000
7 Eminem feat. Rihanna "The Monster" 1,333,000
8 Jason Derulo feat. Snoop Dogg "Wiggle" 1,058,000
9 Kid Ink feat. Chris Brown "Show Me" 1,041,000
10 Chris Brown feat. Lil Wayne & French Montana or Too $hort or Tyga "Loyal" 887,000

SOURCE: Nielsen SoundScan, year to date sales through the week ending June 29

[popstop]

Jul 3, 2014 9:55:55 GMT -5 Kris said:

but was Gaga really going anywhere after the first week? lol.

One Two top 10 singles wasn't going to do much for it. 

Let me fix that. :)

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/record-labels/6150181/soundscan-mid-year-albums-down-stream-equivalents-nearly


SoundScan Mid-Year: Albums Down, Stream Equivalents Nearly Double, Vinyl Continues Gain
By Ed Christman, New York | July 03, 2014

While digital streaming revenue growth continues to offset the decline in digital album and track sales, the music industry still has the same problem it has wrestled with for over a decade: physical music's decline is outpacing digital's growth.

As the industry has evolved from an album-based business model to a track-based one, and now from a download-based model to a streamed subscription model, music industry executives have created measurements for streaming and individual track downloads equivalent to the revenue produced by one album. Since the average blended wholesale cost of a single album produces about $7.50 in wholesale revenue to labels, the industry has created formulas for other configurations and formats to approximate that amount of revenue.

So when looking purely at mid-year digital sales -- digital albums downloads plus digital tracks downloads whereby 10 track sales convert into one track equivalent album (TEA) unit -- the U.S. industry generated digital sales of 113.2 million album units in 2014, a decline of 15.9 million units from the 129 million units tallied in the first half of 2013, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

But in order to measure the growing streaming model, the industry has created something called the stream equivalent album (SEA), which multiplies the number of streams at the current stream pay rate to equal the average blended wholesale revenue of $7.50. So in 2013, when the average blended payout for audio and video streams was approximately $0.00375, or nearly four-tenths of a penny, 2,000 streams comprised one SEA unit. But this year, the average blended per-stream rate for audio and music videos is about $0.005, or one half a cent per stream so 1,500 streams equal one album unit this year.

So using the above formulas for the 70.3 billion audio and video interactive streams counted by Nielsen BDS in the first half of the year versus the 49.5 billion streams counted last year -- and not counting passive streams from services like Pandora, iTunes Radio and Sirius -- this year SEA units totaled 46.9 million units as compared with 24.8 million SEA units in 2013, a net gain of 22.1 million units.

That total outpaces the 15.9 million TEA album unit decline in the first half of the year, which shows that streaming revenue is outpacing the decline of overall download sales by 6.2 million album equivalent units.

But that growth is not large enough to offset the 15.6 million unit decline in physical album units when you take into account a 16.6 million decline in CD album sales and a one million unit net gain in album sales to 4 million units from 2.9 million units at the mid-year point in 2013.

"With On-Demand streams surpassing 70 billion songs in the first six months of 2014, streaming continues to be an increasingly significant portion of the music industry," says David Bakula, SVP Nielsen Entertainment. "Streaming's 42% year-over-year growth and Vinyl LP's 40% increase over last year's record-setting pace shows interest in buying and consuming music continues to be robust, with two very distinct segments of the industry expanding substantially."

But when looking at total album units including albums, track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums of 227 million units at mid-year versus about 235 million units at mid-year 2013, the industry is still looking at a decline of 8 million, or an overall drop of 3.3%.

So far this year, Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" is the leading streaming track, picking up 65.4 million audio streams and another 122.8 million music video streams, for a combined total of 188.2 million streams. That is followed by John Legend's "All Of Me, with a combined 144.7 million streams; and Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty," with 142.5 million streams. Meanwhile, Pharrell Williams' "Happy" received the most radio airplay, racking up 571,000 spins. For the top selling albums, track downloads and genre-based charts click here.


Looking at label market share, UMG continues to lead the industry in overall album plus TEA, growing its share to 38.1%. UMG is followed by Sony Music Entertainment at 27.9%, the Warner Music Group with 18.8%, and the independent sector collectively at 14.3%, as calculated by Nielsen SoundScan. But those rankings are based on which company is distributing music; if market share is calculated by ownership, the independent sectors share increases significantly. Billboard will present updated market share numbers by ownership within a few days.

Meanwhile, looking at sales by genre: R&B/hip-hop is down 19.1% to 18.4 million units; latin is down 20.1% to 3.3 million units; country is down 21.7% to 14 million units and suffered larger album sales declines than the overall U.S. market's decline of 14.5%; and rock only decreased by 12.8% to 42 million units, showing the strongest performance of the large egress. Other genres like pop and Christian/Gospel straddled the market's decline, falling 15.7% to 9.4 million units and 15.1% 8 million units, respectively.

Overall rock remains the largest genre, comprising 34.7% of U.S. album sales, while R&B/hip-hop is second with 15.3%; and country is the third largest with 12.2%.

Even though download stores suffered a dramatic decrease, with album downloads falling 11.5% to 53.8 million units, the store sector still increased its overall market share to 44.5% of album sales, up from 42.8% in the mid-year point in 2013. That's because chains and mass merchants suffered larger declines, respectively falling by 25.9% to 14.3 million; and 22.3% to 28 million.

Consequently, chain stores now comprise 11.8% of album sales; mass merchants 23.2%; download stores 44.5%; non-traditional CD merchants, including Amazon, non-music oriented businesses like Starbucks and live venue sales comprise 13.3% of sales; while independent stores now comprise 7.3% of album sales.

[areyoureadytojump]

AT-A-GLANCE

Total album sales (including digital, TEA & SEA): 227M (down from 235M)

Digital album sales (including TEA): 113.2 million (down 15.9M)

Stream equivalent albums: 1,500 to 1 SEA, 46.9M total (up from 24.8M)

Most streamed track: Katy Perry, "Dark Horse"

Most spins at radio: Pharrell, "Happy"

Market share: UMG, 38.1% – Sony, 27.9% – Warner, 18.8% – Indies, 14.3%

Largest genre: Rock, 34.7% of sales

[HolidayGuy]

For those selling well on vinyl, that's a decent profit, I'd think, given the cost of vinyl records. Not sure how much it costs to press them these days, though.

[areyoureadytojump]

Here's the 5 page SoundScan press release:

www.hypebot.com/Nielsen%20Music%202014%20Mid-Year%20US%20Release%20-%20FINAL.pdf

PHYSICAL ALBUMS WEEK 26

Rank - Sales - TITLE - Artist
01 - 1,694,000 - FROZEN - Soundtrack
02 - 406,000 - NOW 49 - Various
03 - 386,000 - NOW 50 - Various
04 - 373,000 - THE OUTSIDERS - Eric Church
05 - 355,000 - BEYONCÉ - Beyoncé
06 - 295,000 - PURE HEROINE - Lorde
07 - 286,000 - G I R L - Pharrell Williams
08 - 281,000 - PRISM - Katy Perry
09 - 277,000 - CRASH MY PARTY - Luke Bryan
10 - 275,000 - JUST AS I AM - Brantley Gilbert

VINYL ALBUMS WEEK 26

Rank - Sales - TITLE - Artist
01 - 49,100 - LAZARETTO - Jack White
02 - 25,100 - AM - Arctic Monkeys
03 - 21,300 - MORNING PHASE - Beck
04 - 21,000 - TURN BLUE - Black Keys
05 - 16,500 - BORN TO DIE - Lana Del Rey
06 - 13,000 - LEGEND - Bob Marley & the Wailers
07 - 12,600 - ABBEY ROAD - Beatles
08 - 12,400 - PURE HEROINE - Lorde
09 - 11,900 - SALAD DAYS - Mac Demarco
10 - 11,400 - ST VINCENT - St Vincent

DIGITAL ALBUMS WEEK 26

Rank - Sales - TITLE - Artist
01 - 1,003,000 - FROZEN - Soundtrack
02 - 347,000 - BEYONCÉ - Beyoncé
03 - 345,000 - PURE HEROINE - Lorde
04 - 334,000 - GHOST STORIES - Coldplay
05 - 269,000 - THE OUTSIDERS - Eric Church
06 - 239,000 - NIGHT VISIONS - Imagine Dragons
07 - 186,000 - BAD BLOOD - Bastille
08 - 178,000 - CRASH MY PARTY - Luke Bryan
09 - 176,000 - THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP 2 - Eminem
10 - 172,000 - PRISM - Katy Perry

ALBUMS + TEA WEEK 26

Rank - Sales - TITLE - Artist
01 - 3,379,000 - FROZEN - Soundtrack
02 - 1,073,000 - PRISM - Katy Perry
03 - 1,059,000 - G I R L - Pharrell Williams
04 - 1,036,000 - PURE HEROINE - Lorde
05 - 1,018,000 - BEYONCÉ - Beyoncé
06 - 755,000 - THE OUTSIDERS - Eric Church
07 - 746,000 - CRASH MY PARTY - Luke Bryan
08 - 727,000 - NIGHT VISIONS - Imagine Dragons
09 - 719,000 - THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP 2 - Eminem
10 - 712,000 - HERE'S TO THE GOOD TIMES - Florida Georgia Line