Christian music sales in 1999 reached almost 50 million units, an increase of 11.5 percent over 1998 sales.
Christian retailers accounted for 57.5 percent of the 1999 sales while mainstream retail stores accounted for 42.5 percent. The figures are based on reports of SoundScan, a computerized network that collects sales data from retailers and compiles results for industry reports and charts in Billboard magazine.
Contemporary Christian and gospel music are the music industry’s fifth-largest-selling genre, selling more than twice as many albums as the Latin genre and also selling more than classical, jazz and New Age genres combined.
Album sales in the Christian music category represented 6.6 percent of the 754.8 million records sold in the entire music industry in 1999, the Christian Music Trade Association, a Nashville-based organization, announced.
The five top-selling albums in the Christian music genre reflect its diversity: Charlotte Church’s “Voice of an Angel” ranked first, followed by Kirk Franklin’s “Nu Nation Project,” “Speechless” by Steven Curtis Chapman, Amy Grant’s “Christmas to Remember” and “WOW 2000,” an album by various artists.
“This year’s sales figures indicate the strength of the Christian music marketplace and demonstrate the diversity consumers are look for,” said Frank Breeden, president of the Gospel Music Association and executive director of the Christian Music Trade Association. “Sales across the board tell the story that the Christian/gospel music industry is healthy and that more people are choosing our genre as a form of entertainment consistent with their lifestyle.”
Breeden added that the music industry’s strength is breaking the stereotype that it is embraced mainly in the states viewed as being part of the “Bible Belt” region. SoundScan figures show the top five Christian/gospel markets are New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
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