Adele’s 21 biggest selling album ever: online piracy to blame
WELL, OK, no, Adele’s 21 hasn’t been the biggest selling album of all time, no, but it has been the biggest selling album in one year for the UK.
Ever.
As is pointed out:
Despite all this “chronic” piracy going on, Adele’s album has sold more copies in a year than any album has ever sold. More than a Michael Jackson album managed in a year, even the good one. More than a Beatles album ever managed to whisk out the shops in twelve months. More, even, than the third Charlatans album sold in a year.
This little fact is dropped into a BPI (the trade org for the record industry) moan about how online piracy is just killing, killing, record sales.
It does seem rather more likely that record sales falling has something to do with the entire shite that the record industry is trying to foist upon us:
Jessie J, who is alright in a Nookie Bear Sings The Black Eyed Peas way; Coldplay, an act who can’t even hide their own boredom with their music most days; Ed Sheeran, a singer so devoid of charisma promoters regularly close down his live act mid-set because they simply don’t notice he’s on stage. And these are the acts that Wadsworth picks out as the marshmallows in the box of Lucky Charms.
Since they’re bobbing about on a sea of singing squadie spouses and ten year’s worth of build-up of Cowell dung, you can see why Wadsworth felt that was the best he could do. There’s people who will always be excited by music, but for big sales you need to get that ripple of connection, of interest, beyond those people and out into the wider public. The people who will buy an album from time-to-time, if it’s a better way of spending their money than a computer game, or a bottle of wine, or a chip supper. With the best will in the world, Olly Murs is never going to win a struggle with a pickled egg and a can of Irn Bru.
Produce something decent and people will happily pay for it. In Adele’s case, 3.8 million times over. Heck, a tenner for that got me more points with the wife than a fish supper would have done but a shared can of Irn Bru would have beaten Olly Murs, whoever he, she or what is.
But what an amusement, eh? Pointing to the highest one year sales of an album ever while blaming piracy for the industry’s ills.
Posted: 5th, January 2012 | In: Money Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
