LONDON, UK (BPI) - New figures released today on behalf of the British recorded music industry by the BPI show that ongoing consumer demand for British artists - coupled with the digital-fuelled recovery of the single - led to a successful second quarter for the industry.
The figures, compiled over April-June 2006, show that the growth in digital formats helped singles sales achieve their best results for six years.
2006 is shaping up to be a record-breaking year for UK acts, with British talent claiming 52 of the Top 100 albums in the quarter and six of the Top 10 sellers, including debuts from Shayne Ward, Kooks and Corinne Bailey Rae.
BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said: "The British record industry is providing music fans with a great range of new and exciting acts while the expanding digital music market is giving them an enormous choice as to where, when and how they buy their music."
Digital prompts best singles result for six years
Gnarls Barkley's Crazy (Warner Music) made chart history by becoming the first ever download-only Number One single in the second quarter of 2006. Its nine weeks at Number One also helped it become the biggest seller of the quarter.
There was a strong line-up of World Cup-related single releases, and football-themed titles sold more than a quarter of a million copies, headed by the official release World At Your Feet by Embrace.
Download formats now account for half of all singles sales, and together, single track downloads and bundles combined to more than compensate for declining physical format sales.
A total of 16.7m singles were sold in the second quarter , and on an annual basis the market now stands at 58m units - its highest level since 2000.
Weekly digital sales are now within sight of the one million mark, with UK music fans downloading 24.3 million tracks already in 2006, just two million short of the entire total for last year (26.4m).
BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said: "Record companies' enthusiastic embrace of new digital formats has helped the single find a new lease of life, and the British singles chart is more exciting than it has been for years."
The UK's Best-Selling Singles, Weeks 13-24, 2006
1 | CRAZY, GNARLS BARKLEY (WARNER MUSIC)
2 | FROM PARIS TO BERLIN, INFERNAL (UNIVERSAL)
3 | I WISH I WAS A PUNK ROCKER, SANDI THOM (SONY BMG)
4 | SOS, RIHANNA (UNIVERSAL)
5 | NO PROMISES, SHAYNE WARD (SONY BMG)
6 | MANEATER, NELLY FURTADO (UNIVERSAL)
7 | ONE, MARY J BLIGE & U2 (UNIVERSAL)
8 | NAIVE, KOOKS (EMI)
9 | SOMEBODY'S WATCHING ME, BEATFREAKZ (MINISTRY OF SOUND)
10 | CONTROL MYSELF, LL COOL J FT JENNIFER LOPEZ (UNIVERSAL)
Artist album sales continue to grow
The Red Hot Chili Peppers' first studio album for four years - Stadium Arcadium - was the biggest seller of the quarter.
And a string of strong new releases from British artists (Shayne Ward, Snow Patrol, Keane and Kooks) helped sales of artist albums edge up by 0.2% compared with the same period last year.
Artist albums have now recorded positive growth in six of the past seven quarters, and the second quarter was the largest second-quarter sales total ever recorded.
Compilation CD sales dipped again, however, though the rate of decline has slowed to mark the smallest decrease since the first quarter of 2004.
The second quarter also saw digital albums count towards the chart for the first time, and the format is also having a noticeable effect on the albums market, with more than 600,000 digital albums sold - almost 2% of the quarterly total.
UK labels are supporting the growth in digital albums through exclusives and promotions; amongst the best sellers was KT Tunstall's Acoustic Extravaganza; available only as a download or as a CD/DVD set through her own website and Live In London by Richard Ashcroft - a five track mini-album released as a download exclusive.
The UK's Best-Selling Artist Albums, Weeks 13-24, 2006
1 | STADIUM ARCADIUM, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS (WARNER MUSIC)
2 | SHAYNE WARD, SHAYNE WARD (SONY BMG)
3 | EYES OPEN, SNOW PATROL (UNIVERSAL)
4 | UNDER THE IRON SEA, KEANE (UNIVERSAL)
5 | INSIDE IN/ INSIDE OUT, KOOKS (EMI)
6 | ST ELSEWHERE, GNARLS BARKLEY (WARNER MUSIC)
7 | COLLECTED - THE BEST OF, MASSIVE ATTACK (EMI)
8 | IN BETWEEN DREAMS, JACK JOHNSON (UNIVERSAL)
9 | CORINNE BAILEY RAE, CORINNE BAILEY RAE (EMI)
10 | I'M NOT DEAD, PINK (SONY BMG)
NOTES
The figures are based on data collected by The Official UK Charts company during the second quarter of 2006; April 01 - 30 June 2006.
Figures are given in millions of units. Percentage increases refer to the corresponding quarter in the previous year.
These figures are sales registered "over the counter", through retail outlets in the UK. They are different from the BPI's official Trade Delivery figures, which record the UK record industry's sales to retail.
The BPI figures differ because they account for mail order sales and feature a multiplier effect that takes double albums into account.
