Retail

1. SoundScan's Q1: 'Uptown Funk' Best-Selling Song, Universal Music Stays On Top

   April 03, 2015 10:01 AM EDT In a slight turnaround from a year ago, digital album sales in the U.S. are up 2.8 percent to 28.26 million in the first quarter, while overall albums are only down 1.8 percent to 60.6 million, according to Nielsen Music. That digital tally wrappe ...

2. Why Zayn Malik's Departure From One Direction Won't Hurt Band's Music Sales

   March 26, 2015 2:17 PM EDT The departure  of Zayn Malik from One Direction may affect touring numbers, but it probably won't have much impact on recorded music sales. That's because One Direction's recorded music sales almost certainly would continue falling ...

3. Sony to Launch Virtual-Reality Headset in 2016

   March 04, 2015 8:36 AM EST Sony plans on putting its virtual-reality headset on consumers' noggins next year. The gaming and electronics company announced Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference that its VR system nicknamed Project Morpheus will debut in the first ha ...

4. Industry Sets Friday as Global Record Release Day

   February 26, 2015 8:42 AM EST After seven months of semi-public back-and-forth, a conversation instigated in part by Aussie piracy and Beyonce's surprise release in December of 2013 has resulted in the global recording industry accepting Friday as the release date f ...

5. Apple Doesn't Want to Compete -- It Wants to Own the Record Business

   February 13, 2015 10:30 AM EST You didn't have to look too far to spot the action at Clive Davis ' pre-Grammy gala on Feb. 7. Ground zero was table 108, where Apple CEO Tim Cook , senior vp Internet software and services Eddy Cue , iTunes vp Robert Kondrk and Beats c ...

6. German Music Market Up in 2014 on Continued Strength of CDs, Rise in Streaming

   January 15, 2015 1:31 PM EST Sales in the German music market rose slightly in 2014 for the second consecutive year, according to initial projections. This was announced today by the Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI) in Berlin and the German market research c ...

7. Pharrell and 'Frozen' Top iTunes' Year-End List, Beyonce Named Best Artist

   December 08, 2014 9:20 AM EST Pharrell 's "Happy" and the soundtrack for Disney's Frozen are the year's top-selling song and album of year on iTunes, the online music store revealed on Monday. Apple announced that John Legend 's "All of Me& ...

8. U2 Copies Beyonce (Again), Releasing Video Album Version of 'Songs of Innocence'

   November 18, 2014 3:59 PM EST After following in the footsteps of Beyonce with the surprise release of their new album Songs of Innocence, U2 are following the blueprint left by Bey again by releasing their new album in music video form . Unlike Beyonce, Bono and Co. will no ...

9. UK Vinyl Sales on Track to Cross Million Mark

   October 16, 2014 7:00 PM EDT For the first time since the mid-1990s, vinyl sales in the United Kingdom look set to cross the one million mark in a calendar year. According to new figures released by the Official Charts Company (OCC) in conjunction with labels trade body BP ...

10. News

    Australia’s Music Retailers Assn Backs Friday Release Date: ‘It Makes Sense’

    October 14, 2014 1:31 AM EDT Australia’s entertainment retail trade association has weighed in on the debate surrounding the IFPI-sanctioned global release date. Friday, according to the Australian Music Retailers Association (AMRA), is good for business. And the Aussies ha ...

11. SoundScan's Third-Quarter Numbers in One Word: Bleak

    October 10, 2014 4:00 PM EDT Bad news keeps mounting with the roll of the tape. So far this year, 60 digital songs have sold over 1 million units as compared to 83 last year. And after nine months, not one artist-album has yet to hit the million-unit mark, although the Fro ...

12. Thom Yorke's BitTorrent Release Hits 1 Million Sales, Free Downloads

    October 02, 2014 8:57 PM EDT Thom Yorke 's surprise album release via BitTorrent Bundle last Friday has surpassed 1 million downloads, according to the file transfer platform .  That figure for Tomorrow's Modern Boxes is actually about 1.1 million, according to th ...

13. Exclusive: 'Fantasia' Video Game Soundtrack Set for October Release

    September 23, 2014 9:39 AM EDT Nile Rodgers ' Sumthing Else Music Works will release a score album to accompany the new video game based on the 1940 Disney animated classic Fantasia . Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved Original Soundtrack , featuring new performances of clas ...

14. Not Just Hype: Latinos Spend More on Music

    August 26, 2014 10:50 AM EDT Marketers are always talking about music being a “passion point” for Hispanics. Now, hard research shows the hype is true -- and measurable. According to Nielsen’s Listen Up, their just released report on Hispanic consumers and music, Hispanics - ...

15. Pharrell's 'Happy' is a Rare Bright Spot in Track Sales This Year

    August 18, 2014 12:12 PM EDT If U.S. track sales in 2014 had one theme, it would be "Happy" versus everything else. Pharrell 's hit song is the only top 200track of 2014 that's outselling its 2013 counterpart. And it's the only track to have bucked ...

16. Godsmack Aiming for Sixth Top 10 Album on Billboard 200

    August 08, 2014 8:35 PM EDT Rock band Godsmack seems set to secure its sixth top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart next week with its new album 1000HP . Industry forecasters suggest the set, which was released on Aug. 5, could sell around 50,000 copies by the end of the tr ...

17. Maddie & Tae's 'Girl' Jumps Into Top 20 on Hot Country Songs

    August 07, 2014 9:30 PM EDT Rookie duo Maddie & Tae make a notable jump on Hot Country Songs with their counterculture anthem "Girl In a Country Song," which leaps 26-16 with both Digital Gainer and Streaming Gainer honors. The track jumps 28-12 on Country Digi ...

18. Mexican Star's Death Spurs No. 1 Chart Return

    August 07, 2014 7:54 PM EDT Following the death of Banda Los Recoditos' Luis Fernando Muñoz Castro  on July 25, the group re-enters Regional Mexican Digital Songs at No. 1 with "Mi Ultimo Deseo." The track sold 3,000 downloads in the week ending Aug. 3, accord ...

19. Billboard 200 Chart Moves: Jack White’s Vinyl Sales Still Sizzle, Adele’s ‘21’ Nears 11 Million Sales & More

    August 03, 2014 4:29 PM EDT This week on the Billboard 200 albums chart, 5 Seconds of Summer saw its self-titled debut full-length album arrive atop the list , selling 259,000 copies in the week ending July 27, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That sum is not only the third-b ...

20. Eric Clapton, Shawn Mendes Aiming for Top Five Debuts on Billboard 200

    August 01, 2014 8:00 PM EDT Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Eric Clapton is aiming for his 14th top 10 album on the Billboard 200 , as The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale , should debut in the top five of the chart next week. Industry sources suggest the star-studded tribute ...

21. 5 Seconds of Summer Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200

    July 30, 2014 11:01 AM EDT Pop band 5 Seconds of Summer crashes in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 as the Australian group's self-titled full-length debut album arrives atop the list. The set sold 259,000 copies in the week ending July 27, according to Nielsen SoundScan, ...

22. Why 'Weird Al' Yankovic Means Big Business

    July 25, 2014 1:18 PM EDT "Weird Al" equals big business. The comedian’s latest album, Mandatory Fun , which tops the Aug. 2 Billboard 200, is his 15th chart entry in a career that spans 30 years of parodies -- and his first No. 1. Credit an ambitious rollout in ...

23. Cyber Thieves Compromised 1,000 StubHub Accounts: Officials

    July 23, 2014 11:37 AM EDT Cyber thieves got into more than 1,000 StubHub customers' accounts and fraudulently bought tickets for events through the online ticket reseller, a law enforcement official and the company said. Arrests were expected in a case that sprawled a ...

24. 'Weird Al' Yankovic Gets First No. 1 Album On Billboard 200

    July 23, 2014 10:55 AM EDT After more than 30 years on the charts, comedian-singer "Weird Al" Yankovic earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 , as "Mandatory Fun" debuts atop the list. The album is the first comedy set to top the chart since ...

25. Beats' Battle with Counterfeiters Reveals a Mercurial Black Market

    July 22, 2014 9:05 AM EDT Last week, Beats Electronics obtained a restraining order against several copyright and trademark infringing websites alleged to sell counterfeit headphones. The lawsuit, filed July 9, ordered an injunction in Illinois against these online outlets ...

26. New Watermarking Tech Probably Won't Impact Piracy (Which Isn't Even a Big Deal Anyway?)

    July 21, 2014 3:28 PM EDT Watermarking audio files is nothing new, but a team of international researchers think they've found a way to improve it. On June 30, scientists from Sydney's Deakin University and Aizu University in Japan published an article  about the ...

27. Chart Moves: Neil Diamond's 52nd Hit Album Debuts, 16-Year-Old Jacob Whitesides Makes Top 40 Bow

    July 19, 2014 9:00 AM EDT This week on the Billboard 200 albums chart, singer/songwriter Sia claimed her first No. 1 album , as "1000 Forms of Fear" debuted in the top slot. It sold 52,000 copies in the week ending July 13, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- Sia&# ...

28. Billy Corgan Accuses Amazon of Leaking 'Adore' Details Early

    July 17, 2014 10:01 AM EDT Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan was hoping Wednesday would go as smoothly as his famous pate. Not so, as the planned rollout of full details and track listing for the deluxe reissue of 1998's "Adore" was ruined when Amazon app ...

29. The Persistence of Punk (Analysis)

    July 15, 2014 6:17 PM EDT It will be 40 years in December, 2015, since the release of Patti Smith's "Horses," on Clive Davis' Arista label, arguably the beginning of the punk movement, emanating from New York's underground in the mid-'70s, ush ...

30. Catalog Titles Take a Greater Share of Album Sales

    July 14, 2014 4:16 PM EDT People are still buying albums -- millions of them each week -- but new releases are accounting for a smaller percentage of those sales.   Looking at the last five years of album sales, current release sales have fallen 38.1% while catalog sales h ...

31. Garth Brooks to Finally Go Digital at 'a Stupid Price'

    July 10, 2014 2:23 PM EDT Besides the acknowledgement that Garth Brooks is about to announce a major tour and that he has signed a record deal with Sony Music Nashville  to release his new album, the big news from the country superstar's press conference for music ret ...

32. Billboard Artist 100 Chart Launches; Trey Songz Leads First List

    July 10, 2014 10:03 AM EDT Sam Smith, Ariana Grande, MAGIC! and Luke Bryan among others in the top 10 of Billboard's exclusive new ranking of each week's top acts Today (June 10), Billboard proudly unveils the Artist 100 , the first-ever weekly ranking dedicated t ...

33. What Taylor Swift Failed to Mention In Her Poptimist Op-Ed

    July 09, 2014 1:47 PM EDT It's not every day a music superstar pens an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and covers a variety of topics in nearly 1,200 words. At a time many artists fret the industry is crumbling, Swift's piece brims with optimism. Taylor Swift ...

34. Ted Joseph To Manage Relaunched Kalimba Music

    July 07, 2014 10:22 PM EDT EWF founder Maurice White created indie label in late ‘90s Ted Joseph has been appointed label manager for Kalimba Music, relaunched last year by Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White. In his new role, Joseph will also be working with Kalim ...

35. Taylor Swift Shares Optimistic View of the Music Industry In Wall Street Journal Op-Ed

    July 07, 2014 10:14 PM EDT Taylor Swift believes there’s still hope for the music industry. In fact, she’s “one of the few living souls in the music industry who still believes that the music industry is not dying…it's just coming alive,” the superstar wrote in an op-e ...

36. SoundScan Mid-Year: Albums Down, Stream Equivalents Nearly Double, Vinyl Continues Gain

    July 03, 2014 11:12 AM EDT While digital streaming revenue growth continues to offset the decline in digital album and track sales, the music industry still has the same problem it has wrestled with for over a decade: physical music's decline is outpacing digital' ...

37. Pharrell, Coldplay Top Mid-Year 2014 Singles, Album Sales in U.K.

    July 03, 2014 9:56 AM EDT Classical crossover act Clean Bandit had the fastest-selling single of the year in Britain with "Rather Be" Pharrell Williams, Clean Bandit and John Legend have sold the most singles in the U.K. during the first half of the year, while C ...

38. Rough Trade to Open New Retail Store in Nottingham

    July 02, 2014 4:11 PM EDT British music retailer Rough Trade will open its first U.K. store based outside of London this fall. The new outlet will be based in the city of Nottingham and follows Rough Trade Retail Group's acquisition of a majority stake in fellow U.K. ...

39. Ed Sheeran's 'X' Debuts At No. 1 on Billboard 200

    July 02, 2014 11:00 AM EDT British singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 , as "x" opens with 210,000 sold in the week ending June 29, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The set is Sheeran's second full-length effort, and ...

40. Spoon Launches Novel 'Instant Vinyl Gratification' Program Ahead of New Record

    July 01, 2014 11:59 AM EDT Fans are getting a unique peak at Spoon's new album, "They Want My Soul." Even though the release won't be out until August 5, starting Tuesday, July 15th, three of its songs will see the light early with pre-orders by way of a ...

41. Rebelution Scores Best-Selling Debut Sales Week with 'Count Me In'

    July 01, 2014 10:43 AM EDT “Count Me In," the fourth album from California reggae band Rebelution, released on June 10 as a joint venture between the band’s 87 Music label and New York City's reggae independent Easy Star Records, is their second consecutive debut ...

42. Lollapalooza Goes Cashless With Digital Wristbands, Pushes Millennials to Tap and Pay

    July 01, 2014 9:27 AM EDT Lolla Cashless is the first effort from a major U.S. music festival to use radio frequency identification-enabled wristbands for payments Lollapalooza is rolling out a new initiative this week called Lolla Cashless, which claims to be the first ef ...

43. The 'San Francisco Is Doomed' Compilation Wants to Take Silicon Valley to Task

    June 27, 2014 2:26 PM EDT At the very end of Thee Oh Sees' "You Can Have It," a crusty diatribe against changing neighborhoods, frontman Jeff Dwyer makes things personal: "Fuck you, Google. Fuck you, Twitter." The bitter sentiment isn't far fr ...

44. Tomorrow's Hits: Kiesza Moves Front And Center With 'Hideaway'

    June 27, 2014 1:19 PM EDT Each Friday, Billboard presents Tomorrow's Hits, a weekly look at new and noteworthy acts making their way toward Billboard chart success. Up this week: Kiesza, Ella Henderson and Justin Quiles. Artist on the Verge: Kiesza Kiesza Kiesza has g ...

45. Marc Anthony Leads Hot Tours with $5.1 Million Mexican Trek

    June 27, 2014 1:01 PM EDT Marc Anthony heads up the weekly slate of top-grossing Hot Tours with ticket sales reported from a string of concerts in Mexican markets during May and June. The brief four-week swing was a continuation of the Latin pop star’s Vivir Mi Vida tour ...

46. Tupac Musical 'Holler If Ya Hear Me' Not Ending This Weekend

    June 26, 2014 5:06 PM EDT The producer of "Holler If Ya Hear Me," the Broadway musical based on Tupac Shakur's lyrics, has denied rumors that the show would be closing this Sunday due to low ticket sales. Madonna Attends Preview of Tupac Shakur Broadway Musi ...

47. Beatles Mono LPs, with Delicate Remastering, Are 'Mandatory Listening,' According to Capitol

    June 26, 2014 2:34 PM EDT Five years after the Beatles' mono recordings were released on CD, Capitol Records and Universal Music are fostering the notion that to hear the Beatles music the way John, Paul, George and Ringo  did in the 1960s, a mono LP is mandatory li ...

48. 'Like a Rolling Stone' Brings $2M at Auction (Update)

    June 24, 2014 1:48 PM EDT UPDATE: According to a tweet from the Associated Press , "Like a Rolling Stone" sold for $2 million. Sotheby's called it a record for a pop manuscript.  One of the most popular songs of all time, Bob Dylan's "Like a Rollin ...

49. One-Fifth of a Percent? A Closer Look at Amazon's Prime Music Launch

    June 24, 2014 10:43 AM EDT Amazon broke with tradition Monday and released some statistics on early adoption of its new Prime Music service. Although vague, the numbers seem to suggest Prime is off to a decent start. But, again, the numbers are vague. Launched June 12 , Pr ...

50. Mister Saturday Night's First LP Cements the Dance Party's Community

    June 24, 2014 9:36 AM EDT "Brothers and Sisters," the debut full-length from Brooklyn dance party collective and record label Mister Saturday Night, is first and foremost, not a lot of things. "It's not a techno party, not a throwback party, or a funk a ...

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