A Decade of Playing It Strictly by the Numbers

A quick experiment: Buy a seismograph and put it on a rickety table. Invite some shady music executives to sit down, then tell them they make money whenever the needle says the earth is moving. Think they might give those table legs a swift kick or two?

Congratulations. You now understand some of the shaky history of the nation’s pop charts, the influential countdowns that for years were compromised by chicanery, quirks and murky data.

You can also begin to see why some notice is due for the 10th anniversary of the new charts brought about by SoundScan, a company that brought sales science to this arcane business. SoundScan now enjoys the doting allegiance of rock stars, corporate kingpins and retail bosses and defines the industry’s bottom line for all to see, every week. “Check the SoundScan,” Xzibit boasts in a recent hit, making point-of-sale data an unlikely addition to the rap lexicon.

The nuts and bolts of SoundScan hardly lend themselves to drama. (We are talking about bar codes and market data here.) But when Billboard magazine began basing its fabled charts on the company’s data in May 1991, it changed the backbeat of the music business.

For one thing, the charts suddenly reflected the overlooked power of country music, with Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson riding the credibility boost to a new stardom strata.

And unlike the artificial horse race of the old system--in which even blockbuster albums debuted lower and steadily climbed to the top--it abruptly became clear under SoundScan scrutiny that first-week sales were make-or-break numbers. That has only intensified the industry’s pressure to succeed quickly, making a hard road even steeper for fledgling acts.

SoundScan tracks music sales at more than 18,000 U.S. music merchants when bar codes are zapped at cash registers (or as they are shipped out by online and mail-order dealers) and the information is compiled into a database. “Simply, we are able to say, accurately, what is selling and what is not selling,” says Mike Fine, SoundScan’s chief financial officer.

The value of that information is huge, which explains why computers throughout Southern California heat up after midnight on Tuesdays when the new numbers are posted. “I’m a SoundScan junkie; I love it,” says record producer Steve Lillywhite, known for his work with U2, the Rolling Stones and others. “There are no secrets with SoundScan.”

This world of quick answers and hard data is profoundly different from the old days. Though other manufacturers of packaged goods were accustomed to detailed sales information, the music industry’s self-appraisals remained peculiar and corruptible.

Before SoundScan, the Billboard charts were constructed by retailer reports that could be skewed by personal bias, vague data and what Fine calls “game playing” by record companies eager for the cachet of having a hit.

“The way it used to be, [record company] guys would say, ‘We’re going to take this record to No. 1 this week; you get it next week.’ Literally. That’s how it was,” says Jim Guerinot, manager for the Offspring, No Doubt and Beck.

“At the top end of the chart, that’s a very destructive process,” Guerinot says. “But at the bottom of the chart it really did allow you time to develop artists and create the perception of something going on when it actually wasn’t. I know, it sounds awful. But it bought you enough time to create reality. Now, though, the clock is ticking immediately.”

There’s still room for new acts and unexpected successes to build slowly--Jewel, Sheryl Crow and Shaggy are among the artists who have watched their surprise hit albums scale the charts--and for many of them the SoundScan data is a way to put themselves on the radar screen.

But for established artists, the arrival of SoundScan’s harder data has created an environment in the industry similar to Hollywood’s fixation on opening-weekend box-office grosses.

In contrast to the old system, SoundScan has shown that albums from big-name acts typically enjoy their best sales during their first week in stores. That makes perfect sense considering pent-up fan interest, but it’s a marked departure from the old-system days when even the most hotly anticipated albums would debut in the middle of the chart and climb to the top, linger and then slide. “That bell curve was fantasy,” says Mike Shalett, chief operating officer of SoundScan. “It was a horse race, but based on what?”

Before SoundScan, only six albums in Billboard chart history debuted at No. 1. During the SoundScan decade it’s happened 140 times.

That dramatic number alone reveals the old system as a rigged race, but Geoff Mayfield, director of charts for Billboard, says that perception is exaggerated. “There was only so far it could be manipulated,” Mayfield says. “I don’t think you could actually work an album into the Top 10. . . . There’s only so many favors you could call in.”

The first Billboard chart under the SoundScan era was marked with upheaval. About three dozen albums from veteran artists surged back up on the Top 200 chart, showing that they were selling better than the more hyped releases from developing acts. Country albums suddenly accounted for 34 slots, a dramatic increase from the previous weeks.

For Shalett, it was clear that the industry’s new, reality-based system was not a hit with executives trying to promote new acts. “Henry Droz [then president of Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Corp.] walked up to us and said, ‘You have single-handedly ruined the music industry in one week.’ ”

Bringing fairness to the music charts wasn’t the main pitch of Shalett and Fine. Their offer was market information: How well do a band’s albums sell after a local concert? How many copies of an album should be pressed for follow-up shipments?

The answers to those questions can be worth millions or define careers. Guerinot, for example, points to the days when the Offspring’s SoundScan performance in Southern California led directly to radio attention and commitments from its label to quickly distribute more copies. “It was crucial,” says the manager.

SoundScan has had to deal with its own share of criticism over accuracy. Champions of Christian and Latin music, for instance, have said sales of those genres through conventions, specialty stores and swap meets often get missed, and SoundScan also extrapolates sales at independent music stores because of incomplete reporting ranks.

Still, ask Shalett about the value of SoundScan and he might tell you about the time legendary music mogul Clive Davis was enjoying a Mediterranean Christmas aboard a yacht and dispatched assistants to shore to find the latest SoundScan reports. “There’s a lot of stories,” Shalett says. “People love to have those numbers.”