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

[Mike Durham]

Have indeed heard of her over here, Steve. A very nice voice, pleasant 
songs, jazz-tinged rather than flat-out jazz, but heartening to see any 
quality music selling so well..... and check out the latest Brit jazz 
prodigy, Jamie Cullum, pianist and singer, first UK jazz artist to sign a £1 
million deal with a major record company. First album is called 
"Twentysomething" and is selling like hot cakes.He's on a promotional tour 
in the USA right now, so who knows what may happen. Mixes pop, rock and 
original compositions with jazz standards, has the female audience sighing 
(he's cute, my wife tells me). Needless to say, all the jazz critics will 
turn and savage him and Norah, just as they did Ms krall and anyone else who 
is a big hit with the general public!!

Mike.

>From: Stephen Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
>Reply-To: barbonestreet at earthlink.net
>To: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
>Subject: [Dixielandjazz] A HIT RECORD 1,022,000 COPIES IN ONE WEEK!!!!!
>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:25:46 -0500
>
>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.
>
>
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