If there’s one thing to assess from looking over the list of Neilsen SoundScan’s best-selling albums and singles of the ’00s [via About.com], perhaps it’s what a drastic shift from an albums market to a singles market the music biz became in the latter half of the decade—thanks in no small part to the advent of illegal downloading.
The tally of the Top 10 albums of the decade, sales-wise, doesn’t contain a single LP released after 2004. And if we’re to underscore the point even further, the Beatles compilation 1 was the best-seller of 2000, with over 11 million copies sold, while Taylor Swift currently stands at the top in 2009 with Fearless, which moved 2.53 million units this year.
Hop below to see what CDs (remember those?) folks were buying in the early part of the new millenium, and what singles ended up cashing in once iTunes and other digital retailers came along. (Hint: Lady Gaga and Ryan Tedder non-fans will not be pleased.) More »
Move over, Love: There might be a new Michael Jackson-themed Cirue Du Soleil show hitting Vegas. More »
First-week sales figures for the just-released Beatles remasters are in, and while none of the individual records broke the six-figure sales mark—the closest to come to that point was Abbey Road, which moved 89,000 copies last week—the total number of albums sold by the Fab Four numbered 626,000. . The Beatles’ full first-week sales tally after the jump. More »
You have to admit, Graeme McMillan’s scenario as laid out on his blog would make for some interesting gameplay: “Think about how awesome it would be—The Monkees’ story is—to me, at least—more interesting (and, considering that they’re all still alive, less sad) than the Beatles’ in terms of playable narrative: You have the auditions to become part of the Prefab Four in the first place (Don’t piss off Charlie Manson!), then dealing with sudden and unearned fame, before having to prove your musical chops before recording your own material with Headquarters, and then dealing with the artistic peak/commercial nadir of Head and 33 and 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee before losing members and the final split…” [I Am Graeme McMillan. / YouTube] More »
Sept. 9 has finally come, and with it comes a slew of Beatles-related material: the remasters; the release of The Beatles: Rock Band; the maybe-but-maybe-not digital release of the band’s catalog. Instead of sifting through the many inches of virtual column space that have been devoted to these phenomena, or God help me trying to add to them, I’ll just ask: Are you buying any of the remasters, or the Rock Band tie-in? And if you’re buying the remasters, stereo or mono? And—perhaps the most interesting question to this pair of eyes—did you pick up your newly acquired albums at your local 7-Eleven alongside a Cheeseburger Big Bite?
[Pic via AFP/Getty] More »
One thing that’s been piquing the interest of those who see next week’s Beatles remasters as a sort of last gasp for the recorded-music industry: Where will people in record store-lacking areas of the country (a.k.a. 92ish% of the populace) buy the albums? Mall stores are an ever-rarer breed thanks to the slash-and-burn strategy of Trans World; meanwhile, big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Target have decimated their selections to the barest minimum. Apple Corps has decided to market these reissues through a throwback strategy of its own: Grocery stores! More »
According to the tech-news site AllThingsD, Apple has a music event scheduled for Sept. 9. ATD says that the event will involve “upgrades to the iPod line and an update to iTunes that may involve some sort of social element.” But since that date just happens to be a big one for Beatles fans—the band’s remastered catalog is coming out, as well as The Beatles: Rock Band—other news outlets are wondering if this will be the day that the Fab Four’s catalog finally comes to iTunes, after years and years of speculation on the part of the music press. And if it doesn’t happen? Well, music-tech reporters will probably be thanking their lucky stars that the dusty story about the band’s digital upgrade can have life breathed into it at least one more time. [AllThingsD] More »
Headlining the latest round of details to come out about The Beatles: Rock Band—which, along with the Fab Four’s remastered catalog, comes out on Sept. 9—is the inevitable announcement of a Story Mode. Play straight through the Beatles catalog, and the game’s avatars will progress from the moptoppers plying their trade in Liverpool’s Cavern Club, through Beatlemania, psychedelia, and flaunting fur coats on the Apple Corp rooftop. (The subsequent breakup and lawsuits will presumably be covered in Allen Klein: Rock Accountant.) More »
