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Experts answer your questions. For
December 05, 2008
Ask Billboard is updated every Friday. Submit your burning music questions to Keith Caulfield at askbb@billboard.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as your city, state and country, if outside the U.S.
FLAVOR OF LOVE
Hey Keith!
I am a big fan of Alanis Morissette and I think her latest album "Flavors of Entanglement" was one of the best releases of 2008. I know "Flavors" didn't sell nearly as many copies as her past releases, but what are the latest sales figure for it? Also, how many downloads have her singles "Underneath" and "Not As We" sold? She just performed "Not As We" on "Rosie! Live" last week, and I'm wondering if it helped her download sales at all.
Hope you survived Black Friday!
Shawn Reynolds
Portland, Oregon
Hello Shawn,
So far, "Flavors of Entanglement" has sold 201,000 in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album actually had a small increase in sales for the week ending Nov. 30, which could have been owed to her appearance on "Rosie! Live," or, the overally increased traffic at retailers during the post-Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
The download sales for both "Underneath" and "Not As We" both increased last week as well. In total, "Underneath" has sold 76,000 while "Not As We" has shifted 38,000.
AMAZON RIVER
Keith,
It's always stated (in your stories that) Nielsen SoundScan's Building chart contains unweighted sales information from eight leading retail accounts: Trans World Entertainment, Best Buy, Circuit City, iTunes, Starbucks, Borders, Target and Anderson Merchandisers. Billboard estimates they comprise about 80% of all U.S. album sales.
Does that mean that it doesn't cover Amazon.com because that seems to be a lot of sales that aren't recorded. Another question, do record companies track their own records, or do they rely on Nielsen SoundScan's Building Chart or what the RIAA says has sold?
Justin Ykema
Hi Justin,
First, we need to make sure we clarify something.
Nielsen SoundScan's Building chart is a twice-weekly list that SoundScan puts together, indicating how the forthcoming weekly chart is "building." Basically, it's a preview of how the week will turn out once all of the sales are in. It's not the final chart.
Because of that, it doesn't include all of the retailers that report their sales to SoundScan.
Our weekly charts reflect sales from all reporting retailers, including Amazon.com. However, the retailer just isn't one that reports their sales to the Building Chart. Make sense?
So, rest assured, if you buy an album from Amazon.com or from its MP3 service, it still counts as a sale in SoundScan, and, will be reflected on our weekly album charts like The Billboard 200.
As for your other question, record companies have their own internal systems that provide them with tons of information about how their own product is selling. But, ultimately, Nielsen SoundScan is the report card that truly shows how everything is selling across all retailers.
TOP SPOT
Hi Keith,
I would like to know how does Billboard determines the Artist of the Decade.
I was reviewing some articles about Mariah Carey and I found one that says Billboard uses the same methodology for Artist of the Decade that they do for yearly top pop artist list.
However I would expect this to have changed since then since Billboard revises its methodology to reflect the times. Can you clear this up for me?
Quinn Michaels,
Chicago Illinois
Hi Quinn,
You're referring to when we gave Mariah Carey the Artist of the Decade award at the 1999 Billboard Music Awards?
We compiled the list of the top artists of the 1990s using a recap point system that combined chart performance data from the Billboard 200 albums chart and the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. This system awarded points, based on a complex, inverse relation to chart position, for each week a title appeared on the pertinent charts. The decade recap reflected chart performance from the start of 1990 through the end of the 1999 chart year.
I'm unsure what you mean by your methodology question. When we did our recent all-time Hot 100 anniversary charts, we did have to look at how the Hot 100 was compiled over the past 50 years and take that into account. You can read more about that here.
But, for the 1990s recap, that was printed in our Dec. 29, 1999 issue (which resulted in Carey getting her award on the Billboard Music Awards TV show that year), we didn't have to do a Hot 100 50th-like computation to come up with the list.
Oh, and here is the roundup of the 10 top pop artists of the '90s:
1 Mariah Carey
2. Janet Jackson
3. Garth Brooks
4. Boyz II Men
5. Celine Dion
6. Madonna
7. TLC
8. Whitney Houston
9. Michael Bolton
10. Toni Braxton
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Keith Caulfield is a chart manager and analyst for Billboard. He
oversees Top Digital Albums, Top Internet Albums, Top Pop Catalog Albums, Top
Soundtracks, Top Compilations and Top Cast Albums. Additionally, he is
the editor of Billboard Chart Alert ( www.billboardchartalert.com) and
sometimes contributes singles and albums reviews to the magazine and Web site. He
holds a bachelor of arts degree in print journalism from the Annenberg
School for Communication at the University of Southern California.
Note: Questions regarding the Recording Industry Association of America's gold and platinum certification program can be answered by visiting RIAA.com.
Send all your burning music questions to Keith at askbb@billboard.com
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