Rock Turns The Table On Pop
Led
by Arctic Monkeys, Bastille and Jake Bugg, Rock music claims a third of
the albums purchased in 2013 - its largest share since 2010
By Mi2N [02-15-2014]
The fact that Pop, in the shape of three Now compilations (86, 85
& 84 respectively), One Direction (Midnight Memories) and Emeli
Sandé (Our Version of Events), accounted for the five best-selling
albums of 2013, was still not enough to stop Rock overtaking it as the
most popular music genre of last year, according to the latest BPI
annual survey of music genres based on Official Charts Company data.
Rock climbs above Pop
While the upper echelons of the year-end charts were dominated by
Pop releases, a mix of new albums and solid catalogue sales across the
total number of titles purchased in 2013 helped Rock's overall share of
sales inch above that of Pop's for the first time in three years.
Boosted by the likes of Arctic Monkeys (AM), Bastille (Bad
Blood), Jake Bugg (self-titled), Mumford and Sons and Rod Stewart, whose
album Time sold over half a million copies, Rock music generated a
third (33.8 per cent) of all the UK album sales during the 12-month
period – its highest share in five years. Pop as a category, which came
out on top in the 2012 survey, was not far behind, however, on 31 per
cent.
The depth and popularity of Rock music catalogue also contributed
to the genre's strong performance in 2013: Of the top 10,000
best-selling albums in 2013, over 4,000 - 40 per cent - were classified
as Rock. The revival of interest in the vinyl format, which is often
regarded as an extension of Rock culture and in 2013 saw its highest
level of sales in over a decade, arguably also supports the overall
trend towards Rock music.
Rock sub-genres
Over half of all Rock music purchased in the UK last year was
defined as Contemporary Rock (18.8 per cent out of the 33.8 per cent
figure), while 7.1 per cent of the total was A.O.R (Adult Orientated
Rock) and 6.8 per cent was categorised as Metal/Heavy. Progressive or
'Prog' Rock (0.8 per cent) and Punk (0.3 per cent) made up the rest of
the Rock category.
Dance on the rise
Another riser in the genres 'charts' was Dance music, which,
propelled by such acts as Rudimental (Home), Calvin Harris (18 Months)
and Disclosure (Settle), accounted for 8.3 per cent of the albums market
- the genre's highest share since 2006. Whereas only five Dance titles
made it into the list of the 100 best-selling albums of 2012, last year
saw this figure increase to twelve.
Bublé and Robbie swing it for MOR/Easy Listening
Dance came in just ahead of MOR/Easy Listening, which was
responsible for 8.1 per cent of all albums sales in 2013 thanks mainly
to the combined efforts of Michael Bublé (To Be Loved) and, somewhat
ironically given his ‘Prince of Pop' mantle, Robbie Williams (Swings
Both Ways). The genre was also boosted by the strong performance of the
Les Misérables Motion Picture Cast Recording.
Contemporary Urban: R&B and Hip Hop
R&B, which in recent years has been averaging a double-digit
share, accounted for only 5.7 per cent of the albums market in 2013 –
its lowest figure since 1995. This translated to just five titles in the
list of 100 best-selling titles last year. Hip Hop fared little better,
with just 3.6 per cent share of the market – albeit fractionally up on
2012 thanks to the strong performance of Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP 2
album. Tastes in music tend to be cyclical, but one further explanation
for this dip may be that a number of artists whose heritage lies in
Urban music have 'crossed over' into more mainstream Pop or even Dance
in recent years.
Speciality genres
Heading the ‘Speciality' genres is Classical music, which remains
steady at 3.2 per cent of the albums market, ahead of Country (1.7 per
cent), Jazz (1.3 per cent), Folk (1.2 per cent) and Blues (0.9 per
cent). Reggae has a 0.7 per cent share of albums sales, with the
remainder of the list made up by Children's (0.2 per cent), World Music
(0.2 per cent), Spoken Word (0.1 per cent) and New Age (0.1 per cent).
SINGLES - Pop still rules
In contrast to Rock's performance when it comes to albums, an
analysis of the Singles market, which is made up 99 per cent of digital
downloads, shows that Pop is by far the more dominant genre. It accounts
for 36.2 per cent of all singles purchased in 2013 compared to just
21.4 per cent in respect of Rock (still the genre's best performance
since 2009 however). Like Pop, Dance is a category that performs
proportionately better on the singles front - responsible for 16.1 per
cent of sales, a trend also evident with R&B (13.5 per cent).
R&B's strong performance was thanks in part to the huge No.1 success
of Robin Thicke, T.I. and Pharrell Williams' smash hit Blurred Lines,
while Hip Hop (8.6 per cent) benefited from the success of two
Macklemore releases.
COMPILATION ALBUMS - Now albums help Pop outsell Rock by 8 - 1
The popularity of Pop over Rock is even more pronounced when it
comes to compilations, accounting for nearly half of all UK compilation
sales in 2013 (44.9 per cent) and outselling Rock-based titles by a
margin of 8 to 1.
Such a performance shouldn't come as a surprise given the huge
popularity of the Pop-inspired Now range, which claimed the top 3
best-selling albums of 2013 (Now 86, 85 and 84 respectively in terms of
sales). Pop actually came in ahead of Dance, which accounted for 27.7
per cent of the comps market – thanks mainly to the success of the
Ministry of Sound range, followed by R&B (6.9 per cent), Rock (only 6
per cent), MOR/Easy Listening (5 per cent) and Classical (4.3 per
cent).
Copyright © 1997-2014 MusicDish LLC., all rights reserved.
About MusicDish e-Journal
| Contact Us
| Advertise
| RSS
| Internships
No comments:
Post a Comment