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Dreaming of a Green Christmas : Vanilla Ice Sales Point the Way Toward a Solid Season for Record Industry

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

It’s going to be a Vanilla Christmas for the record industry.

Vanilla Ice--the first white solo star in the predominantly black rap-music world--is heating up the cash registers, leading the way in what is looking to be a healthy season for the music business, even as other retailers are complaining about consumer caution resulting from uncertainty about the economy.

“Over the years we have been kind of a recession-proof industry,” said Mario DeFillipo, senior vice president in charge of purchasing for the Michigan-based Handleman Co., which services the music departments of more than 5,000 stores such as K mart in the United States and Canada.

Like many retail industries, the music business--which generated a record $6.5 billion in U.S. sales in 1989--generally counts on the holidays for about 25% of its take. This year sales appear to be right on track to meet, if not beat, last year’s, both for the season and the whole year. Figures compiled by the Recording Industry Assn. of America show music sales in the first half of 1990 at $3.5 billion, up 15% from 1989’s $3 billion.

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“We recognize that some businesses are experiencing severe down-trends,” DeFillipo said. “But that doesn’t seem to be the case in our industry. The encouraging part of it is there is a very broad assortment of (music styles) out there selling extremely well.”

Chuck Lee, director of music purchasing for Los Angeles-based Wherehouse Entertainment’s 284-store chain, noted initial customer hesitancy right after Thanksgiving, traditionally the start of the Christmas buying season. But Lee said that business has already begun to pick up and that he expects a strong finish.

“I think it’s going to be a later Christmas than usual, but that was predictable,” he said. “And the sale items had a higher increase of business than usual, which leads me to think that the customers are looking for a bargain more than before.”

But Lee and his counterparts at the other music chains and distributors surveyed report strong sales in both youth and adult demographics. And despite the bargain-hunting, many of the lavish, higher-ticket boxed sets that have proliferated this year are doing well, notably career anthologies of Led Zeppelin, Frank Sinatra and Elton John.

But everywhere the top story is the same: Ice.

“By far our No. 1 is Vanilla Ice--it’s in a class by itself,” said Lee. “The second is not even close.”

Vanilla Ice’s debut “To the Extreme” is the runaway top seller, with U.S. sales of more than 4 million copies in less than three months. Among those clustered behind it are 1990’s biggest hit, fellow pop-rapper M.C. Hammer’s “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em,” the smooth pop-soul of newcomer Mariah Carey, proven hit Whitney Houston and the Brazilian-influenced hybrid of Paul Simon’s “Rhythm of the Saints.”

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“Rap is hottest,” said Dick Odette, vice president of purchasing for Minneapolis-based Music-land, which operates 780 Music-land and Sam Goody’s stores. “Country is doing quite well, too. Basically it’s two guys--Garth Brooks and Clint Black.”

The strength of country music nationwide may be the surprise of the year. In addition to dominating the country world, Brooks and Black are both in the Top 20 on the pop charts, where country acts are rarely found. K.T. Oslin’s new “Love in a Small Town” album is also off to a fast start.

After several years as the leading sales genre, hard rock is having an off year, with few releases among the top sellers. Only AC/DC, Warrant, Poison and the Led Zeppelin boxed set are showing strongly now.

“There’s not a lot of metal in there anymore,” Odette said. “There really hasn’t been a lot in it all year, for some reason. The rap genre’s eaten into it, apparently.”

John Kundrat, senior buyer of Santa Ana’s Abbey Road, a wholesaler that services more than 1,000 independent record stores worldwide, said that the weakness in the hard-rock market is just “a matter of timing.”

“A month or two from now Cinderella and Scorpions could be up near the top,” he said, referring to two just-released albums.

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But the lack of big-selling hard-rock entries has not dimmed the industry’s Christmas lights so far. Music retail confidence was bolstered by a strong November as many of the current best-sellers first hit the stores. On that surge, stores ordered heavily for the holidays.

“Our November was up about 25% from last year’s,” Kundrat said. “I would think our clients are concerned about the economy. You can’t help it. But there’s been a lot of good new releases and that made November a good month.”

One thing this season hasn’t produced are big bombs. Without many new superstar releases--no Michael Jacksons or Bruce Springsteens, though Madonna’s “Immaculate Collection” greatest-hits package is doing very well--expectations for most new product are relatively modest.

The only big name that may be doing a little less than expected is Debbie Gibson, whose new “Anything Is Possible” is off to a so-so start, moving to No. 50 on Billboard’s pop album chart in its second week. Whitney Houston’s “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” on the other hand, debuted at No. 22 two weeks ago and is No. 3 this week.

“There’s going to have to be more awareness of the Gibson album,” said Wherehouse’s Lee.

The biggest surprise hit right now may well be “Reflections of Passion,” an album by New Age artist Yanni. The album has been out for nine months, but just this week cracked the Billboard Top 100. Lee said that the album was the 12th biggest seller at Wherehouse stores during the week of Thanksgiving. But the jump was not due to Christmas shoppers’ needing soothing sounds, but to old-fashioned media exposure and star power.

Said Lee, “He was on Oprah and all the other talk shows with his girlfriend--Linda Evans.”

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