Numbers Look Up For U.s. Biz

U.S. album sales in 2004 were up for the first time in four years, in a 52-week comparison with 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

What's more, total sales, including digital tracks, soared 19.5% to 817 million units during the same period.

The album market totaled 666.7 million units, up 1.6% in the 52-week comparison.

But in an anomaly of the calendar, 2004 was a 53-week year. If the 53rd week is counted, album sales reach 681.4 million, a 3.8% increase from the 2003 total. Overall sales for the 53-week year totaled 831.4 million units, versus 687 million units in 2003.

Universal Music & Video Distribution remains the industry leader in total album market share with 29.6%, followed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment Sales with 28.5%. The independent sector collectively placed third with 17.4%, followed by WEA with 14.7%, and EMM with 9.9%.

Looking at current album market share for the 52-week year, UMVD scored 32.2%, followed by Sony BMG with 29.8%, the indies with 15.8%, WEA with 13%, and EMM with 9.3%.

Usher's "Confessions" was the best-selling album of the year, scanning nearly 8 million units, followed by Norah Jones' "Feels Like Home," which sold 3.8 million, and Eminem's "Encore," which scanned 3.5 million.

After 2000, when album sales were up 4% compared with the previous year, the U.S. industry went into a tailspin: Album sales were down 2.9% in 2001, 10.7% in 2002, and 3.6% in 2003.

While the industry traditionally has considered album sales its key indicator, the 2004 results show digital downloads now figuring heavily in the mix. According to SoundScan, digital tracks surpassed 141 million units for the year, while digital albums make a mark for the first time, scanning 5.5 million units.

The year ended on a positive note, with Christmas-week sales topping those of the final holiday week of 2003. That bump ended a 14-week run of declining weekly sales that had some worried about losing the first positive year since 2000.

Although the industry managed to eke out a positive year in album sales, the fourth quarter shows that "we are not completely out of the woods yet," one senior distribution executive says. "The sign to watch will be how the first quarter in 2005 does, going against the strong numbers from last year."

2004 kicked off with eight successive weeks of sales growth, and by Sept. 12, 31 out of 36 weeks showed increases compared with the corresponding weeks in 2003.

Using the 52-week comparison, CD album sales were up 2.4%. For the 53-week year, CD album sales grew 5.4% to 670.9 million units. That was big news for a format that looked like it had run out of steam in 2002-2003 and appeared to have begun a slow descent into the scrapheap of dead music formats.

Speak of the devil, cassette albums finished 2004 with 8.9 million scans, down 50.6% from the 17.9 million scans the format generated in 2003. As a percentage of total album sales, the cassette has dwindled to nearly the 1% mark.

Comparing sales by genre for the 52-week year, Latin and country enjoyed the largest gains on a percentage basis, while R&B scored the biggest increase in units. Latin albums finished up 16.4% to 31.9 million units, compared with 27.4 million units scanned in 2003. Country albums totaled 77.9 million units, versus 69.3 million units in 2003.

R&B broke its slide with its first up year since 2001, when album sales for the genre—which includes rap—totaled 197 million units. In 2004, R&B enjoyed 7.6% growth to 162.2 million units, up nearly 12 million units from 2003. Rap by itself accounted for nearly 81 million units of R&B's 2004 total, up 5.5% from the previous year.

The other genres showing sales growth in 2004 were alternative rock and metal. The former scanned 132.5 million units, up 3.2% from the 128.4 million counted in the previous year. Metal was up 2% to 75.3 million units.

Soundtracks were the big loser among genres on a unit basis, with scans of 27.4 million units, down 16.1% from 32.6 million in 2003. Jazz, meanwhile, chalked up the largest drop on a percentage basis, with scans totaling 18.8 million, down 17.7% from the 23.1 million recorded in the previous year.

New age also suffered a decline, scanning 4.8 million units, down 15.3%, while classical and Christian/gospel were each down less than 1%.

Classical album sales totaled 18.7 million units in 2004, while Christian/gospel scans stood at 43.4 million.

Titles in a number of overlapping genres—alternative and metal, R&B and rap, classical and soundtracks—often are double-counted in genre totals if they are listed on multiple charts.

Looking at current versus catalog for the 53-week year, current showed a 3.1% increase, finishing with 437.2 million units, while catalog was up 5.8%, with 244.3 million scans. The deep-catalog subset was up only 2%.