SALES BY TYPE OF MUSIC

Sales by Type of Music Albums

Pop replaces Rock as most popular genre

Pop artists dominated the upper reaches of the chart with seven of the top 10 best sellers of the year classified as such, including titles by Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Jessie J. As a result, Pops share increased from 30.9% to over a third of the market (33.6%), its highest since 1999, and overtook Rock in the process. Rocks share of sales fell to its lowest in eight years, dipping below 30% for the first time since 2003. There was a distinct lack of big sellers in 2011, with Coldplay and Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds the only artists from the genre to have titles placed in the combined top 20.

The huge success of Michael Bubls Christmas album (the second biggest seller of the year) gave the MOR genre a boost in 2011, its share rising from 7.5% to 7.9%. There were also solid sales from artists such as Susan Boyle, Rumer and Alfie Boe. Dance, Hip Hop and Classical all saw their share of sales fall, although Folks rose to its highest of the century, with popular titles from artists such as Laura Marling and Bellowhead helping it up to 1.6%. Blues also had something of a banner year thanks to new albums from Hugh Laurie and Seasick Steve.

Noel Gallagher
Album Sales by Genre (% units)
2002 Pop Rock R&B MOR/Easy Listening Dance Hip Hop Classical Country Folk Jazz Blues Reggae Childrens World Spoken Word New Age Total 30.3 31.0 7.4 6.1 9.5 5.1 3.5 1.5 1.4 2.0 0.3 0.7 0.3 0.4 0.1 0.1 100 2003 31.2 29.2 8.4 6.4 7.2 5.5 3.8 1.8 1.2 2.6 0.3 1.5 0.2 0.5 0.1 0.2 100 2004 27.9 30.8 8.8 7.1 7.0 6.4 3.4 2.0 1.2 3.2 0.4 0.9 0.2 0.5 0.2 0.1 100 2005 19.8 40.0 7.6 8.1 8.3 5.6 3.3 1.3 1.2 2.1 0.3 1.0 0.5 0.5 0.2 0.3 100 2006 20.8 41.5 8.7 6.9 7.7 3.2 3.4 2.2 1.2 1.9 0.3 0.7 0.5 0.6 0.1 0.2 100 2007 22.3 37.2 10.3 7.0 8.1 2.7 3.6 2.4 1.2 2.4 0.4 0.8 0.8 0.6 0.2 0.1 100 2008 25.3 35.7 10.5 7.2 7.9 2.2 3.7 1.8 1.2 1.7 0.5 0.8 0.5 0.5 0.2 0.3 100 2009 29.0 31.0 9.6 8.2 7.3 4.3 3.2 1.6 1.4 1.5 0.7 0.9 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.2 100 2010 30.9 31.2 10.4 7.5 5.8 4.2 3.5 1.4 1.3 1.6 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.1 0.1 100 2011 33.6 29.4 10.1 7.9 4.9 3.4 3.3 1.6 1.6 1.5 0.9 0.7 0.4 0.3 0.1 0.1 100

Jessie J

Source: BPI based on Official Charts Company data

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SALES BY TYPE OF MUSIC

Sales by Type of Music Singles

Rocks share improves but Pop remains top

Pops share of singles sales decreased slightly in 2011, but was still twice as large as that of Rock. The two biggest sellers of the year (by Adele and Maroon 5) were both Pop tracks as were 37 of the top 100. Only six of the top 100 tracks were classed as Rock (the biggest selling was Coldplays Paradise at number 21) but the sheer weight of the genres back catalogue ensured that its share did not fade in fact it increased slightly, resulting in it leapfrogging R&B for the second spot. Dance polled its best share in five years in 2011, claiming 13.8% of sales. One factor contributing to this rise (and the attendant decrease in R&B) was the growing number of tracks allocated to this genre by Urban artists.

The cross-pollination of the two genres has been one of the big trends in the past year, and among Dances biggest sellers were tracks by Rihanna, Chris Brown and Snoop Dogg. Classicals share rose very sharply, with much of the increase attributable to the success of the single by Military Wives & Gareth Malone, which was not only the Christmas number one but the fastest seller of the year. MOR/Easy also recorded sizeable share growth, taking over 1% of sales for the first time since 2001. Tracks by Michael Bubl, Rumer and Eva Cassidy were among the best sellers.

Snoop Dogg
Singles Sales by Genre (% units)
2002 Pop Rock R&B Dance Hip Hop MOR/Easy Classical Reggae Folk Country Jazz Other Total 51.8 13.4 7.6 15.4 10.0 0.9 0.2 0.5 0.2 100 2003 38.3 17.1 15.9 15.3 11.1 0.4 1.2 0.7 100 2004 35.0 17.2 14.9 17.8 13.7 0.6 0.1 0.6 0.1 100 2005 28.0 29.7 13.5 15.4 11.8 0.3 1.0 0.1 0.2 100 2006 19.4 35.3 17.7 18.2 8.3 0.2 0.6 0.1 0.1 0.1 100 2007 19.6 37.0 17.8 15.5 8.1 0.9 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.4 100 2008 28.1 31.2 18.3 13.2 7.7 0.5 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 100 2009 33.5 24.5 18.9 12.7 8.8 0.7 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.3 100 2010 38.3 17.2 18.0 12.6 12.2 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.2 100 2011 36.0 18.0 17.2 13.8 10.2 1.4 1.2 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.3 0.3 100

Source: BPI based on Official Charts Company data

Chris Brown
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