In a low-sales era, what's a hit in music?

Thursday, October 23rd 2008, 10:18 AM

The economic downturn may represent a grave new world for most folks, but not those in the music industry.

Way before world markets began circling the drain, record companies saw their sales dive into free fall. Album purchases - at least the legal kind - have been quickly eroding for most of this decade. (Thank you, Napster and all your peer-to-peer file-sharing offspring).

Here's just the latest example. On this week's Billboard 200 album chart, Usher's "Here I Stand" falls below the No. 100 mark after selling just over 1 million copies. His previous album, "Confessions," sold nine times that figure just four years ago.

Let's face it: We're never going back to those halcyon days. Certainly, we're not going back to the go-go days of the '90s, when you had more than a dozen performers who could move more than 10 million copies of a given CD - an era crowned by Shania Twain's "Come on Over," which pushed a whopping 15.5 million copies. That figure made it the largest-selling CD of the entire Nielsen/SoundScan era, which began in 1991, when the industry began using verifiable sales tallies.

By contrast, this year's top-selling album has moved an anemic 2.5 million copies (Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III"). While more than two months remain in '08, it's hugely unlikely that Wayne will pick up the extra 1.1 million cash-register rings he'd need to beat the top seller of '07: Josh Groban's "Noel," which topped 3.6 million platters. Nor will he come near the peaks of '06 ("High School Musical 2" at 3.7 mil) or '05 (Mariah Carey's "The Adventures of Mimi" at 5 million).

In fact, there has been a steady downturn in total sales for the top five albums in each year of this decade, ranging from a high of 22.3 million in 2001 to an '08 figure that will struggle to reach 10 million.

Pondering all this could either make you look longingly at the ledge or flip the script and view the whole situation in a glass-half-full kinda way. Being an optimist, I've decided to go the latter route, and so hereby offer a modest proposal for redefining success in our new age of austerity.

Gazing down the Billboard 200, I've established a fresh standard for a smash, or even for a hit. In calibrating this, I axed any albums that have lingered on Billboard's list for more than a year, as they essentially date from another, happier era. (Only a few entries qualify, including Nickelback's "All the Right Reasons," which has sold nearly 7 million copies but started its run nearly three years ago, and Daughtry's self-titled debut, which sold 4.2 million copies but began moving product nearly two years back.)

Shorn of those entries, there's just one act on the current top 200 that has broken the 3 million mark (Alicia Keys). Even the most hyped and exposed of albums of '08 - like Mariah Carey's "E=MC2" and Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" - haven't been able to reach the 2 million bar. Given this, here's how we should evaluate top sales now.

THE NEW DEFINITIONS...

BLOCKBUSTER: 2 MILLION & UP
The equivalent of 5 million, or more, back in 2000

• Alicia Keys "As I Am" 3.6 million
• Lil Wayne "Tha Carter III" 2.6M
• Carrie Underwood "Carnival Ride" 2.3M
• Kid Rock "Rock n Roll Jesus" 2.1M
• Rascal Flatts "Still Feels Good" 2M

SMASH: 1 MILLION & UP
The equivalent of 3 million in 2000

• Garth Brooks "Ultimate Hits" 1.9 million
• Chris Brown "Exclusive" 1.81M
• Coldplay "Viva la Vida" 1.81M
• Jack Johnson "Sleep Throughthe Static" 1.4M
• Leona Lewis "Spirit" 1.18M
• Metallica "Death Magnetic" 1.11M (in just four weeks)
• Mariah Carey "E=MC2" 1.1M
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss "Raising Sand" 1.09M
• "Mamma Mia!" soundtrack 1.05M
• Usher "Here I Stand" 1.04M
• "Camp Rock" soundtrack 1.034M
• Led Zeppelin "Mothership" 995,000
• The Jonas Brothers "A Little Bit Longer" 992,000
• Miley Cyrus "Breakout" 953,000
• Jordin Sparks "Jordin Sparks" 932,833
• Sugarland "Love on the Inside" 922,000

HIT: 500,000 & UP
The equivalent of a million-selling, platinum CD in 2000

• "Alvin and the Chipmunks" soundtrack 876,772
• OneRepublic "Dreaming Out Loud" 791,000
• Disturbed "Indestructible" 756,000
• Rick Ross "Trilla" 684,000
• Madonna "Hard Candy" 654,000
• Keith Urban "Greatest Hits" 632,000
• Radiohead "In Rainbows" 625,000
• George Strait "Troubador" 579,000
• 3 Doors Down "3 Doors Down" 578,000
• Seether "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces" 559,000
• Alan Jackson "Good Time" 552,000
• Danity Kane "Welcome to the Dollhouse" 546,000
• Duffy "Rockferry" 528,000
• Plies "Definition of Real" 520,000
• Young Jeezy "The Recession" 516,000
• Trace Adkins "Greatest Hits Volume 2" 508,000