On the surface, it might look like look a spectacular triumph. Tennessee indie rockers Kings Of Leon - who many assumed to have been in gentle decline since their part in the post-Strokes garage rock boom of 2003 - have notched up a second week at Number 1 on the UK album chart, with Because Of The Times.
Sadly, some of the lustre is taken off KOL’s achievement when you discover that the album sold just 29,000 copies last week, the lowest tally for a Number 1 album since Doves’ The Last Broadcast in May 2002. Overall, UK album sales declined by 30.5% year on year, to just over 1.8 million, one of the lowest totals of the decade so far.
A symptom of an industry in terminal decline? Or simply the natural result of sluggish high street sales over the Easter bank holiday? Record label bosses will be hoping to avert the kind of disastrous tailspin that’s been seen in America. Over there, CD sales are in freefall. Critically lauded art rockers Modest Mouse recently hit Number 1 with their album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, sparking excitable media think-pieces on the triumph of intelligent indie rock over mass-marketed pop and hip-hop (a triumph that seemed compounded when the band’s Float On track was performed, incongruously, by a contestant on American Idol, the most watched show on the planet).
Yet Modest Mouse’s album sold only 129,000 copies to top the Billboard chart.
129,000. In a country whose population exceeds 300 million. What we’re looking at here is 'popular music' not as a mainstream concern, but rather a tiny niche. That’s not to say that music itself is declining in popularity. The live scene, especially in the UK, is booming as never before. It’s thought that over 400 festivals will take place in this country between now and September. Similarly, rock merchandise companies such as Everything But The Music are enjoying record sales.
Evidently, people are enjoying music – experiencing it, downloading it, living it, buying into it – in greater numbers than ever before. But they’re no longer purchasing it in CD form. That format, it seems, is living on borrowed time.
4:25 PM | 16/04/2007
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download it all for free. fuck buying it and paying the jumped up fuck heads.
Posted by badger legs at 10:26 PM | 16/04/2007 | Report Abuse
download it all for free. fuck buying it and paying the jumped up fuck heads.
Posted by badger legs at 10:26 PM | 16/04/2007 | Report Abuse
download it all for free. fuck buying it and paying the jumped up fuck heads.
Posted by badger legs at 10:26 PM | 16/04/2007 | Report Abuse
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