FRENCH RECORD SALES IN 2004

Light at the End of the Tunnel Despite Another Drop in Sales

Paris 

24/01/2005 - 

Official figures for record sales in 2004 have not yet been published, but SNEP (the French branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry)  has already indicated that over the past twelve months the French music market has suffered a further decline, sales having dropped between 14% and 15%. However, the good news is that French production has increased at an even greater rate against its international counterparts and French independent labels continue to flourish apace.

Is 2004 set to go down in music history as the year of the independent boom? That may be going too far, but there is certainly no denying the groundbreaking work carried out by a number of leading French independent labels of late. Pias France, a subsidiary of the Belgian label Play It Again Sam, marked its tenth anniversary last year by coming top of the independent league for record sales, with three albums ranking in the top 30 best-selling CDs in France (namely, Miossec's 1964 and albums by hot new British bands Franz Ferdinand and The Libertines). Meanwhile, other French independent labels such as Atmosphériques (home of Tarmac), Labels (Cali), Recall (The Servant), Naïve (Muse and Pink Martini) and Le Village Vert (Luke, Deportivo and Autour de Lucie) enjoyed impressive commercial success – even if, for the most part, these small independent structures were forced to join forces with major record companies when it came to distribution.

One thing is clear, however, and that is that the independent labels played a major role in discovering and promoting new talent, whereas the majors played it safe, banking on instant profit-making albums by the winners from TV reality show Star Academy. Between September 2003 and September 2004, music reality shows exerted just as important an influence on record sales as they did in the same period the year before. Just as in 2003, three Star Academy albums rocketed into the top 40 best-selling albums of the year. (Best of Star Academy, La Starac fait son cinéma and an album of reworkings of Michel Sardou classics).

Meanwhile, 2004 proved to be a bad year for singles, even though sales of two-track CDs did begin to pick up towards the end of the year. Sales of CD singles have plummeted since Internet pirates pioneered the art of illegal downloading. In fact, the French music market has yet to recover from the blow dealt to it by these new methods of consuming music, despite recent legal proceedings launched against the "download pirates."

In terms of exact figures, in the first nine months of 2004 the number of singles sold amounted to 17.5 million. (In other words, sales dropped by a third compared to the same period in 2003 when singles sales stood at 23.3 million!). Record companies were not overly worried by this decline, believing that French music lovers were investing their hard-earned cash in extended formats. How wrong they were! It turns out that the money not spent in buying singles last year was not automatically diverted to albums instead. Between September 2004 and September 2004, album sales in France dropped by 12 million (marking a downturn of 16%) compared to the previous four quarters. This represents a drop of 20% in annual turnover which fell from 600 to 479 million euros.

True, the timing of album releases by mainstream French music stars was not exactly propitious for gold discs (sales of 100,000 copies) or platinum discs (300,000 copies). And, on the international front, no major new talent emerged as the hottest discovery of the year, following in the footsteps of velvet-toned diva Norah Jones in 2003. Last year, the American singing star shared the honour of best-selling album of the year in France with Florent Pagny and Carla Bruni. (Pop'n'rock foursome Kyo followed just behind in fourth place with their album Le Chemin). But in 2004 no new French talent soared out of the blue to echo the success of Ms. Bruni's best-seller Quelqu'un m'a dit. And unfortunately, Florent Pagny's new album Baryton and Kyo's new opus 300 Lésions were released too close to the end of the year to figure in the top slots of the annual best-seller chart – although doubtless they will both appear in 2005!

And what of the other top-selling albums of 2004? Little surprise to find Norah Jones's Feels Like Home (another recent release) and alternative French pop star M's Qui de nous deux in the upper echelons of the annual best-seller chart. Ben Harper and The Blind Boys of Alabama also put in an appearance, as did  Pascal Obispo, Véronique Sanson and Muse. The latest releases by Vincent Delerm, Lorie, Bernard Lavilliers, Francis Cabrel, Arielle Dombasle, U2, Gérald de Palmas, French R&B duo Tragédie and Chimène Badi (the new Esméralda in the hit musical Notre-Dame de Paris) also fared well, as did Calogéro and Star-Academy celebrated Michel Sardou. The album which will probably go down as the biggest surprise hit of the year was the soundtrack to Gérard Jugnot's film Les Choristes. In fact, the soundtrack was the only album of 2004 to have achieved diamond disc status (sales having topped 1.2 million!).

The Choristes success story aside, the general news was not good. Annual French record industry turnover (from all sectors including video and DVD) from September 2003 to September 2004 fell by 141 million euros compared to the same period the previous year (and by 251 million euros compared to 2002). The famous 'haemorrhage' record industry executives have been gloomily forecasting for some time now shows no signs of slowing for now, but who knows? 2005 could yet prove to be the year of recovery!  

David  Glaser

Translation : Julie  Street