Hollywood has taken over the music industry for the album first chart of 2017 with four movie soundtracks in the Top 10 albums.
iTunes analysis of sales for the first week of 2017 has the ‘Trolls’ soundtrack at number one, the ‘Sing’ soundtrack at number three, ‘Moana’ at number five and ‘La La Land’ at number nine.
Four soundtracks at one time in the Australian top 10 albums is unprecedented. It also shows that music consumers are not being driven by radio play or artist tours to purchase music, but by the movies.
‘Trolls’ has the star pulling power of Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani behind it. The hit song ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’ is also a major selling point.
‘Sing’ is fuelled with the Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande hit ‘Faith’. It is unlikely the singing actors Seth McFarlane, Scarlett Johansson and Reese Witherspoon has accelerating sales.
‘Moana’ is an even stranger. Auli’I Cravalho’s ‘How Far I’ll Go’ is a nothing song on a nothing soundtrack but the movie is strong enough to warrant the soundtrack as prime merch.
‘La La Land’ is another soundtrack by the actors. Why anyone would want to own songs by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone is confusing enough. The John Legend track ‘Start A Fire’ can be bought as single song, thus avoiding the pain of having to endure Ryan Gosling singing.
After 2016 ended with a John Farnham & Olivia Newton-John and a Michael Buble Christmas album in the Top 10 for the year, we can assume 2017 is going to be another strange music biz year.
