The Music Execs who Cried Wolf

This has become somewhat of a hobby for me because I have never heard any single group enjoy the kind of success the record companies do and complain as much as they do about sagging sales.

The record companies were rolling around in money likes swine do in mud about seven years ago. Sales and profits had never been higher, let’s run down a few of the top sellers from 2000:

• ’NSyc No Strings Attached : 9.9 million copies


• Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP : 7.9 million


• Britney Spears Oops!...I Did it Again: 7.9 million


• Creed Human Clay: 6.6 million


• Santana Supernatural: 5.9 million


• The Beatles 1s: 5.1 million


• Nelly Country Grammar: 5.1 million


• Backstreet Boys Black and Blue: 4.3 million


• Dr. Dre 2001: 2.4 million


• Destiny’s Child The Writing’s on the Wall: 3.8 million

These were impressive numbers, record numbers in fact. Never had so many albums had such high sales, and this was during the “Napster” age. So let’s review this year’s sagging sales:

• Mariah Carey The Emancipation of Mimi: 5.0 million copies


• 50 Cent The Massacre: 4.9 million


• Kelly Clarkson Breakaway: 3.5 million


• Green Day American Idiot: 3.4 million


• Black Eyed Peas Monkey Business: 3.0 million


• Coldplay X&Y: 2.6 million


• Rascal Flatts Feels Like Today: 2.5 million


• Gwen Stefani Love, Angel, Music, Baby: 2.5 million


• Kanye West Late Registration: 2.4 million


• The Game The Documentary: 2.3 million

These numbers reflect CD sales not digital downloads. So let the truth be heard, with the wild popularity of Apple’s iPod and iTunes digital downloads jumped 150% in 2005 as consumers bought 352 million of them. To push the total numbers up a wee bit more, ring tone sales totaled about $600 million dollars. Think of that, these little “ditties” aren’t albums or even songs but about thirty seconds of a song to be played as a ringer.

These companies had to battle such acts as Payola schemes, copy protection (root-kits in some cases) and filed hundreds of lawsuits against alleged “music pirates”. To further contribute to sagging sales was the popularity of downloading singles from music services rather than the entire album. I am afraid the days of making “albums” are long gone with a few exceptions (Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois was somewhat of a concept album). Make the single, get it aired a billion times through payola scams, have these consumers download that single and fill the rest of the album with crap so they have enough to put a disc on the shelf.

It’s still our fault according to them, we’re (consumers) aren’t giving them enough of our money. Never mind that wages have not increased much, energy prices have sky rocketed, healthcare prices have erupted and the price of education has as well. Oh yea, they’ll sue you with no hesitation or remorse.