Hip-Hop
and Rap just continues to dominate the charts. Sales of Rap/Hip-Hop
albums jumped 20 percent during the year 2000, the biggest increase
of any music genre.
R&B, Alternative
and New Age albums also increased on the average of about 8% to
12 %. Classical was down 5%, Country dropped 3%, Jazz went down
by 5%, Christian dropped 6% and soundtracks dropped a whopping
16%. The top selling Hip-Hop albums that helped inflate this number
are: Eminem’s "The Marshall Mathers LP" (7.9 million),
Nelly’s "Country Grammar" (5 million) and Dr. Dre’s
"Dr. Dre 2001" (4 million), all of which come out on
Universal Records.
Universal continued
to dominate the market, with a share of 28%, thanks to acts like
Eminem, Cash Money, Nelly, Dr. Dre, DMX, Method Man/Redman and
others. Not bad for an artform the majority of the industry called
a novelty.