Albums Sales

Over recent years, trends in music sales have begun to make a change toward a more digital market. In 2009 the BBC wrote an article about the fall in album sales giving way to a rise in digital sales. Overall album sales had decreased by 3.5% over the year despite downloaded album sales increasing massively by 56.1% consisting of 1 eighth of the total sold. This has become a growing trend and 2011 became the sixth year in a row where album sales have dropped. Despite this trend, singles sales are still increasing. In 2009 152 million singles were sold (up by 32.7% from the previous year) with 98% of those being digital downloads.

One of the most insteresting things in regards to albums is that none of the top 30 highest grossing albums were released after 2000. Michael Jackson's Thriller tops the list with 110 million estimated copies sold worldwide - over doubling the next highest; Back in Black by AC/DC at 49 million.

 

Here are the top 10 biggest selling albums of all time (Excluding Soundtracks & Compilations):

1. Thriller - Michael Jackson (1982) - 110 Million

2. Back In Black - AC/DC (1980) - 50 Million

3. Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd (1973) - 50 Million

4. Bad - Michael Jackson (1987) - 45 Million

5. Bat Out Of Hell - Meat Loaf (1977) - 43 Million

6. Rumours - Fleetwood Mac (1977) - 40 Million

7. Come On Over - Shania Twain (1997) - 40 Million

8. Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin (1971) - 37 Million

9. Dangerous - Michael Jackson (1991) - 33 Million

10. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles (1967) - 32 Million

 

In the UK alone, the biggest selling album of all time is 'Greatest Hits' by Queen, which was released in 1981, and has sold over 6 million copies. Like I previously mentioned, there is a lack of albums that were released after 2000, with 2 in the top 15 - Bacxk To Black by Amy Winehouse (12th), and 21 by Adele (5th).

 

Here is the top 10 biggest selling albums in the UK:

1. Greatest Hits - Queen (1981) - 6 Million

2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles (1967) - 5 Million

3. Gold - ABBA (1992) - 5 Million

4. (What's The Story) Morning Glory? - Oasis (1995) - 4.5 Million

5. 21 - Adele (2011) - 4.3 Million

6. Thriller - Michael Jackson (1982) - 4.2 Million

7. Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits (1985) - 4.1 Million

8. Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd (1973) - 4.1 Million

9. Bad - Michael Jackson (1987) - 4 Million

10. Greatest Hits II - Queen (1991) - 3.7 Million

Word Cloud

Qusetionnaire/Audience Research Done

I have completed the audience research for my questionnaire, for which I got the opinions of 10 people. I will upload this in the next few days.

Iconic Album Covers

Since the album cover, in it's current format, came about in the late 1930s/early 1940s, there have been many album covers which have become symbols of music, and have transcended time and are still considered iconic images.

Here are some of the most iconic:

Album covers from williamyoungmediastudies

History Of Albums - The Album Cover

The cover has become an important part of the culture of music. Album covers became renowned for being a marketing tool and an expression of artistic intent. Gatefold covers, and inserts, often with lyric sheets, made the album cover a desirable artifact in its own right. Notable examples are The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which had cut-out inserts, lyrics, a gatefold sleeve even though it was a single album, The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street which had a gatefold and a series of 12 perforated postcards as inserts, and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon which had a gatefold, lyrics, no title on the sleeve and poster and sticker inserts. The move to the small CD format lost that impact, though attempts have been made to create a more desirable packaging for the CD format, for example the re-issue of Sgt. Pepper, which had a cardboard box and booklet, or the use of oversized packaging.

A number of record covers have also used images licensed (or borrowed from the public domain) from artists of bygone eras. Well-known examples of this include the cover of Derek and the Dominoes Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (from the painting "La Fille au Bouquet" by French painter and sculptor Emile Théodore Frandsen de Schomberg).

History Of Albums - The Compact Disc

 

 

The Compact Disc's format effectively replaced both the vinyl record and the cassette, to become the standard for the commercial mass-market distribution of physical music albums. After the introduction of music downloading and the iPod, US album sales dropped 54.6% from 2001 to 2009. The CD is a digital data storage device which permits digital recording technology to be used to record and play-back the recorded music.

History Of Albums - The Compact Cassette

 

 

The Compact Cassette was a popular medium for distributing pre-recorded music in the late 1970s through to the 1990s. The very first "Compact Cassette" was introduced by Philips in August 1963 in the form of a prototype. Compact Cassettes became especially popular during the 1980s after the advent of the Sony Walkman, which allowed the person to personally control what they listen to. The Walkman was convenient because of its size, the device could fit in most pockets and often came equipped with a clip for belts or pants. Compact cassettes also saw the creation of Mixtapes, which are tapes containing a compilation of songs created by any average listener of music. The songs on a Mixtape generally relate to one another in some way, whether it be a conceptual theme or an overall sound. The compact cassette used double-sided magnetic tape to distribute music for commercial sale. The music is recorded on both the "A" and "B" side of the tape, with cassette being "turned" to play the other side of the album.

 

Compact Cassettes were also a popular way for musicians to record "Demos" or "Demo Tapes" of their music to distribute to various record labels, in the hopes of acquiring a recording contract. The sales of Compact Cassettes eventually began to decline in the 1990s, after the release and distribution Compact Discs. After the introduction of Compact discs, the term "Mixtape" began to apply to any personal compilation of songs on any given format. Recently there has been a revival of Compact Cassettes by independent record labels and DIY musicians who prefer the format because of its difficulty to share over the internet.