‘Hannah’ rocking the charts
Some of the biggest acts in music – including the Beatles, Jay-Z and Sarah McLachlan – are being beaten on the charts this holiday season by a fictional 14-year-old. Her name is Hannah Montana, and she’s a Disney Channel character.
Since its October release, Walt Disney Records’ “Hannah Montana: Songs From and Inspired by the Hit TV Series” has reliably sold well over 100,000 copies a week, racking up a total of 1.6 million sold in two months. Rapper Jay-Z, whose hyped new album was released in November, has sold about 1 million copies.
It’s a critical time in the music industry, and record labels are hoping to prevent overall sales from dropping for a sixth year out of the past seven. The success of an album targeted squarely at tweens (children between 8 and 12 years of age) highlights the growing importance to record labels of younger and younger fans, as historical core buyers teenagers and college students have slowed their legal music consumption.
Some of the biggest sellers of the year – from Disney’s “High School Musical” and “Cheetah Girls” soundtracks to the “Kidz Bop” series – are those aimed at the grade-school set.
Industry staples like rock and even hip-hop have far less commercial potential. “When we sell 150,000 albums from a new rock group, we think we’ve set them up pretty well,” says Bob Cavallo, chairman of Walt Disney Co.’s Buena Vista Music Group. The “Hannah” soundtrack, meanwhile, sold nearly 274,000 copies last week alone.
“Hannah Montana” is a fictional pop star who exists only on the Disney Channel series of the same name. On the show, 14-year-old actress Miley Cyrus plays a high-school student named Miley Stewart, who secretly moonlights as a pop star named Hannah Montana.
Cyrus, whose father is ‘90s country star Billy Ray Cyrus, of “Achy Breaky Heart” fame, says she is gratified by the soundtrack’s success, particularly because she considers acting a sideline. “Singing was always my main thing.” She calls following her father into the upper reaches of the sales charts “so crazy.” Billy Ray Cyrus plays her father and manager on the show.
They are mining one of the few sweet spots in today’s music marketplace. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, 10- to 14-year-olds accounted for 8.6 percent of music sales in 2005, up from 7.9 percent a decade ago.