THE MUSICAL BOX "TOP 40" ALBUMS OF 2013 - Part 2
With the New Year now well and truly upon us, there's still time for one final backward glance at 2013 - and here we are with the second part of The Musical Box Top 40 Albums of 2013. This week is the Big One, the one where we do a run down of the Top 20 - including the stunning #1 album. The 40 albums were chosen by me from a combination of my Albums Of The Week last year - plus some of those which slipped under the radar - and then were thrown over to the listeners to cast their votes. Voting numbers are - pleasingly - well up on 2012 and it's great to see the final placings of some very fine albums indeed.
2013 has been an exceptional year for new music, albeit, some of the most interesting releases coming from artists making surprise comebacks after many years of apparent inactivity. Record sales - that is, tangible releases such as CDs and Vinyl - continued to fall amidst the continued onslaught of downloading and streaming as the consumers' choice of purchase. However, digging beneath the surface shows us that whilst CD sales fell by 13% compared to 2012, Vinyl sales continued their niche popularity with growth of over 101%. With fewer and fewer record stores - and other outlets such as supermarkets only selling a *safe* selection of CDs - it's become increasingly difficult for music fans to buy CDs, a format which still sold over 61 million units in the UK last year. It was good too to see the rescue and rebirth of HMV - and indeed, the increased focus on its core business, namely music, rather than all manner of peripherals like mobile phones.
The surviving independent record stores continue to innovate and it's instructive to look at The Official Record Store Top 40 of 2013 - a remarkable degree of consistency with The Musical Box chart, not only in the albums themselves, but several of the key placings too. This chart only includes the independent stores, those that participate in Record Store Day each year, but it still packs some punch: Official Record Stores Top 40 - 2013
So here we are then, the second part of The Musical Box Top 40 as voted for by you, the listeners:
THE TOP 40 ALBUMS OF 2013 - PART 2 - 20 TO #1
Click here to listen to the show itself:
There we are then - just a bit of fun, but I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.
The Musical Box is back to *normal* next week with all our usual features and songs old, new, borrowed and blues - so do please join me, make it a date and tune in at 10pm on Thursday, 9th January.
See you then.
Alan Dorey
3rd January 2014
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