Who turned the sales slump right ’round, baby right ’round?

The 2000s haven’t been kind to the US music business, with year on year shrinkage in sales since Y2K leading to the longest slump this side of the Second World War. In 2011, three artists managed to turn the slide around, while many others floundered in mediocre sales. Care to guess who?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCya1yiFFP4

Rolling in the sales

The year’s biggest seller was indubitably Adele with her sophomore album, 21. It’s likely to hit the six million and counting mark by the end of the year, not to mention stellar sales of her singles, including “Someone like you”, “Rolling in the Deep” and “Rumour has it”. Given we’re unlikely to see a 22 out of her, 2012 already looks dreary to record execs.

Christmas ker-ching!

Michael Buble’s Christmas came in 2nd this year with almost two million copies of his holiday crooning easily edging out his competition from Justin Bieber’s Under the Mistletoe. It also passed Lady Gaga’s Born This Way to the number two spot.

Gaga takes the bronze

Mama Monster assumes the third spot then, due to impressive holiday sales for Buble, and also a controversial initial offering of title single “Born This Way” on Amazon for 99c when it was first released. Her major money spinner was her tour, which raked in over US$72 million from her ardent Monsters.

All in all, those three managed to turn around the music sales slump by a mere  one percent, and no-one is expecting a repeat performance in 2012. Other “big” artists, and supposed comebacks only did moderate business. Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto managed a paltry 877 000 in eight weeks (paltry since their last album managed over 700 000 in a single week), while supposed comeback kings, Blink 182 barely scratched 260 000 in ten weeks on release.

[Source: The Wrap]