Thread: Music Industry faces double-digit decline in sales

This article mentions Carrie in their so I thought I'd post it for you all to read it :]

By Nakesa Mumbi Moody
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK-
After a particular anemic year that saw double-digit declines in almum sales and no true blockbuster CDs, the recording is looking to its fall releases to deliver som much needed mulitplatinum magic.

There's reason for some hope, as the acts expected to release CDs before year's end have in the past delivered more sales phenomenons thar flops: Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood and even Britney Spears. And next week, the fall season begins with what is being hyped as an epic sales battle, with Kayne West and 50 Cent (and Kenny Chesney) putting out CDs on the same day.

But whather any of them can sell the type of huge numbers that the industry enjoyed two, three years ago -or even last year- remains to be seen. While music sales have been on the downward trend the past few years, this year's slippage has reached alarming levels, and it's unclear whether the release of any artist -even two powerhouses on the same day- will prompt consumers to reach for their wallets.

"It's impossible to predict which artist will have the runaway hit to "save" the industry, but there are some very very strong candidates," said Bob Anderson, senior vice president of national sales at SonyBMG's Zomba label group, which includes Jive Records, home to Justin Timberlake, R. Kelly and Ciara.

"It's really the aggregate of all these releases that will really help the year 2007."

According to Nielsen Soundscan, album sales are down 14 percent compared to this time last year (sales for 2006 dipped 4.9 percent compared to 2005), and multi-platinum stars are finding themselves a little less multi-these days: For example, Norah Jones second album, "Feels Like Home," sold more than one million alnums its first week when it was released in 2004, but her latest, "Not Too Late," topped the charts with just over 400,000 sales- and was one of the biggest openings of the year.

So far, the top debut of the year was Linkin Park's "Minutes to Midnight" album, which sold 623,000 copies for Warner Bros. of Warner Music Group Corp. The soundtrack to the Disney TV phenonmenon "High School Musical 2" was close behind, with 615,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

However, music industry executives note that this year's roster of superstar releases has been particularly thin.

"What happened was the industry got off to a slow start in 2007 given the fact that it was fairly lackluster new release schedule, "says Anderson. "The real success stories were somewhat few and far between."

But even CDs that seemed destined to be strong sellers weren't the smashes that people had hoped for, including ones by T.I. and Kelly Clarkson, who had respectable but not sellar sales. The top-selling album of the year has been the bad Daughtry's self-titled release, which according to Nielsen SoundScane, has sold 1.9 million copies more than 3 million this year.

Industry optimists are hopeful that will turn arond with the fourth quarter, which has been the traditional period for marquee-name releases, in time for the holiday buying season.

"We have some very very exciting material that should be released between now and the end of the yar to increase our numbers," says Tammy Genovese, the chief operating officer of the Country Music Association, noting upcoming releases by Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts and others.
"theres always a sense of urgency when your numbers are down but I don't look at it (pessimistically)," she said. "I cannot imagine with the releases that are coming out this year that we can't exceed the numbers from last year. Will we? I don't know, but there's certainly an opportunity for us to catch up."

While both Genovese and Anderson acknowledge the hits the industry has taken from downloads, the array of entertainment options on the web and otheres technologies, they believe record labels are adapting and could eventually reap the benefits of new techology. "I predict that the industry will soon experience million-selling sales weeks between physical and digital albums," says Anderson.

-There's a picture [L.A.M.B] of Carrie in the article and underneath the picture, it says:
Record executives hope the release of Carrie Underwood's next album will help end the sales slump.