AC/DCÂ ‘Black Ice’ – 784,269
Metallica ‘Death Magnetic’ – 52,169
Kid Rock ‘Rock N Roll Jesus’ – 40,069
Adele ’19’- 24,926
Katy Perry ‘One Of The Boys’ – 18,426
Kings of Leon ‘ Only By The Night’ – 16,032
Slipknot ‘All Hope is Gone’ – 14,546
Rise Against ‘Appeal To Reason’ – 12,927
Keane ‘Perfect Symmetry’ – 10,710
Saving Abel ‘Self Titled’ – 8,316
Journey ‘Revelation’ – 8,077
Buckcherry ‘Black Butterfly’ – 7,508
Hollywood Undead ‘Swan Songs’ – 7,221
3 Doors Down – Self Titled’ – 6,432
Secondhand Serenade ‘Twist In My Story’ – 4,776

Digital Albums (Total Sales)

Cold Play ‘Viva La Vida’ – 564,150
Metallica ‘Death Magnetic’ -132,109

It has been a tough year for the music business and all who are involved including artists, managers, lawyers and label execs and employees.

Matt McDonald, vice president of CMJ, said the attendance was high this year but the outlook for next year is less certain. Martin Mills, chairman of Beggars Group record company says, “We’re doing great this year, but it’s been an ongoing struggle for our industry. We’ve been hurting for awhile. Now the whole world is experiencing that”. The recent post How Quickly Is The Music Industry Shrinking? tells us that 2008 should be as bad as 2007.

Illegal downloading, hundreds of thousands of music releases, and market fragmentation (the loss of reaching a large, stable audience of potential customers through print, radio, and television ads) has still left the music industry along with other industries in utter chaos.

Now the world is faced with a global economic crisis. “You were paying $1.80 a gallon and suddenly it’s $3.80,” said Bhowmik. “The cover charges haven’t gone up. The concept that you’re going to be the next Nirvana is a nice idea, but most musicians almost just do it to have their art out there.” “You get offered a scoring job on television, but they want to pay very little or nothing because they think you should be grateful for the publicity,” said Shonali Bhowmik of New York-based Tigers and Monkeys.

More importantly, artists today are not as viable as artists of yesterday. Sure a couple of artists breakthrough here and there, but the magnitude of works available in the market place are over looked by the majority of consumers. Whether the music industry will return to its heyday is certainly unknown, but many people still hope so.

Neon Trees is possibly the best infectious, American indie rock band that NME, Pitchfork, and the rest of the internet’s blogs haven’t seemed to notice yet. Recently tapped by the Killers to open up a pair of shows, these California and Utah guys seem to be prime for label attention and alternative radio play. Check out their new tracks, “Girls and Boys in School” & “Drop Your Weapon”, mixed by Mark Needham (Bloc Party, The Killers, U2, My Chemical Romance).

‘Twilight‘, the soundtrack to this vampire love story should easily outsell the musical score from this past summer’s blockbuster, “The Dark Knight”. With Paramore on board with another hit in their track, “Decode” and a new cut from Mute Math, as well as hits from Linkin Park and Muse, this film will probably be lucky to make a quarter of what the latest Batman made, but could double or triple the sales total of that film’s soundtrack. View the track listing here.

Saosin will be heading into the studio with producer Butch Walker this January, according to a recent interview with Walker on alternativeaddiction.com. Walker is most well known for producing albums for the likes of Avril Lavigne, Bowling for Soup, and a few other radio friendly acts. He has recently produced tracks for artists like Pink and UK band The Automatic. Is this an odd pairing, or does Saosin need Walker to make that radio friendly album? For now, hear Saosin’s new song called “Love Maker”.

Live Cuts:
In the past week I caught a few shows from Weezer, Anberlin, Audrye Sessions, and Innerpartysystem.
Weezer is currently on tour with Angels & Airwaves and Tokyo Police Club in support of “The Red Album”. The band mixed it up with material that spanned their entire career, including their staple hits and more. They even brought out Angels & Airwaves singer Tom Delonge to sing on “Undone – The Sweater Song”, which made for an in teresting pairing. Due to work obligations, I unfortunately missed covers of Nirvana’s “Sliver” & Pink Floyd’s “Time”, but heard they went well. They also incorporated their hootenanny theme on the hits “Island in the Sun” & “Beverly Hills” where fans were brought up with whatever instrument they had to play along with the band. Weezer still knows how to have fun and satisfy their fans, a good formula for maintaining a successful career.

Anberlin played a solid set last week and are a better band to see headlining than on the Warped Tour or some opening gig.

Audrye Sessions are a recent signing to RCA subsidiary Black Seal and played their EP release show last week in San Francisco. With the aid of a violinist and some horns, they played a short set that sounded spot on. Be sure to catch them somewhere in the U.S. over the next few months.

Innerpartysystem is currently on tour with warped tour buzz band 3oh!3, and are direct support, but supply easily the best show of any of the 4 acts on the Myspace sponsored tour. Equipped with an eye-pleasing light show, and intense stage presence, IPS has had England talking for months and should have the same effect here in their own country. They put on a show fit for an opening slot on the next Nine Inch Nails tour, where they could play in large arenas, not skating rinks.

Quick Picks:

The Classic Crime – “Medisin”

Jimmy Needham – “A Breath or Two”

Soundcheck is written by Dallas Osborn who currently attends San Francisco State University and works on the Live 105 (KITS) Action Team.

Let’s welcome new comer Michael Warren who hails from Alabama. His record has climbed the charts on the Awarestore.com reaching number five, but more importantly, his songs simply cut through. His songs are more dynamic and hook driven than John Mayer and he doesn’t spend his day on celebrity message boards which makes him a class act. Our favorite tracks are
Love Has Found A Way, No Way, and You.

Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden hail from the Northwest corner of Seattle Washington amidst the fisherman and sailors of Ballard. For fans of Mazzy Star, Portishead, and Blonde. Sound Magazine named them as one of 10 bands to watch in 2008. Our favorite track is Faster Than Cars Drive.

Check them out at The Annex (NYC) on October 26.