Ah OK, i thought you were talking about "Synchronicity" (one of my favourite albums ever by the way)...Pyromania was 6 million in Oct 1984 (its now diamond, last certified in 2004), I checked RIAA to be sure before posting
Adele 21 - Trying to put things in some sort of context
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by Edu » Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:40 am
NothingFails:
A must to watch: BBC's "When Albums Ruled The World"
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by NothingFails » Mon Mar 12, 2012 7:34 pm
oh ok. I guess I didn't do a better job between differentiating when I was talking the Police album and the Def Lep oneEdu wrote:NothingFails:Ah OK, i thought you were talking about "Synchronicity" (one of my favourite albums ever by the way)...Pyromania was 6 million in Oct 1984 (its now diamond, last certified in 2004), I checked RIAA to be sure before posting
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by HUR » Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:34 pm
MJDanegrous is reading the whole conversation and this is what he has to say about the whole debate. This goes in response to many of the comments posted in here.
MJDanegrous wrote:
A) Available buyers
"All recent studies show that since the explosion of the iPod in 2004 the average number of hours dedicated to music is much higher and that music entered among hobbies of much more people than in the past."
The link posted by Phoenix83 mentions that budget dedicated to music went down overall - that is up to regular buyers and has to do with the first category. Below is the number of hours people 8-18 listen to music in the US:
1999 - 1:48 (hours per day)
2004 - 1:44
2009 - 2:31
http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf
That is true among older people as well, with home to work - work to home transport time being the main reason of the amount of time listenning music largely increasing, plus multi-tasking while being on a computer. That is something very new, historically up to 2004 the time spent listenning to music by people always remained pretty steady, now it is going through the roof year after year.
With inhabitants largely up from the past and each of them individually averaging a larger amount of music listenned, it can only be implied that available buyers are more numerous than previously. Doing some calculations, if we assume 230m inhabitants listenning to 1:45* hours of music per day, it means some 400m hours of music listenned per day in 1983. That number increased to 310m inhabitants listenning to 2:30 hours of music per day, which means 775m hours worth of music listenning.
*I'm using the 8-18 years old figure for the amount, for the entire population real number is lower but since that is all about proportion it doesn't matter.
The conclusion is that to fullfill the demand an 2 albums are needed in 2011 while 1 was enough in 1983
About my conclusion below:
"To summarize, Adele is the first blockbuster in years but then benefits from the situation to make it look even bigger than it actually is. It would still end being as big as Titanic or Come On Over were - pushing optimism a bit it can possibly reach the level of success reached by Bodyguard and Saturday Night Fever"
I wasn't referring to raw numbers despite what has been suggested. 21 is already arguably bigger than Come Away With Me, Eminem Show or Spice Girls albums, althrough sales-wise it still hasn't crack them. Come On Over sold over 35m and I'm not expecting that much by 21 so I'm implicitely arguying it doesn't require as many sales to be considered as big. Titanic sold "only" 28m-ish, but it was a bigger blockbuster than what this figure suggest (surely 04Wayne will agree), the single went on to become one of the best selling ever and Let's Talk About Love, sold zillions of copies thanks to the same single and Titanic soundtrack sold all that with no subsequent single. To catch the size of success got by Celine Dion in the first half of 1998 is nothing than sensational and saying 21 will be on par with that era is really not disminishing its success. Bodyguard and SNF are both approching 40m in sales so again saying 21 can possibly reach their status is already a massive argument (and is not referring to raw numbers).
B) Buyers categories
As for Joao comments, I won't enter into his ad hominem remarks (especially since I haven't been listenning regularily to MJ for over 5 years and bought Adele album myself), I will focus on the core of the discussion. Actualy, there really is a bareer between regular and casual buyers. It is definitely not a line enlighted on the floor but still there is various arguments for that. It all depends which medias the artist is able to reach. Once the artist start getting covered by serious newspapers and TV shows; not only usual music channels and music-dedicated programs, it broke the barreer. It is exactly the meaning of "crossing over", just like when a Country artist cross over the main audience - when the single get aired on Top 40 Pop radios. It is pretty much a binary situation - Lady Antebellum crossed over, so did Taylor Swift, Dierks Bentley did not (for example). Same is true for blockbuster albums, an album do not suddenly start selling way beyond usual figures by chance but yes because it managed to reach medias with a wide audience that goes beyond persons looking for music by themself.
Btw, to answer Phoenix83 of course it isn't because Adele managed to sell albums to casual buyers that she hasn't achieve to sell albums to regular buyers as well, she definitely did. We can pretty much define the level of success of an album by looking at which level of audience it reached:
- Flop album: Sells to the artist fanbase only (example: Last Dido album)
- Moderate failure/success: Sells to the artist type of music regular buyers as well (example: Last Alicia Keys album)
- Successful album: Sells to regular music buyers from various genres (example Gaga's Fame)
- Blockbuster album: Sells to casual music buyers (example: Adele's 21)
The promotion is axed towards that logic. Depending on how big/small the act is, his album gets promoted to fans only (communications on fan sites etc), or to the type of music related (TV spots on MTV Dance for Tiesto for example), or to all regular buyers (TV spots on MTV main channel, in-between music TV shows) or to the overall audience (getting spots on the main country channels, on News diaries and such).
It is all down to the artist merit to have a suffisant attractiveness to reach the highest level possible of exposure/sales (as I have been arguying for years, it isn't promotion that sells but sales which generate promotion, the circle starts that way) as Adele did.
About Iron Maiden example, actualy their fans are regular buyers. We do know they are going to buy new Maiden albums - they do buy regularily albums then, just with a lower frequency than others. Of course we all live in the same world and a non-blockbuster can still reach a couple of casual buyers for any reason, but in the music industry jigsaw that isn't relevant.
C) Piracy history
Joao is obviously correct saying that it isn't because someone can buy a record that he will necessarily do it. Isn't it the main question yet - which album got able to convince the most people to buy it independantly of the background? At any point a person is forced to buy an album. That was not more true in 1965 than in 1985 or in 2005. It is also incorrect to say now people do not need to buy an album to listen to it but was in the past - copying exists for very long. The casual buyer that gets 1 album every 3 years will not really care about the sound quality, his ears aren't even used enought to notice it. For older people we can even argue it was easier at the time to get a copied cassette than today to go on a computer, open a browser, reach a specific website and download a song.
Cassette copies influence is largely downgraded today. Below is an example speaking about piracy in 1981 (example of Finland): http://books.google.fr/books?id=rSQEAAA ... &q&f=false
- 98% of 15-19 people had a cassette player/recorder
- Blank cassettes (to copy) sales exceeded prerecorded cassettes sales (albums/singles)
- Each blank cassettes was copied 2 or 3 times at least
- 84% of people said they would buy records if it wasn't so easy to copy
- In Sweden, 5 blank cassettes sold every 3 prerecorded cassettes
If we assume each blank cassette was copied on average 3 times, it means out of 18 albums listenned to by people on cassette, 15 were copied (5*3) while only 3 were bought legally.
Overall, 296 million of blank cassettes were sold in 1983 in Europe (Billboard issue 6 Oct 1984), making it 900 million albums worth of music copied. How many of them had been used to copy Thriller at the time? Obviously several millions, meaning by the end of 84 there was likely more Thriller records copied than original. Not that Thriller was a specific case (only the amounts was bigger, not the proportion pirated/original) - I'm showing just that - that piracy was already massive and largely developped 30 years ago.
Thus, it is highly incorrect to believe people 'had to' buy an album to listen to it at the time. They did not had to do it more than today. When people bought Saturday Night Fever or Thriller, it is people they loved them enough to believe they were worth the money - exactly the same reasonning as with Adele today.
Previous figures show very well the lower quality wasn't at all an issue - most people just went on with copies and were satisfied with them. Considering in the case of Thriller 25% of houses were owning it, we can also safely assume it wasn't hard to get a friend with the album to copy it. People wanted to buy the album, althrough they do had the choice to get a copy instead.
Just like the piracy during the 80s is downgraded, the current piracy is highly exaggerated today. In the US, over 8 million people downloaded legally 'I Gotta Feeling'. That number alone shows there is at least as many people downloading music nowadays than there was buying records in 83 in the US (since apart from Thriller album none single release was anywhere near reaching such an amount within a promotional campaign).
Considering single releases can get downloaded 8 million times and that single sales are past 1 billion per year, plus people buying physical stuff, the number of different people that are spending money into music is much higher than what is often assumed. We can't realistically believe most people isn't buying music anymore while every single week 30 million singles are sold in the US alone (do people realize it - 30 million?!). Around 1983, the number of houses itself was already limited to 75m - and again, loads of people were only getting copied cassettes just like now people are downloading illegaly.
To resume this issue while catching back my previous point of buyers categories, Joao mentions a 5th category exist:
1) Fans of music overall (regular buyers largest frequency)
2) Fans of his type of music (regular buyers medium frequency)
3) Fans of an artist (regular buyers lowest frequency)
4) Not fans of music (casual buyers)
5) Not putting a peny into music (will never buy a thing)
That 5th category definitely exists. For money/age/health problems or simply because they don't care, there is a part of people never buying music. Joao mentions correctly that piracy add people to that category. Where I do not join him anymore is when we argue that 5th category is massively bigger today than in the 80s, figures of piracy from the past show that it is a very old and very large problem even way before downloads. Cassettes got copied, CDs got copied (I was myself selling CDs of Play Station games and music for 30F/about 5€ when I was a teenager at school, about 12 years ago since I had a CD recorded very early, selling about 20 of them per week), digital tracks get downloaded. It is really nothing new.
What changed is that before we were only copyed stuff we really want, now everyone can download a mass amout of music, making the problem look bigger than before while actualy the number of people illegaly downloading is in proportion unlikey higher than the number of people copying cassettes during the 80s.
D) Charts evolution
As for chart placing, it has been said that now sales are much more froatloaded, which is true and due to internet which enabled much more awareness. Soundscan-like charts also changed the deal. Most people aren't aware about how charts (and sales as well) evolved yet: They were much more spread over a certain period, that is for sure. It does mean that Blake Shelton for example would have never been #1 in the 80s unlike it did last year - on that specific week, Adele would have been above and secure one other week at 1. But that also means Gaga, which sold 1.5m in a month, instead of not reaching the top at all as this was supposed (how?!) would have been at the top for at least 6 weeks during the 80s, while in 2011 Adele was able to dislog her by the 3rd week of Born This Way release. Indeed, Gaga getting the same number of buyers but more spread through several weeks (since the promotion would have been axed on several weeks period instead of the release date) would give 200k, 350k, 375k, 300k, 200k, 125k during her first weeks. Only after that Adele would have got back bigger sales than Gaga, but Beyonce would be the new #1 (released 5 weeks after Gaga).
If we look at Britney vs Adele at Britney album release for example (to save me time i'm using HDD figures):
1. Britney - 277k
2. Adele - 94k
Following week:
1. Adele - 88k
2. Britney - 77k
Over a period of 2-weeks, Britney sold 354k, Adele 182k. Spears would have been most likely about 2 weeks at 1 before the internet age, while now she got only 1 week and so did Adele. Then consider Chris Brown, Drake, Coldplay, Gaga, Beyonce, Lil Wayne, Lady Antebellum etc, all those acts would have got 2-6 weeks at the top during the 80s (all of them and more outsold Adele during at least a 2-weeks total period). It wouldn't be hard to re-write 2011 chart toppers acting as we were still on 80s chart background and look how many weeks at the top Adele would have got (roughly without really checking likely about 14-16 up to now).
E) Conclusion - Where does 21 stand for then?
While I'm answering to points that were enlighted which are mainly "pro-Adele" making my answers look "anti-Adele", I do still want to make clear I'm hardly reducing the success of Adele. Had I to put into groups blockbusters, I would say:
A League: Thriller
B League: Bodyguard, Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Bridge Over Troubled Water
C League: Tapestry, Come On Over, Rumours, Titanic/Let's Talk About Love, Brother In Arms
D League: Purple Rain, Born In The USA, Bad, Jagged Little Pill, But Seriously, One, The Wall, Joshua Tree, Dangerous, Falling Into You
E League: Come Away With Me, Millenium, Baby One More Time, Dirty Dancing, Music Box, True Blue, Faith, No Jacket Required, Happy Nation etc.
I'm voluntarily ignoring the Beatles because the market was so much different that it is hard to compare with those albums. I'm also focusing on success upon release, not considering catalog sales.
To me, 21 is already ahead of the D League and catching the C League. The most realistic scenario IMO is that she will end there, along the likes Brother In Arms or Rumours, which has such is already outstanding since that makes it one of the 10 biggest blockbusters of alltime. Then, we will have to wait a few more months to see if the album reaches the B League, which in my point of view will be achieved if she sells 33+ million by year end.
MJDanegrous wrote:
A) Available buyers
"All recent studies show that since the explosion of the iPod in 2004 the average number of hours dedicated to music is much higher and that music entered among hobbies of much more people than in the past."
The link posted by Phoenix83 mentions that budget dedicated to music went down overall - that is up to regular buyers and has to do with the first category. Below is the number of hours people 8-18 listen to music in the US:
1999 - 1:48 (hours per day)
2004 - 1:44
2009 - 2:31
http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf
That is true among older people as well, with home to work - work to home transport time being the main reason of the amount of time listenning music largely increasing, plus multi-tasking while being on a computer. That is something very new, historically up to 2004 the time spent listenning to music by people always remained pretty steady, now it is going through the roof year after year.
With inhabitants largely up from the past and each of them individually averaging a larger amount of music listenned, it can only be implied that available buyers are more numerous than previously. Doing some calculations, if we assume 230m inhabitants listenning to 1:45* hours of music per day, it means some 400m hours of music listenned per day in 1983. That number increased to 310m inhabitants listenning to 2:30 hours of music per day, which means 775m hours worth of music listenning.
*I'm using the 8-18 years old figure for the amount, for the entire population real number is lower but since that is all about proportion it doesn't matter.
The conclusion is that to fullfill the demand an 2 albums are needed in 2011 while 1 was enough in 1983
About my conclusion below:
"To summarize, Adele is the first blockbuster in years but then benefits from the situation to make it look even bigger than it actually is. It would still end being as big as Titanic or Come On Over were - pushing optimism a bit it can possibly reach the level of success reached by Bodyguard and Saturday Night Fever"
I wasn't referring to raw numbers despite what has been suggested. 21 is already arguably bigger than Come Away With Me, Eminem Show or Spice Girls albums, althrough sales-wise it still hasn't crack them. Come On Over sold over 35m and I'm not expecting that much by 21 so I'm implicitely arguying it doesn't require as many sales to be considered as big. Titanic sold "only" 28m-ish, but it was a bigger blockbuster than what this figure suggest (surely 04Wayne will agree), the single went on to become one of the best selling ever and Let's Talk About Love, sold zillions of copies thanks to the same single and Titanic soundtrack sold all that with no subsequent single. To catch the size of success got by Celine Dion in the first half of 1998 is nothing than sensational and saying 21 will be on par with that era is really not disminishing its success. Bodyguard and SNF are both approching 40m in sales so again saying 21 can possibly reach their status is already a massive argument (and is not referring to raw numbers).
B) Buyers categories
As for Joao comments, I won't enter into his ad hominem remarks (especially since I haven't been listenning regularily to MJ for over 5 years and bought Adele album myself), I will focus on the core of the discussion. Actualy, there really is a bareer between regular and casual buyers. It is definitely not a line enlighted on the floor but still there is various arguments for that. It all depends which medias the artist is able to reach. Once the artist start getting covered by serious newspapers and TV shows; not only usual music channels and music-dedicated programs, it broke the barreer. It is exactly the meaning of "crossing over", just like when a Country artist cross over the main audience - when the single get aired on Top 40 Pop radios. It is pretty much a binary situation - Lady Antebellum crossed over, so did Taylor Swift, Dierks Bentley did not (for example). Same is true for blockbuster albums, an album do not suddenly start selling way beyond usual figures by chance but yes because it managed to reach medias with a wide audience that goes beyond persons looking for music by themself.
Btw, to answer Phoenix83 of course it isn't because Adele managed to sell albums to casual buyers that she hasn't achieve to sell albums to regular buyers as well, she definitely did. We can pretty much define the level of success of an album by looking at which level of audience it reached:
- Flop album: Sells to the artist fanbase only (example: Last Dido album)
- Moderate failure/success: Sells to the artist type of music regular buyers as well (example: Last Alicia Keys album)
- Successful album: Sells to regular music buyers from various genres (example Gaga's Fame)
- Blockbuster album: Sells to casual music buyers (example: Adele's 21)
The promotion is axed towards that logic. Depending on how big/small the act is, his album gets promoted to fans only (communications on fan sites etc), or to the type of music related (TV spots on MTV Dance for Tiesto for example), or to all regular buyers (TV spots on MTV main channel, in-between music TV shows) or to the overall audience (getting spots on the main country channels, on News diaries and such).
It is all down to the artist merit to have a suffisant attractiveness to reach the highest level possible of exposure/sales (as I have been arguying for years, it isn't promotion that sells but sales which generate promotion, the circle starts that way) as Adele did.
About Iron Maiden example, actualy their fans are regular buyers. We do know they are going to buy new Maiden albums - they do buy regularily albums then, just with a lower frequency than others. Of course we all live in the same world and a non-blockbuster can still reach a couple of casual buyers for any reason, but in the music industry jigsaw that isn't relevant.
C) Piracy history
Joao is obviously correct saying that it isn't because someone can buy a record that he will necessarily do it. Isn't it the main question yet - which album got able to convince the most people to buy it independantly of the background? At any point a person is forced to buy an album. That was not more true in 1965 than in 1985 or in 2005. It is also incorrect to say now people do not need to buy an album to listen to it but was in the past - copying exists for very long. The casual buyer that gets 1 album every 3 years will not really care about the sound quality, his ears aren't even used enought to notice it. For older people we can even argue it was easier at the time to get a copied cassette than today to go on a computer, open a browser, reach a specific website and download a song.
Cassette copies influence is largely downgraded today. Below is an example speaking about piracy in 1981 (example of Finland): http://books.google.fr/books?id=rSQEAAA ... &q&f=false
- 98% of 15-19 people had a cassette player/recorder
- Blank cassettes (to copy) sales exceeded prerecorded cassettes sales (albums/singles)
- Each blank cassettes was copied 2 or 3 times at least
- 84% of people said they would buy records if it wasn't so easy to copy
- In Sweden, 5 blank cassettes sold every 3 prerecorded cassettes
If we assume each blank cassette was copied on average 3 times, it means out of 18 albums listenned to by people on cassette, 15 were copied (5*3) while only 3 were bought legally.
Overall, 296 million of blank cassettes were sold in 1983 in Europe (Billboard issue 6 Oct 1984), making it 900 million albums worth of music copied. How many of them had been used to copy Thriller at the time? Obviously several millions, meaning by the end of 84 there was likely more Thriller records copied than original. Not that Thriller was a specific case (only the amounts was bigger, not the proportion pirated/original) - I'm showing just that - that piracy was already massive and largely developped 30 years ago.
Thus, it is highly incorrect to believe people 'had to' buy an album to listen to it at the time. They did not had to do it more than today. When people bought Saturday Night Fever or Thriller, it is people they loved them enough to believe they were worth the money - exactly the same reasonning as with Adele today.
Previous figures show very well the lower quality wasn't at all an issue - most people just went on with copies and were satisfied with them. Considering in the case of Thriller 25% of houses were owning it, we can also safely assume it wasn't hard to get a friend with the album to copy it. People wanted to buy the album, althrough they do had the choice to get a copy instead.
Just like the piracy during the 80s is downgraded, the current piracy is highly exaggerated today. In the US, over 8 million people downloaded legally 'I Gotta Feeling'. That number alone shows there is at least as many people downloading music nowadays than there was buying records in 83 in the US (since apart from Thriller album none single release was anywhere near reaching such an amount within a promotional campaign).
Considering single releases can get downloaded 8 million times and that single sales are past 1 billion per year, plus people buying physical stuff, the number of different people that are spending money into music is much higher than what is often assumed. We can't realistically believe most people isn't buying music anymore while every single week 30 million singles are sold in the US alone (do people realize it - 30 million?!). Around 1983, the number of houses itself was already limited to 75m - and again, loads of people were only getting copied cassettes just like now people are downloading illegaly.
To resume this issue while catching back my previous point of buyers categories, Joao mentions a 5th category exist:
1) Fans of music overall (regular buyers largest frequency)
2) Fans of his type of music (regular buyers medium frequency)
3) Fans of an artist (regular buyers lowest frequency)
4) Not fans of music (casual buyers)
5) Not putting a peny into music (will never buy a thing)
That 5th category definitely exists. For money/age/health problems or simply because they don't care, there is a part of people never buying music. Joao mentions correctly that piracy add people to that category. Where I do not join him anymore is when we argue that 5th category is massively bigger today than in the 80s, figures of piracy from the past show that it is a very old and very large problem even way before downloads. Cassettes got copied, CDs got copied (I was myself selling CDs of Play Station games and music for 30F/about 5€ when I was a teenager at school, about 12 years ago since I had a CD recorded very early, selling about 20 of them per week), digital tracks get downloaded. It is really nothing new.
What changed is that before we were only copyed stuff we really want, now everyone can download a mass amout of music, making the problem look bigger than before while actualy the number of people illegaly downloading is in proportion unlikey higher than the number of people copying cassettes during the 80s.
D) Charts evolution
As for chart placing, it has been said that now sales are much more froatloaded, which is true and due to internet which enabled much more awareness. Soundscan-like charts also changed the deal. Most people aren't aware about how charts (and sales as well) evolved yet: They were much more spread over a certain period, that is for sure. It does mean that Blake Shelton for example would have never been #1 in the 80s unlike it did last year - on that specific week, Adele would have been above and secure one other week at 1. But that also means Gaga, which sold 1.5m in a month, instead of not reaching the top at all as this was supposed (how?!) would have been at the top for at least 6 weeks during the 80s, while in 2011 Adele was able to dislog her by the 3rd week of Born This Way release. Indeed, Gaga getting the same number of buyers but more spread through several weeks (since the promotion would have been axed on several weeks period instead of the release date) would give 200k, 350k, 375k, 300k, 200k, 125k during her first weeks. Only after that Adele would have got back bigger sales than Gaga, but Beyonce would be the new #1 (released 5 weeks after Gaga).
If we look at Britney vs Adele at Britney album release for example (to save me time i'm using HDD figures):
1. Britney - 277k
2. Adele - 94k
Following week:
1. Adele - 88k
2. Britney - 77k
Over a period of 2-weeks, Britney sold 354k, Adele 182k. Spears would have been most likely about 2 weeks at 1 before the internet age, while now she got only 1 week and so did Adele. Then consider Chris Brown, Drake, Coldplay, Gaga, Beyonce, Lil Wayne, Lady Antebellum etc, all those acts would have got 2-6 weeks at the top during the 80s (all of them and more outsold Adele during at least a 2-weeks total period). It wouldn't be hard to re-write 2011 chart toppers acting as we were still on 80s chart background and look how many weeks at the top Adele would have got (roughly without really checking likely about 14-16 up to now).
E) Conclusion - Where does 21 stand for then?
While I'm answering to points that were enlighted which are mainly "pro-Adele" making my answers look "anti-Adele", I do still want to make clear I'm hardly reducing the success of Adele. Had I to put into groups blockbusters, I would say:
A League: Thriller
B League: Bodyguard, Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Bridge Over Troubled Water
C League: Tapestry, Come On Over, Rumours, Titanic/Let's Talk About Love, Brother In Arms
D League: Purple Rain, Born In The USA, Bad, Jagged Little Pill, But Seriously, One, The Wall, Joshua Tree, Dangerous, Falling Into You
E League: Come Away With Me, Millenium, Baby One More Time, Dirty Dancing, Music Box, True Blue, Faith, No Jacket Required, Happy Nation etc.
I'm voluntarily ignoring the Beatles because the market was so much different that it is hard to compare with those albums. I'm also focusing on success upon release, not considering catalog sales.
To me, 21 is already ahead of the D League and catching the C League. The most realistic scenario IMO is that she will end there, along the likes Brother In Arms or Rumours, which has such is already outstanding since that makes it one of the 10 biggest blockbusters of alltime. Then, we will have to wait a few more months to see if the album reaches the B League, which in my point of view will be achieved if she sells 33+ million by year end.
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by danbarj » Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:44 pm
Okay.......... I miss MJD! Didn't always agree with him, but this certainly reminds me of how informative and how deep he searched for answers as opposed to the simply promoting or dismissing because of subjective opinions and raw numbers.
"Take A Bow"... Rihanna's ONLY ballad to go #1 on the Hot 100 (also topped the R&B Chart)... Great deed for her most epic ballad!!!
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by davyboy » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:25 pm
MJD - I think you and I have ended up in the same place.
Going back to my original and subsequent posts it was never the intention to put 21 up there with Thriller, but merely to recognise that by achieving what it has today, puts it ahead of the late 90s/early 00s blockbusters like Come Away With Me.
I'd pretty much agree with where you think it stands, i.e. a probable C but can get to B if it continues to be strong throughout the rest of '12.
Thanks for a great contribution to a grown-up discussion.
Going back to my original and subsequent posts it was never the intention to put 21 up there with Thriller, but merely to recognise that by achieving what it has today, puts it ahead of the late 90s/early 00s blockbusters like Come Away With Me.
I'd pretty much agree with where you think it stands, i.e. a probable C but can get to B if it continues to be strong throughout the rest of '12.
Thanks for a great contribution to a grown-up discussion.
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by imbuemyblue » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:45 pm
Love the posts by MJD. Before, I would have easily seen the argument that the music industry being worth half what it was 10 years ago, Adele would have easily sold a couple extra million and probably more in that sort of market. However, MJD's thoughts about the number of casual music buyers being at a record high, while loyal buyers are at a low really opened my mind to the possibility that Adele might have just gotten a perfect storm for success in the middling sales climate.
I'm not wholly convinced she wouldn't have a large quantity more if piracy were a non-issue, but it is a most compelling argument.
I'm not wholly convinced she wouldn't have a large quantity more if piracy were a non-issue, but it is a most compelling argument.
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by phoenix83 » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:18 pm
What are these leagues based on? I don't see the logic in putting 'Tapestry' ahead of the likes of 'Born in the USA' and 'Jagged Little Pill', when the former only made it to No 3 in the UK and lower than that in many other countries, whereas the latter two were worldwide No 1's. And I'm sorry but only a big MJ fan would put 'Dangerous' on the same level as those albums. Also not sure why you completely excluded Dark Side Of The Moon. Ignoring the Beatles/Elvis is also unacceptable in such a list.HUR wrote:
E) Conclusion - Where does 21 stand for then?
While I'm answering to points that were enlighted which are mainly "pro-Adele" making my answers look "anti-Adele", I do still want to make clear I'm hardly reducing the success of Adele. Had I to put into groups blockbusters, I would say:
A League: Thriller
B League: Bodyguard, Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Bridge Over Troubled Water
C League: Tapestry, Come On Over, Rumours, Titanic/Let's Talk About Love, Brother In Arms
D League: Purple Rain, Born In The USA, Bad, Jagged Little Pill, But Seriously, One, The Wall, Joshua Tree, Dangerous, Falling Into You
To me, 21 is already ahead of the D League and catching the C League. The most realistic scenario IMO is that she will end there, along the likes Brother In Arms or Rumours, which has such is already outstanding since that makes it one of the 10 biggest blockbusters of alltime. Then, we will have to wait a few more months to see if the album reaches the B League, which in my point of view will be achieved if she sells 33+ million by year end.
More realistically the situation would be something like:
A League: Thriller
B League: Bodyguard, Saturday Night Fever, Sgt Pepper, Bridge Over Troubled Water, 21, Dark Side Of The Moon, Rumours
C League: Come On Over, Titanic/Let's Talk About Love, Brothers In Arms, Abbey Road, Blue Hawaii (Elvis), Jagged Little Pill, Born In The USA, Bad, Grease, Purple Rain
Yup.
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by joao » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:24 pm
Okay, I´m fine with 21 bot being as big as Thriller and a few more classic albums of the past. I never argued it was that big, to start with. My argument was that none of these albums would have been as big as they were if released in a market with today´s conditions - including Thriller. It would have never sold 50 million copies today, even if it had even more cultural impact then it had in the 80´s.
The fact that the total number of people buyng music today might not be so different from that of the 80´s is completely meaningless... people are buyng music, but in a different way. It sounds like intellectual malabarism to sugest the conditions 21 is facing now are the same Thriller faced in the 80s. Imagine there was an universe of 200 million "casual buyers" buyng 2 albums year in the 80´s, and an universe of 200 million "casual buyers" buyng just 1 album a year now. The total number of casual buyers is the same, but it doesn´t changed the fact that it is twice as difficult to sell albums to those people since they are buyng less.
There´s no such thing as a "casual buyer" bareer... MJ Dangerous argues that Lady Gaga´s The Fame has sold mainly to regular music buyers. What´s the evidence? Where´s the line when we can say an artist started to sell to "non-regular" buyers? There isn´t such thing. Both The Fame and 21 sold to non-regular buyers - but in different numbers. The proportion might be the same, and who knows, perhaps even bigger for The Fame, since Lady Gaga has become a bigger celebrity among non-music fans then Adele. If 21´s sales had collapsed in January, like some people were predicting, and the album ended up with an already nice number of 6 million dropping out of the top 40, would you say it had not crossed the non-regular buyers bareer? It would certainly look so, even tough its 2011 performance would have still been identical.
I´d like to read what MJ thinks about the fact that diamond albums were relatively common in the 80´s and 90´s - as opposed to the second half of the 00´s, when we got NO diamond album at all. If the conditions for blockbuster albums to develop was really the same as it was in the previous decades, then the only rational explanation would be an enormous collapse in the quality of the material released today - which would be an extremely subjective explanation. There is a lot of crap released today, but so was it in the 80´s and 90´s. We had albums like MC Hammer going diamond - when in today´s market he would have been more like Flo Rida and LMFAO (a couple of megaselling singles and the album strugling to go gold). The 90´s teen pop invasion of the likes of BSB and N Sync has been an all time low in music quality for me, but it still didn´t keep those artists from getting multiple diamond albums. So the "Adele has not big competition" can´t be an argument - as much as I detest Katy Perry and Rihanna, they are no worse then BSB, N Sync and MC Hammer.
As for the argument about Adele being exposed in medias where other artists aren´t, and thus reaching a bigger audience who is not usually interested in music - I don´t get it. Wasn´t the argument last year that other stars with lower sales then Adele (for example, Lady Gaga) could still be considered bigger then her, because they supposedly had more "cultural impact" and stuff like that? Adele is still pretty much a music item only. You don´t see her in other medias, which aren´t devoted to the music public. She did get some headlines outside of the music world for her 6 grammy wins - but that was more then a year since her album was slayng constantly. 21 smashed since day 1 - when most people didn´t even know who Adele was, and RITD was strugling to reach a Top 40 place on radio charts. It´s nuts to affirm she benefited from exposure other artists didn´t get. It is her rare sucess that generated her headlines - and not the other way around. She is in the papers because she is selling - and not selling because she is in the papers.
The fact that the total number of people buyng music today might not be so different from that of the 80´s is completely meaningless... people are buyng music, but in a different way. It sounds like intellectual malabarism to sugest the conditions 21 is facing now are the same Thriller faced in the 80s. Imagine there was an universe of 200 million "casual buyers" buyng 2 albums year in the 80´s, and an universe of 200 million "casual buyers" buyng just 1 album a year now. The total number of casual buyers is the same, but it doesn´t changed the fact that it is twice as difficult to sell albums to those people since they are buyng less.
There´s no such thing as a "casual buyer" bareer... MJ Dangerous argues that Lady Gaga´s The Fame has sold mainly to regular music buyers. What´s the evidence? Where´s the line when we can say an artist started to sell to "non-regular" buyers? There isn´t such thing. Both The Fame and 21 sold to non-regular buyers - but in different numbers. The proportion might be the same, and who knows, perhaps even bigger for The Fame, since Lady Gaga has become a bigger celebrity among non-music fans then Adele. If 21´s sales had collapsed in January, like some people were predicting, and the album ended up with an already nice number of 6 million dropping out of the top 40, would you say it had not crossed the non-regular buyers bareer? It would certainly look so, even tough its 2011 performance would have still been identical.
I´d like to read what MJ thinks about the fact that diamond albums were relatively common in the 80´s and 90´s - as opposed to the second half of the 00´s, when we got NO diamond album at all. If the conditions for blockbuster albums to develop was really the same as it was in the previous decades, then the only rational explanation would be an enormous collapse in the quality of the material released today - which would be an extremely subjective explanation. There is a lot of crap released today, but so was it in the 80´s and 90´s. We had albums like MC Hammer going diamond - when in today´s market he would have been more like Flo Rida and LMFAO (a couple of megaselling singles and the album strugling to go gold). The 90´s teen pop invasion of the likes of BSB and N Sync has been an all time low in music quality for me, but it still didn´t keep those artists from getting multiple diamond albums. So the "Adele has not big competition" can´t be an argument - as much as I detest Katy Perry and Rihanna, they are no worse then BSB, N Sync and MC Hammer.
As for the argument about Adele being exposed in medias where other artists aren´t, and thus reaching a bigger audience who is not usually interested in music - I don´t get it. Wasn´t the argument last year that other stars with lower sales then Adele (for example, Lady Gaga) could still be considered bigger then her, because they supposedly had more "cultural impact" and stuff like that? Adele is still pretty much a music item only. You don´t see her in other medias, which aren´t devoted to the music public. She did get some headlines outside of the music world for her 6 grammy wins - but that was more then a year since her album was slayng constantly. 21 smashed since day 1 - when most people didn´t even know who Adele was, and RITD was strugling to reach a Top 40 place on radio charts. It´s nuts to affirm she benefited from exposure other artists didn´t get. It is her rare sucess that generated her headlines - and not the other way around. She is in the papers because she is selling - and not selling because she is in the papers.
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by joao » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:30 pm
Perhaps, Jagged Little Pill is being underrated because later Alanis material wasn´t so sucessful. But a person who was witnessing her sucess in the JLP era couldn´t predict that, just like a person who witnessed Thriller sucess in the 80´s couldn´t have predicted MJ would remain sucessful for years to come. The media will always regard as bigger classics those albums from artists that managed to last. If Adele remains a very popular artists for many years, "19" will be mentioned in the future as one of the classics of 2008. In a different universe where 21 had flopped like Duffy´s sophomore album, "19" would be forgotten as a moderately sucessful album from a less known female act in 2008. That is the problem in comparing the achievements of current charting albums to those of older albums, which we can look from an outsider´s perspective, and not like a current witness.phoenix83 wrote:What are these leagues based on? I don't see the logic in putting 'Tapestry' ahead of the likes of 'Born in the USA' and 'Jagged Little Pill', when the former only made it to No 3 in the UK and lower than that in many other countries, whereas the latter two were worldwide No 1's. And I'm sorry but only a big MJ fan would put 'Dangerous' on the same level as those albums. Also not sure why you completely excluded Dark Side Of The Moon. Ignoring the Beatles/Elvis is also unacceptable in such a list.
More realistically the situation would be something like:
A League: Thriller
B League: Bodyguard, Saturday Night Fever, Sgt Pepper, Bridge Over Troubled Water, 21, Dark Side Of The Moon, Rumours
C League: Come On Over, Titanic/Let's Talk About Love, Brothers In Arms, Abbey Road, Blue Hawaii (Elvis), Jagged Little Pill, Born In The USA, Bad, Grease, Purple Rain
Yup.
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by NothingFails » Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:24 am
Tapestry like it or not belongs in the B/C list of classic selling albums. It may have only hit #3 in the UK, but in the US it shattered records when it came out and until Whitney came along remained the top selling female album of all time.
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by phoenix83 » Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:19 pm
I agree it is a classic, but when I am making such a list, I go by global performance, not just US. Otherwise the list is not fully accurate.NothingFails wrote:Tapestry like it or not belongs in the B/C list of classic selling albums. It may have only hit #3 in the UK, but in the US it shattered records when it came out and until Whitney came along remained the top selling female album of all time.
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by Euromillions » Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:58 pm
Excellent post, joao. I also just don't 'get' the 'no competition' argument. The fact that she's destroying the competition doesn't necessarily mean the competition isn't as strong as it was in any other era. The '21' era is just, for the times in which we live, so freakishly and outlandishly successful it is probably giving the wrong impression.
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by rundmck » Fri Mar 16, 2012 11:04 pm
I posted this in the Adele forum, but I thought it would also be useful here, where people are debating the relative merits of 21 to other historic albums. These records have been set by beating all albums ever released, or every album by a solo artist etc. Obviously other albums have their own records, but the sheer volume of 21's should make for interesting (UK) comparisons.
rundmck wrote:OK guys, so I thought I would try to put together a list of Adele's UK chart records, as it makes impressive reading. Obviously there are loads of other "round the world" records, but this is just the UK ones. I've tried to do it in as easy to read system as possible (as there are a lot of records). Everything relates to the album 21 unless stated. Now, before you read it:
I am NOT suggesting this list is infallible. There may well be additions. There may be the odd inaccuracy. I hope not, but there were one or two I couldn't be sure of. Plus there are 2 "soon to be achieved" records. If you do think something should be added, or is incorrect, relax, take a deep breath, then mention it in a pleasant manner. Thankyou!
ADELE UK RECORDS FROM THE 21 ERA
Biggest selling album:
- ever by a female
- ever by a solo artist (in a few weeks!)
- ever in digital sales
- of 21st century
Most weeks at no.1:
- by a female (21 wks)
- by a solo artist (21 wks)
- by UK female in career (22 wks)
- consecutively by a female artist (11 wks)
Biggest calendar year sales:
- one album (21, 2011, 3.8 million)
- all albums (2011, 5.0 million, ~5.2 if including LATRAH)
Most consecutive:
- top 10 weeks by female artist or solo artist
- weeks over 100k (12 wks)
- weeks over 20k (52 wks)
Most total weeks:
- over 100k (14)
- over 20k (57 up to 18/03/2012)
- in top 10 (by UK female. All time record "Tubular bells" 74 wks)
Fastest album ever to:
- 2m (by female w/Dido)
- 3m (all)
- 4m (all)
Biggest selling single:
- by UK female ever (SLY)
- digital single ever (SLY)
- by female artist in 21st century (SLY)
- no.2 by UK female ever (RITD)
- no.2 by solo artist ever (??? RITD ???)
- non top 10 single ever (SFTTR in a few weeks!)
Only female ever with 2 top 5 singles & albums concurrently (only non-Beatle ever)
Most separate 'runs' at no 1 (6)
Studio album with longest time between release and 1 million selling year (19)
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by nibblet » Fri Mar 16, 2012 11:24 pm
Re: MJDangerous Post
Whilst I don't disagree with 'Thriller' being in a league of its own, MJDangerous fails to recognise that over 50% of the sales for 'Thriller' came after the release of its follow-up 'Bad'.
The issue of 'back-catalogue' sales should not be overlooked.
Whilst I don't disagree with 'Thriller' being in a league of its own, MJDangerous fails to recognise that over 50% of the sales for 'Thriller' came after the release of its follow-up 'Bad'.
The issue of 'back-catalogue' sales should not be overlooked.
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by WolfSpear » Fri Mar 16, 2012 11:27 pm
It's only a third of its sales since the release of Bad. It's only clocked in 10 million more in sales since 1984.nibblet wrote:Re: MJDangerous Post
Whilst I don't disagree with 'Thriller' being in a league of its own, MJDangerous fails to recognise that over 50% of the sales for 'Thriller' came after the release of its follow-up 'Bad'.
The issue of 'back-catalogue' sales should not be overlooked.
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by stevyy » Fri Mar 16, 2012 11:29 pm
and yet no other album in the history of music has sold even close to what Thriller did. Thriller's total sales are more than 20 milllion copies ahead of the second biggest selling album of all times.nibblet wrote:Re: MJDangerous Post
Whilst I don't disagree with 'Thriller' being in a league of its own, MJDangerous fails to recognise that over 50% of the sales for 'Thriller' came after the release of its follow-up 'Bad'.
The issue of 'back-catalogue' sales should not be overlooked.
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by Euromillions » Fri Mar 16, 2012 11:34 pm
To be fair, that's still a substantial number.WolfSpear wrote:It's only a third of its sales since the release of Bad. It's only clocked in 10 million more in sales since 1984.nibblet wrote:Re: MJDangerous Post
Whilst I don't disagree with 'Thriller' being in a league of its own, MJDangerous fails to recognise that over 50% of the sales for 'Thriller' came after the release of its follow-up 'Bad'.
The issue of 'back-catalogue' sales should not be overlooked.
PS I kind of agree with Paul Grein's take on making comparisons. Thanks to arab for spotting this article. I'm confident '21' will be top of Grein's list by the end of the year. And still no sign of a re-release...
http://music.yahoo.com/blogs/chart-watc ... 52729.htmlChart Watch Extra: Top Albums Of Last 10 Years
Adele's 21 tops the 8 million mark in U.S. sales this week. After just a little more than a year (55 weeks, to be precise), it's already the fourth best-selling album of the last 10 years, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Only Norah Jones' Come Away With Me, Eminem's The Eminem Show and Usher's Confessions have sold more copies in the last 10 years.
Adele and Jones both appeal to an "upper-demo," adult contemporary audience, though Adele has also broken through to a young, singles-buying demographic with three #1 hits on the Hot 100. (By contrast, Jones' highest-charting single to date, "Don't Know Why," peaked at #30).
Nielsen SoundScan has tracked sales for Billboard since 1991. It maintains a running list of the 200 best-selling albums in its history, but that list is dominated by albums from the 1990s and early 2000s, when overall sales were much more robust than they are today. Phenomenal hits like 21 were much more common back then. It's almost unfair to compare albums from that era to albums from the last decade. So I extracted this list, of the best-selling albums of the last 10 years, from Nielsen SoundScan's larger list. Now we're comparing apples to apples.
4. Adele, 21, 8,090,000. This is the best-selling album of the last 10 years by an artist who was born outside the U.S. Runners-up in that category are Nickelback's All The Right Reasons and Avril Lavigne's Let Go. The album has spawned three #1 hits: "Rolling In The Deep," "Someone Like You" and "Set Fire To The Rain." It won a Grammy as Album of the Year. Released: February 2011. Top 200 rank: #39.
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by NothingFails » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:36 am
You keep crying "shade" that people are throwing on Adele... but to say that Katy and Rihanna are as good as The Police, Prince and Springsteen is completely insulting to those three iconic legendary acts. No one here has "hated on" or "thrown shade" on Adele even though you keep crying that everyone is doing so (if you're going to lose sleep and cry over an artist, do it over someone who got dropped because their sales are so poor, not the first artist since 2004 to sell 8 million in the US), but you just threw shade on Prince and Springsteen big time by even suggesting someone like Katy Perry has as much talent.Euromillions wrote:Excellent post, joao. I also just don't 'get' the 'no competition' argument. The fact that she's destroying the competition doesn't necessarily mean the competition isn't as strong as it was in any other era. The '21' era is just, for the times in which we live, so freakishly and outlandishly successful it is probably giving the wrong impression.
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by stevyy » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:51 am
wise words once again!NothingFails wrote:
You keep crying "shade" that people are throwing on Adele... but to say that Katy and Rihanna are as good as The Police, Prince and Springsteen is completely insulting to those three iconic legendary acts. No one here has "hated on" or "thrown shade" on Adele even though you keep crying that everyone is doing so (if you're going to lose sleep and cry over an artist, do it over someone who got dropped because their sales are so poor, not the first artist since 2004 to sell 8 million in the US), but you just threw shade on Prince and Springsteen big time by even suggesting someone like Katy Perry has as much talent.
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by Euromillions » Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:08 am
Oh my. And you accuse me of crying and losing sleep?NothingFails wrote:You keep crying "shade" that people are throwing on Adele... but to say that Katy and Rihanna are as good as The Police, Prince and Springsteen is completely insulting to those three iconic legendary acts. No one here has "hated on" or "thrown shade" on Adele even though you keep crying that everyone is doing so (if you're going to lose sleep and cry over an artist, do it over someone who got dropped because their sales are so poor, not the first artist since 2004 to sell 8 million in the US), but you just threw shade on Prince and Springsteen big time by even suggesting someone like Katy Perry has as much talent.Euromillions wrote:Excellent post, joao. I also just don't 'get' the 'no competition' argument. The fact that she's destroying the competition doesn't necessarily mean the competition isn't as strong as it was in any other era. The '21' era is just, for the times in which we live, so freakishly and outlandishly successful it is probably giving the wrong impression.
Springsteen is the same talented artists he always was and he only beat Adele by 1k inhis first week of release whereas '21' was in its 54th and look at his HDD predictions this week. I really hope that isn't the reason for your post, given your avatar.
PS I wasn't talking about 'how good' the artists are as that's always going to be a subjective argument but more about the potential for sales the rivals have. It's not rocket science. And has anybody ever proved a correlation between an artist's talent and sales? If that were true an artist like Van Morrison would be up there with all the legendary acts you mention. IMO I hasten to add, given the subjective nature of such an appraisal...
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by davyboy » Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:43 pm
I agree guys you've got to keep the subjective stuff out of it.
There's no way of measuring the quality of competition which is why we keep hitting a dead end with that bit of discussion.
"The Police were better than Coldplay"....there's just no way of measuring the truth of this statement.
Markets react in the way they do to artists for all sorts of reasons and all the posts trying to make the claim that 80s music was "stronger than" 2010s music are heavy on opinion but very thin on facts.
If people think by saying this I'm trying to say that 21>Thriller I'm not...I'm just saying don't use that argument as it's a p1ss poor one.
There's no way of measuring the quality of competition which is why we keep hitting a dead end with that bit of discussion.
"The Police were better than Coldplay"....there's just no way of measuring the truth of this statement.
Markets react in the way they do to artists for all sorts of reasons and all the posts trying to make the claim that 80s music was "stronger than" 2010s music are heavy on opinion but very thin on facts.
If people think by saying this I'm trying to say that 21>Thriller I'm not...I'm just saying don't use that argument as it's a p1ss poor one.
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by joao » Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:55 pm
As far as I know, Euro has never sugested in this thread that Katy and Rihanna are comparable to Springsteen and Prince musicwise. But it has become traditional for Nothingfails to put arguments on other people´s mouths and then overreact against something that has not even been said.NothingFails wrote:You keep crying "shade" that people are throwing on Adele... but to say that Katy and Rihanna are as good as The Police, Prince and Springsteen is completely insulting to those three iconic legendary acts. No one here has "hated on" or "thrown shade" on Adele even though you keep crying that everyone is doing so (if you're going to lose sleep and cry over an artist, do it over someone who got dropped because their sales are so poor, not the first artist since 2004 to sell 8 million in the US), but you just threw shade on Prince and Springsteen big time by even suggesting someone like Katy Perry has as much talent.Euromillions wrote:Excellent post, joao. I also just don't 'get' the 'no competition' argument. The fact that she's destroying the competition doesn't necessarily mean the competition isn't as strong as it was in any other era. The '21' era is just, for the times in which we live, so freakishly and outlandishly successful it is probably giving the wrong impression.
I´d like to know if you think Milli Vanilli, Vanila Ice, MC Hammer and N Sync were also on Springsteen´s and Prince´s level. They all had diamond albums. I´d rather hear a Katy Perry or a Rihanna album then any of those aforementioned artists (even tough everyone in this thread knows I´m far from being a fan
).
Which just makes the whole argument about "competition" even more ridiculous. It´s not like only the extremely talented artists were suceeding in the 80´s and 90´s. In fact, those were the best eras if you wanted to suceed with disposable and manufactured pop.
So the argument about today´s competition being "too weak" has been discarded... skip this, please.
It is ridiculously harder to have a diamond album today, while it was relatively common feat in the 80´s and 90´s (either for extremely talented legendary acts or disposable manufactured garbage), so in this perspective Adele´s achievement (she is not diamond yet, but is there someone who seriously insist in doubt at this point?
) far bigger then any of the 90´s and 00´s diamond albums, whatever perspective you look at it. The rest is just mental masturbation for those who invent ridiculously complex argument to deny something that is just too freaking obvious.- joao
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by NothingFails » Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:26 pm
He tried to argue that Adele's quote on quote "competition" is just as strong as those Michael had in his day. Katy and Rihanna make fun pop music no doubt, but come on... compared to some of the art Bruce and Prince have made? Both of those guys are Hall of Famers who command respect. Katy and Rihanna's equivilent from that era was someone like Sheena Easton.rundmck wrote:Where did someone say that Perry and Rihanna are as good as Springsteen, Police & Prince? I can't find it.
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