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NEWS ARCHIVE
Pop Is The Most Popular Genre
Best sellers by Lady Gaga, Paolo Nutini, Lily Allen and Robbie Williams confirmed the resurgence of pop in 2009 as new figures show that the genre has claimed its biggest share of album sales since 2003 – 29.0%, up from 25.3% in 2008. Pop’s strong showing comes 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.
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.
