May 5, 2010 – Best sellers by Lady Gaga, Paolo Nutini, Lily Allen and Robbie Williams confirmed the resurgence of pop in 2009 as new figures today showed that the genre had claimed its biggest share of album sales since 2003 – 29.0%, up from 25.3% in 2008.
The BPI’s forthcoming Statistical Handbook 2010, set to be published on May 10, 2010, will show that four of the Top 10 artist best sellers were Pop, as were four of the top five compilation albums, including the best seller, ‘Now 74’.
Pop’s strong showing came despite Rock’s domination of the album release schedule – 40.2% of all new releases in 2009 were Rock, followed by 13.7% for Pop, 10.1% for Dance and 8.6% for Urban.
Rock’s share of albums fell from 35.7% to 31.0% in 2009, the lowest proportion of sales since 2004. Kings of Leon’s ‘Only By The Night’ was the genre’s only release to sell more than a million copies during the year, although titles by artists such as Snow Patrol, Queen and Kasabian all exceeded the half a million sales mark.
R&B accounted for 9.6% of album sales, down from 10.5% in 2008, with JLS and Beyonce both featuring in the year-end Top 10. Dance’s share decreased slightly from 7.9% to 7.3% in 2009 despite strong sales of The Prodigy’s ‘Invaders Must Die’.
Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive said: “There’s no doubting that 2009 was a vintage year for pop – some fantastic records led to a strong performance by the genre in both albums and singles.”
“British Urban talent shone in the R&B sector, virtually doubling their sales last year thanks to Tinchy Stryder, Dizzee Rascal, Chipmunk, N-Dubz and Taio Cruz. This strong performance looks like carrying into 2010 with hits from Taio again, Tinie Tempah, Plan B and Professor Green, amongst others.”
Pop also reclaimed the greatest share of all singles sales in 2009, five years after it was last the dominant genre in the market. The success of artists such as Lady Gaga, Cheryl Cole and La Roux in 2009 saw Pop take a share of over 33%, overtaking Rock singles as the most popular genre.
Only one Rock single – Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name’ – made the year-end Top 10, whereas six Pop singles featured. All of those – which included titles by Joe McElderry and Alexandra Burke – sold over half a million copies, and over 20 in total sold over a quarter of a million.
ENDS
NOTES FOR EDITORS
Sources
BPI based on Official Charts Company data.
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 020 7803 1395 / 0776 3619709 or email lynne.mcdowell@bpi.co.uk.
About the Statistical Handbook 2010
Published each year and free to BPI members, the BPI Statistical Handbook 2010 retails at £70 and is available to order online from the BPI’s own webstore at http://bpi.co.uk/shop or by calling the BPI direct on 020 7803 1395. Past editions of the Handbook are also available.
About BPI
The BPI is the representative voice of the UK recorded music business. We are a trade organisation funded by our members - which include hundreds of independent music companies and the UK’s four major record labels. BPI 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.