[Dixielandjazz] A HIT RECORD 1,022,000 COPIES IN ONE WEEK!!!!!

[Stephen Barbone]

Most of us have been following the downward spiral of record sales in
the music business, over the past two years. Especially those who are
storing their own band CDs in their garages.  Then suddenly comes this
incredible sales number for Norah Jones. Interesting? You bet,
especially since Ms. Jones is described below as a "JAZZ ARTIST WHO HAS
ACHIEVED POP STAR NUMBERS." . . . "who has the ability to change the
whole musical culture of what people are listening to, and wanting to
buy." Now that's heady stuff.

I have never heard her. Have you all?

Whatever she has, I think I want some. ;-) VBG.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

February 19, 2004 - New York Times

A Hit Record by Norah Jones Buoys Industry

By CHRIS NELSON

      Norah Jones has given the ailing music industry a boost as her new
album sold more copies during its debut week than any other release has
managed to do in more than two and half years.

Ms. Jones's second album, "Feels Like Home" (Blue Note), sold 1,022,000
copies during the week ending Sunday, the best performance since 'N Sync
released "Celebrity" in July 2001, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Ms. Jones was not the only musical act to flourish last week, as the
hip-hop duo OutKast, the R&B singer Beyoncé and rock groups Evanescence,
Coldplay and the White Stripes benefited from their appearances on the
Grammy Awards. "The College Dropout" (Roc-A-Fella), the first album by
the rapper Kanye West, sold 441,000 copies during its first week of
release, putting it second on the SoundScan list. Legal sales of
downloadable songs topped two million units for the first time last
week. (By contrast Eric Garland, a spokesman for Big Champagne, a
company that tracks file-swapping, estimates that about 250
million songs in the MP3 format are being traded each week through the
most popular services for sharing downloads illegally.)

Two anticipated records, a rock album from Courtney Love and a pop album
from Kylie Minogue, had disappointing debuts, at 33,000 and 43,000. But
sales for the week of Feb. 9 to 15 were the highest of any Valentine's
Day week since 1991, when SoundScan began tracking music sales. Sales
were up 25 percent over the same week last year.

"Everybody was expecting that sales would be strong — it's always a
strong week," said Rob Sisco, president of Nielsen Music, which operates
SoundScan. "But particularly the sales on Norah going over a million and
the strength overall, I don't thing it was anything anybody was
expecting."

Bruce Lundvall, president and chief executive for jazz and classics at
EMI Music, which owns Blue Note, said that Ms. Jones, a jazz artist who
has achieved pop star numbers, had the potential to "change the whole
musical culture of what people are listening to, and wanting to buy."

The strong week comes as the music industry is trying to recover from a
three-year slump that record labels trace largely to Internet
downloading and CD copying. Year-to-date sales for 2004 are up 13
percent over the same period last year, continuing an upward trend in
the last quarter of 2003. Still, on Tuesday, the Recording Industry
Association of America continued to fight online music file-swapping in
court, filing lawsuits against 531 computer users.

The industry is still suffering through major restructuring. A merger of
the major label groups owned by Sony and Bertelsmann is awaiting
approval by regulators. Time Warner is in the process of selling Warner
Music Group to private investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. And Tower
Records recently filed for bankruptcy protection.