USA: Coldplay and Lil Wayne each defy music industry predictions with their record breaking first week album sales

Record ID: 830522

  • Title: USA: Coldplay and Lil Wayne each defy music industry predictions with their record breaking first week album sales
  • Date: 2nd July 2008
  • Summary: (FLASH) LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (JUNE 26, 2008) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) BILLBOARD MAGAZINE MUSIC JOURNALIST GEOFF MAYFIELD, SAYING: "Well there are some people in the music industry who've always had the belief that the product is price-resistant or recession-proof. Not really the case. They already have issues that they need to deal with in terms of
  • Embargoed: 17th July 2008 13:00
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  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAAY4OHY11B6AH4NDWIK2HTLJLW
  • Story Text: It's been an unusual couple weeks for the music industry, with two albums released back to back that have gone on to sell more than 700,000 units in their first week, marking only the second time this has occurred since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991.
    Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III" sold more than one million records in its first week, while Coldplay's "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" moved 721,000 copies this week, taking it to the top of the Billboard 200 chart.
    Selling almost as much as the band's last chart-topper, 2005's "X&Y," Coldplay is one of the few rock bands to enjoy this hitmaking status -- The Eagles are the only other rock band to join 700,000 plus status.
    Industry analyst Geoff Mayfield of Billboard Magazine provided insight as to why Coldplay is enjoying such success with this album.
    "Coldplay had a strong start and we expected they would,"
    said Mayfield.
    "There's been a high demand for the lead song, it's had interest driven for it by the apple itunes commercial, they had an innovative campaign to make people aware that they were coming, and they came to the store just the week after another high-traffic album happened, so all in all, they capitalized on all those factors and came in with more than 700,000 units, and it's been a while since there's been any act that's had two albums in a row with that kind of number," he added.
    With "Tha Carter III," Lil Wayne became the first artist since 50 Cent's "The Massacre" in 2005 to sell more than 1 million copies of an album in a single week. Mayfield credits the album's versatility for its strong consumer draw, as well as the high-profile guest appearances Lil Wayne has made on other industry heavyweight's recordings.
    "Lil Wayne -- very urban, but not just for rap people, there are some actual songs on it, you don't have to be a rap aficionado to enjoy the album," says Mayfield.
    "In a way, it almost benefited from some starts and stops that it had from the time that they first tried to put it out -- it's been re-recorded a few times and there have been some leaks along the way -- and the other thing was, he has guested on a lot of people's recordings and some people, I guess conventional wisdom was if you do that too much, you would diminish your own album's appeal. He may be proving that if you do that with the right records you might actually build an audience rather than detract from your own."
    With the rising cost of gasoline, concert-goers might see a spike in ticket prices in the fall, and there is some speculation that some the summer's highly anticipated tours might suffer as a result of consumers tightening budgets.
    The New York Post reported on Tuesday that Madonna was failing to sell out certain venues, including a November date at the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles that sold just 27,000 of 43,000 seats. Live Nation confirmed the Los Angeles numbers, but said the global tour's ticket sales are on target to gross more than $250 million, which would shatter Madonna's own previous record for a female artist of $195 million from "Confessions On A Dancefloor" tour two years ago.
    "You know, I don't think you rush to concern about her until we actually get to the point when the dates happen, and the people who watch the concert industry are relatively confident that's going to be one of the big tours this fall," says Mayfield.
    Other tours this fall include Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, who are expected to draw in record numbers as well. Festival tours, such as Motley Crue's "Cruefest" and Linkin Park's "Projekt Revolution"
    might appeal to consumers who are looking to get more bang for their buck as they feature numerous bands for one ticket price. But these summer tours were priced before the rising cost of oil was taken into account, and tours priced after the fall will likely be much higher in cost. As for album sales, Mayfield adds that although Coldplay and Lil Wayne have been experiencing high sales, the industry isn't out of the water yet.
    "Well there are some people in the music industry who've always had the belief that the product is price-resistant or recession-proof,"
    says Mayfield.
    "Not really the case. They already have issues that they need to deal with in terms of the fact that there have been declines in album sales for six of the last seven years, and while there's good news in the growth of digital distribution and the fact that the digital a la song market is so strong and has grown so much year over year, it hasn't made up for what they have lost in terms of the number of albums they used to sell, and those albums by the way include digital downloads, so it's not as if it's just the CD falling off the table, even with factoring in the growth of digital distribution, album sales are still declining from year to year."
    In other music news this week, California singer/songwriter Katy Perry's single "I Kissed a Girl" jumped one place to claim the top spot on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart Thursday, sending Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" crashing to No. 6. Perry's peak at the top of the chart is significant in music history as it marks the 1,000 number one Billboard single has since the beginning of the Rock era, with Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" in 1955 being the first.
    "It's not the first time there's been a song on the market called "I Kissed a Girl," I think that it is a novelty to a certain extent, but I think that there's also a certain appeal to her spunk, but it's a fun song and consumers are really connecting with it, and it deposed Coldplay after just one week at number one," says Mayfield.
    Perry's new album, "One of the Boys," debuted at No. 9 on the U.S. album chart Wednesday.
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