May 8, 2005 in Features

Industry hoping upcoming album releases will help boost numbers

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With album sales limping, wheezing and generally bleak, the music industry is counting on Limp Bizkit, Weezer and Memphis Bleek to help remedy a retail health crisis.

None is expected to single-handedly rescue the record business. But this month’s lineup of popular titles in rock, rap and country might be appealing enough collectively to slow the dive.

Year-to-date sales trail 2004 by 8 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Figures could improve in the coming weeks as potentially robust sellers arrive on store shelves.

Last week brought Limp Bizkit’s “The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1)”; Nine Inch Nails’ “With Teeth”; Ryan Adams’ two-CD “Cold Roses”; Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry’s self-titled solo album; and the two-disc “Elvis by the Presleys” TV soundtrack.

Among the upcoming offerings:

•Tuesday: Dave Matthews Band’s “Stand Up”; Weezer’s “Make Believe”; Dierks Bentley’s “Modern Day Drifter”; “American Idol Season 4: The Album.”

•May 17: Toby Keith’s “Honky Tonk University”; Memphis Bleek’s “534”; System of a Down’s “Mezmerize”; country rapper Cowboy Troy’s “Loco Motive.”

•May 24: Black Eyed Peas’ “Monkey Business”; Audioslave’s “Out of Exile”; C-Murder’s “The Truest $! I Ever Said”; Gorillaz’s “Demon Days”; The Wallflowers’ “Rebel, Sweetheart.”

Oasis returns May 31 with “Don’t Believe the Truth,” and the momentum continues into June with Coldplay’s “X&Y,” the White Stripes’ “Get Behind Me Satan,” Missy Elliott’s “The Cookbook,” the Foo Fighters’ “In Your Honor,” Fat Joe’s “Things of That Nature” and Billy Corgan’s “The Future Embrace.”

“It’s certainly promising stuff,” says Geoff Mayfield, Billboard magazine’s director of charts. “It will help to have some strong titles to stir up the rest of the pot, because the whole pot needs to be stirred.”

The thing that seems to have stymied sales is a consumer pattern of “coming in to buy one specific album without picking up a second or third,” he says, adding that May’s varied inventory could persuade fans to pluck extra titles from the racks.

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