Sales vs YouTube by Bob Lefsetz


SoundScan #1:

Jack Johnson "From Here To Now"

Sales: 117,260
Debut

Entered the chart at number one! Got ink in every major newspaper!

But the single, "I Got You," has 1,157,909 plays on YouTube.

Not bad...in 2011. But in 2013, when Miley Cyrus has 173,715,141 views of "Wrecking Ball," I ask you...who is the biggest artist?

Oh, Johnson has 17,808,873 views of "Upside Down," from four years ago. And "If I Had Eyes" has 10,478,296 views in four years too. Proving Johnson is far from nowhere. But he's not in the league of Miley Cyrus, who is suddenly bigger than all the MTV acts of yore, because her music can be played on demand. And that's a good thing.

As for Johnson's fans wanting the album as opposed to streaming... Good point, he appeals to an older demo. But the trend is towards streaming, and YouTube is king.


SoundScan #5

Avicii "True"

Sales: 49,936
Debut

No one cares! Lefsetz was blowing smoke about a niche!
Well, what do you have to say about the 85,483,163 YouTube views, huh? Avicii's track is humongous, but SoundScan album sales don't reflect this.


SoundScan #9

The Weeknd "Kissland"

Sales this week: 26,212
Percentage drop: -73
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 121,832

He hasn't made it yet, he hasn't penetrated the public consciousness.

How do we know?

YOUTUBE VIEWS!

The single only has 502,929. 

"Belong To The World," released on July 16, 2013 (and suddenly it's the YouTube release date that's important, not the album release date), has 1,906,034 plays. Weeknd has a long way to go. Or not.


SoundScan #12

Robin Thicke "Blurred Lines"

Sales this week: 19,096
Percentage drop: -10
Weeks on: 8
Cume: 488,915

Yes, in the old days Thicke's album would already be double platinum. Extrapolating one can say that music ain't what it used to be, that it doesn't penetrate the public consciousness as deeply. But that would be wrong.

"Blurred Lines" has 21,874,554 views.

Bupkes you say!

But that's the unrated version, with boobies. The censored take? A whopping 185,658,025 views. "Blurred Lines" has captured the public's imagination as deeply as any track of the sixties.

As for single sales... "Blurred Lines" has moved 5,801,150 units, nothing to sneeze at, divided by ten even a greater sum than the album total, proving once again it's all about the single.

And speaking of singles... Lorde's "Royals" has sold 1,560,917 in 15 weeks. But it's got 18,881,081 YouTube views. It appears that you know a track has truly become ubiquitous and penetrated public consciousness when it goes north of 50 million views on YouTube. In other words, Lorde has a way to go...or not.

As for Katy Perry, she's already a star. She's sold 2,403,154 singles in 6 weeks. But she's got 98,799,681 views of the "Roar" video on YouTube. Which is why Katy can sell out arenas and Lorde cannot. YouTube is the new arbiter of overall fanbase, not sales.

Oh, and while we're on single sales, Mile Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball" has moved 1,184,629 in 5 weeks.

And back to Katy Perry... "Dark Horse," featuring Juicy J, sold 194,360 tracks this week. But with only an audio clip, there are only 594,466 views. Proving that if you're going to bother put it out, launch it with the official video. YouTube means more than not only sales, but radio, especially if you're an established act, predicate your plan upon YouTube.


SoundScan # 22

Jay-Z "Magna Carta...Holy Grail"

Sales this week: 15,308
Percentage drop: -11
Weeks on: 11
Cume: 989,624

Pretty impressive, right? Jay made a deal with Samsung, he's the king!

Well, no. Despite all the hoopla, the album just hasn't penetrated deeply. The official "Holy Grail" video only has 11,400,945 plays.

So what are you more interested in, music or money?

Jay got paid, but it didn't move the needle on his musical career.


SoundScan #33

Justin Timberlake "The 20/20 Experience"

Sales this week: 11,564
Percentage drop: -2
Weeks on: 27
Cume: 2,279,591

"Suit & Tie" wasn't a stiff, but it was far from the record of the year. It had 54,918,931 YouTube views. Solid, but not superstar.

Now "Mirrors" had 113,104,859 views, it was a much bigger record. But not in the league of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines." So, what we've learned is first and foremost Justin Timberlake is a celebrity, an entertainer, and that there are acts that are more successful musically.

He's certainly not as big as Avicii.

Huh?

But I thought "Wake Me Up" only had 85,503,475 YouTube views.

Yes, that's true!

But that's the "Official Video," the "Lyric Video" has another 109,047,940 views! And Pete Tong's "Radio 1 Premiere" has another 9,892,532! Proving that if it's in the grooves, images are irrelevant, people are truly that hungry to hear their favorite tracks.


As for albums not on the chart... One Direction's "Midnight Memories" isn't even coming out until November 23rd, but the single "Best Song Ever" is still in the YouTube Top Ten, with 126,725,279 views. As for sales, it's sold 879,832 in 9 weeks... Proving it's about the YouTube views. But you might say that YouTube doesn't pay that much! I'd point you to One Direction's merch numbers, breaking house records in every building they play, there's more than one way to make a dollar and if you're focusing on album sales, you're missing the point.


P.S. SoundScan sales are U.S. only and YouTube is worldwide. Proving once again that techies are smarter than entertainment czars. There are no borders anymore, other than artificial ones, tear them down (and yes, some of these albums have larger sales counts when you figure in the whole wide world...then again, Spotify dominates in Sweden!)

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I love great art no matter the medium

YOUTUBE MUSIC AWARDS

Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga and Eminem will play at the first YouTube Awards YouTube is launching its own music awards show.

According to YouTube's official blog the YouTube Music Awards will be an "event honouring the artists and songs that you have turned into hits over the past year".

Lady Gaga, Eminem and Arcade Fire, among others, will perform at the event in New York on 3 November.

Nominations will be chosen based on videos that have been watched and shared over the past year.

Users will then be asked to choose winners by sharing the nominees across social media.

The ceremony will be streamed live online with nominees for the awards being announced on 17 October.

YouTube claims to have one billion unique users to the site each month In the days leading up to the event, nominees will share official music videos, covers, parodies, concerts, interviews and fan videos.

On the night itself artists and some of YouTube's most popular contributors, including Lindsey Stirling and Cdza, will take part in performances and musical collaborations around the world.

Shows will take place in Seoul, Moscow, London and Rio de Janeiro as well as the live event in New York.

The YouTube Music Awards will be hosted by American actor Jason Schwartzman.

Spike Jones, who directed Where The Wild Things Are as well as videos and documentaries for The Chemical Brothers and Bjork, will be the creative director of the event.

I love great art no matter the medium

Jack Jones?

What do I know about Jack Jones?

I was sitting by the pool at the Flamingo and he walked by and tapped my little sister on the head, it was a family story that has lived on to this day, one of the highlights of our trip cross-country in 1966.

Yes, that long ago.

But it was still just as hot in the summertime in Las Vegas.

And here I am sitting next to the man himself. With no airs. A regular person. Warm and friendly.

So I ask him, does he live in the desert full-time?

When he's not on the road. As a matter of fact, he's got a new album coming out. A live one. Recorded in England. That wasn't the plan, he just gave the crew a hard drive to record from the board...

A HARD DRIVE?

Baby boomers still refer to "tape." That's what happens when you've got canned music at the show, it's on TAPE!

But "hard drive" fell off Jack's lips like he said it every day.

So he gets home, pulls up the recording on his Mac, and realizes the vocal needs to be out front a bit more, so he adds some compression...

Wait a minute, you did it YOURSELF?

Yup, oh Jack was self-deprecating. Saying his skills were limited. But he himself turned this live "tape" into an album that will be on iTunes. Like his Universal product. His RCA albums? He now owns them. Credit an old business colleague who had the foresight to put this reversion clause into his contract. Jack now sells them on his website.

Do you sign them?

Of course!

Who does fulfillment?

Jack and his wife do. That was what he was worried about most, that he'd appear small time.

I didn't start the conversation with writing about it in mind. But the more Jack talked, the more fascinated I became. So I put it to him, and he was open but hesitant, anybody who's been in the public eye has been burned by the press. I told him I wouldn't burn him. And that's when Jack told me his primary worry, since he was doing so much himself.

Oh, he's got an agent and a manager, the bloke who promotes his shows in the U.K. That's what happens when you're established, you go with those who can get you the dough, who you trust. Jack said that acts his age are sold as breakage by the youngsters, you need someone who respects you and can get value, which this guy does.

Not that Jack is not involved. He goes to every sound check and ends up spending all afternoon. The wet behind the ears sound guys don't think an old guy like him can know what he's talking about. "Is the piano in stereo?" Jack's been doing it so long he knows what's right, and always confounds the young 'uns with his knowledge.

And for forty five minutes before the show begins, there's a video, that Jack made in iMovie, featuring not only his songs but his life, growing up.

He said it was just fun.

How long have you been doing this I asked...

Since the nineties.

He was on a PC, but he switched to a Mac because it was so much easier. But he started with a TRS-80, even taught himself to program, but never learned COBOL or Fortran.

Huh? Nobody knows those, other than people making their living coding.

And Jack goes on to say his father was always into video, and this got him into it.

And he's into social media too. What he likes most about Twitter is the instant feedback. After the show is over, after he sells and signs CDs in the lobby, he checks his feed, to see what people have to say about his performance. That's what he loves about the new era, the ability to know your fans, to not only interact with them, but to know what they want.

Not that Jack tweets that much. He's more of a Facebook guy. He wishes he had more time.

But there was none of the baby boomer bitching, about the drop in record sales and the need to social network and be knowledgeable and dedicate time to efforts other than music.

We're just one or two years and a couple of changes behind Jack. Who's realized music is forever, and it's all about the fans, and the best way to proceed is to be hands-on.

It was refreshing.

I love great art no matter the medium

Pot not linked to health problems!

WIKIMEDIA, BOGDAN GIUSCAMarijuana may not be linked to health after all, researchers from the Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine showed in the Journal of General Internal Medicine this week (September 23). Specifically, the team found that use of the drug did not correlate with health status or health-care utilization among adults who reported to have used the drug before. The study serves to support mounting evidence that marijuana is likely less harmful than once thought.

BMC’s Daniel Fuster and his colleagues examined the relationship between marijuana use, health, and emergency department visits and hospitalizations in 589 adults who in primary care screened positive for recent illicit or non-medical prescription drug use. Among all participants, 84 percent reported marijuana use—29 percent daily, 55 percent less frequently. Adjusting for age, sex, tobacco and other substance use, Fuster’s team assessed the importance of marijuana use frequency over a three-month period in predicting health-care utilization during that same time. The researchers “were unable to detect an association between frequency of marijuana use and health, emergency department use, or hospital utilization,” they concluded in their paper.

The most commonly used illicit drug, the effects of marijuana on health have been of great interestlately, as laws—which already vary from state to state—are continually changing. At the same time, researchers continue to study the potential therapeutic uses of Cannabis, and in some cases are arguing for their use in sick children.


I love great art no matter the medium