‘The Eminem Show’ crowned 2002’s No. 1 album
ByJan 2, 2003 11:00 PM
Last year’s music-buyers bought more copies of Detroit rapper Eminem’s third album than any other release, and also made his “8 Mile” soundtrack the fifth top-selling album of the year.
Last year’s music-buyers bought more copies of Detroit rapper Eminem’s third album than any other release, and also made his “8 Mile” soundtrack the fifth top-selling album of the year.
“The Eminem Show,” which hit stores last May, sold a total of about 7.6 million copies by the end of 2002, according to year-end figures that Nielsen SoundScan--the organization that tracks point-of-purchase album sales--released on Thursday. That figure places the album millions of copies ahead of its competition.
Fellow rapper Nelly’s “Nellyville” sold almost 3 million fewer copies than “The Eminem Show"--about 4.9 million--but still manages to claim the No. 2 spot on the year-end sales chart. Following at No. 3 is Avril Lavigne’s “Let Go,” which moved about 4.1 million copies.
The Dixie Chicks’ “Home” racked up sales of about 3.7 million copies to land at No. 4, followed by the Eminem-dominated “8 Mile” soundtrack at No. 5 with sales of about 3.5 million copies.
Pink scored platinum with her sophomore release, “Missundaztood,” which moved about 3.1 million copies and snagged the No. 6 slot. Ashanti’s self-titled debut follows closely at No. 7 with a sales total of about 50,000 fewer copies.
Alan Jackson’s No. 8 top-seller, “Drive,” trails “Ashanti” by about 45,000 copies.
Closing out the Top 10 is Shania Twain’s “Up!,” which, despite a mid-November release, is still the year’s No. 9 best-selling album, with sales of about 2.9 million copies; and the “O Brother Where Art Thou?” soundtrack at No. 10 with sales of about 2.7 million copies. “O Brother"--a collection of blues, bluegrass, folk, country and gospel tunes used in the film--is the only album among 2002’s ten top-selling album that also graced the 2001 Top 10, on which it was the No. 9 best-selling album of the year.
Industry snapshot
Overall CD album-sales were down 8.7 percent from 2001, marking a second-consecutive-year decrease; sales during 2001 dipped about 3 percent from 2000’s year-end totals.
In raw numbers, that translates to total CD album-sales of about 649.5 million copies in 2002, versus about 712 million in 2001. The industry has tagged the blame on both a weak economy and the continued proliferation of online music piracy.
The industry did get some positive news on the Internet front, however; annual online album-sales rose to about 18.1 million copies for 2002, up from about 16.7 million copies in 2001.
Despite the overall sales drop, the country genre--which featured a number of post-Sept. 11, 2001, patriotically tinged releases by artists such as Alan Jackson and Toby Keith--experienced a sales increase of 12.2 percent over 2001.
As usual, the five major record labels accounted for about 84 percent of all album sales, with smaller labels accounting for the remainder.
The few souls who have yet to make the leap from cassette tapes to CDs should probably bite the bullet, as it appears likely that the cassette-tape format will soon go the way of the 8-track; CD album sales accounted for 94 percent of 2002’s total music sales.