The Stateside singles success of Taio Cruz and Jay Sean, alongside strong albums sales from Susan Boyle and Sade, helped boost the UK’s share of the US market for recorded music during 2010, new figures released today by The BPI confirmed.
Britain remains the second largest source of repertoire in the United States market after home-grown US artists themselves. British artists accounted for 9.8% of artist albums sold in the US in 2010, up from 9.6% in 2009, and for 6.7% of US singles sales in 2010, slightly up on 2009’s share of 6.6%.
Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive, said, “Music remains an area where Britain can be enormously proud of its international success. This is not just good for exports and our balance of payments, but also helps tourism and strengthens our reputation abroad.
“Our increased share of the US market is down to the extraordinary breadth of our native talent and the efforts made by UK labels in investing and promoting British music around the world. We must maintain our high levels of investment in talent at home if we are to continue this success abroad.”
Taio Cruz enjoyed a spectacular year in the US singles market, recording both a No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Break Your Heart and a No.2 with Dynamite, selling more than 7m tracks digitally during 2010. Jay Sean also repeated his 2009 success with single track sales of well over 2m from Down, 2012 (It Ain’t The End) and Do You Remember. The other UK artist to break the 1m sales barrier was La Roux, whose Bulletproof cracked the Top 10 in June and finished the year on 1.7m sales overall.
Susan Boyle’s follow-up The Gift spearheaded the British album assault, repeating the stellar performance of her debut album I Dreamed A Dream, the second-biggest selling US album of 2009. The Gift shot to the top of the Billboard 200, making her the first solo artist ever to have two simultaneous UK and US No.1 albums with 12 months. By the end of 2010, The Gift had sold over 1.8m copies in the US, making it the fifth biggest selling US album of the year.
Sade also fared well with her first album in ten years, Soldier Of Love, which went straight to No.1 in America during February 2010, selling over half a million copies in its first week.
Several British acts enjoyed breakthrough album success in the US last year. Mumford & Sons capped a great 2010 with a year-end Top 40 placing for their debut Sigh No More, which ended 2010 as the fourth biggest UK artist album in the USA. There was also breakthrough success for Florence & The Machine, whose Lungs also cracked the US album Top 20 in September 2010.
ENDS
NOTES FOR EDITORS
The analysis is drawn from the Top 3,000 albums, single track downloads and airplay titles in the USA. Sales or airplay of groups which contain a mixture of nationalities – AC/DC, for example – have been divided accordingly. Sales of compilation albums are excluded from the analysis – shares are based on artist album sales only.
The data on which this analysis is based from Nielsen who compile the SoundScan charts in the USA as well as other sales and airplay data in many other countries.
UK ARTISTS SHARE OF US ALBUM SALES 2006 – 2010
2006 – 8.2%
2007 – 8.5%
2008 – 10.0%
2009 – 9.6%
2010 – 9.8%
TOP 10 UK ARTIST ALBUMS IN USA 2010
|
|
Title
|
Artist
|
Label
|
Company
|
|
1.
|
The Gift
|
Susan Boyle
|
Columbia
|
Sony Music
|
|
2.
|
Soldier Of Love
|
Sade
|
Epic
|
Sony Music
|
|
3.
|
I Dreamed A Dream
|
Susan Boyle
|
Columbia
|
Sony Music
|
|
4.
|
Sigh No More
|
Mumford & Sons
|
Glassnote
|
|
|
5.
|
Iron Man 2
|
AC/DC*
|
Columbia
|
Sony Music
|
|
6.
|
Plastic Beach
|
Gorillaz
|
Virgin
|
EMI Music
|
|
7.
|
Lungs
|
Florence & The Machine
|
Universal
|
Universal Music
|
|
8.
|
Union
|
Elton John / Leon Russell*
|
Decca
|
Universal Music
|
|
9.
|
Fly Me To The Moon
|
Rod Stewart
|
J
|
Sony Music
|
|
10.
|
Resistance
|
Muse
|
Warner Bros
|
Warner Music
|
*Dual nationality. Source: Nielsen SoundScan
TOP 10 UK ARTIST SINGLES IN USA 2010
|
|
Title
|
Artist
|
Label
|
Company
|
|
1.
|
Dynamite
|
Taio Cruz
|
Mercury
|
Universal Music
|
|
2.
|
Break Your Heart
|
Taio Cruz
|
Mercury
|
Universal Music
|
|
3.
|
Bulletproof
|
La Roux
|
Interscope
|
Universal Music
|
|
4.
|
Break Your Heart (remix)
|
Taio Cruz ft Ludacris
|
Mercury
|
Universal Music
|
|
5.
|
Uprising
|
Muse
|
Warner Bros
|
Warner Music
|
|
6.
|
Down
|
Jay Sean ft Lil Wayne
|
Universal/Cash Money
|
Universal Music
|
|
7.
|
Do You Remember
|
Jay Sean ft Sean Paul
|
Universal/Cash Money
|
Universal Music
|
|
8.
|
Dog Days Are Over
|
Florence & The Machine
|
Universal
|
Universal Music
|
|
9.
|
Little Lion Man
|
Mumford & Sons
|
Glassnote
|
|
|
10.
|
2012 (It Ain’t The End)
|
Jay Sean ft Nicki Minaj
|
Universal/Cash Money
|
Universal Music
|
For further information on BPI, please contact
Adam Liversage on 020 7803 1326 / 0780 1179032 or email adam.liversage@bpi.co.uk
Lynne McDowell on 0207 803 1395 / 07763 619709 or email lynne.mcdowell@bpi.co.uk
About BPI
The BPI is the representative voice of the UK recorded music business. The BPI is a trade organisation funded by its members - which include hundreds of independent music companies and the UK’s four major record labels. The BPI’s members account for approximately 90% of all recorded music sold in the UK, and globally the UK's recorded music market is the third biggest.
The BPI also organises the annual BRIT Awards show as well as the Classical BRIT Awards show. The organising company BRIT Awards Limited, is a fully owned subsidiary of the BPI. Substantial proceeds from both shows go to the BRIT Trust, the charitable arm of the BPI that has donated almost £15m to charitable causes nationwide, since its foundation in 1989.