The biggest selling CD of 2016 has today been revealed and it will no doubt surprise many. It is not Drake’s ‘Views’, Rihanna’s ‘ANTI’ or even the ground-breaking ‘Lemonade’ by the increasingly iconic Beyonce. No, this accolade in fact goes to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, per NME.
Although Mozart probably never sat in a studio, and hasn’t made any new music in 225 years, he topped the list thanks to the release of ‘Mozart 225’ – a 200 CD-collection released this year in honour of the anniversary of the composer’s death. The box-set, only released in October, sold 6,250 copies according to Billboard, meaning that, taking into account the 200 CDs in each box, Mozart sold 1.25m CDs this year. Those 6,250 buyers can now enjoy to 240 hours of Mozart’s work, described by Universal as the ‘most authoritative, complete and scholarly box set ever devoted to the work of a single composer.’ Paul Moseley, director for Mozart 225, added, via NME, ‘It is wonderful to see the reaction to this box set, which is the fruit of years of scholarship, planning and curation. “It is wonderful to see the reaction to this box set, which is the fruit of years of scholarship, planning and curation.’
However, this interesting piece of trivia tells us more than just the answer to a pub quiz tiebreaker in 2040. It also gives an interesting insight into the state of the music business in 2016. Based on Spotify streams, for example, Mozart was nowhere near the top of 2016’s list, an honour which went to Drake whose music was streamed 4.7 billion streams in 2016, even though ‘Views’ was actually exclusive to iTunes for the first fortnight of its release. The declining importance of CD sales, and the corresponding rise in the importance of streaming, is widely known about but is nicely underlined by this news.Statistics reported in Music Business Worldwide show huge spikes in streaming, particularly paid streaming, coming at the expense both of CD sales and also permanent digital downloads (e.g. buying an album from iTunes). In the US, paid for on-demand Streaming revenues rose 112%, while permanent digital downloads actually fell 17%. The dramatic decline of permanent digital sales at the expense of streaming was emphasized last week when it was reported in City AM, that in the UK, for one week at least, vinyl sales outstripped permanent digital downloads. It is perhaps therefore appropriate that a man whose name is essentially synonymous with classical music, has outsold all others on what is rapidly becoming the musical format most consigned to history, as even vinyl makes a comeback at the expense of the CD. Has anyone got any Mozart cassettes?
Overall, the statistics show a very healthy year for the music business as a whole, with global revenues up 5% in 2016 – after declining every year for almost two decades.. The UK had an especially good year, with overall revenues up 10.9%, including a 4.9% rise in physical formats, driven at least in part by the vinyl renaissance noted earlier. Mozart’s contribution should also not go unnoticed, and should at the very least be remembered for that pub quiz tiebreaker in 20 years time.
