Answered By: Bobray Bordelon
Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024     Views: 230

  • International
    • International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
    • Global recording industry in numbers
      • Print publications in Mendel Music Library (MUS): Bound Periodicals, call number ML3790 .R43q.
      • Some years under the title The recording industry in numbers
    • Wikipedia is often a good source listing actual total sales (as opposed to just rankings) for a specific album.  
  • United States
  • Billboard. (institutional access no longer offered by Billboard)
  • Music Industry Data
    • This database enables searches of international charting albums and singles of popular music under exclusive academic license from Billboard, the Official Charts Company. Delivers over 60 years of popular music data. Additional features provide streaming audio links to copyright-cleared sound samples for most cited tracks and albums, and links to full-text articles in leading popular music journals and Web sites. Allows users to interpret, graph, analyze, compare, and contrast musical trends and interactions, and to extract and compare charting data for sound recording sales. 
  • Music Ally. Provides insight, news, marketing reports, trend reports, country profiles, and data on the music industry.
  • WhoSampled Academic Pro. Detailed data on sample-based music, cover songs and remixes from a crowd sourcing community. Requires registration.
  • Also see the Tulane University Music Business Research Guide which provides many additional links.
  • Important scholarly publications include:
  • See the Spotify Million Playlist Dataset
  • What Makes an Album the Greatest of All Time? (The Pudding). Compares Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” lists from 2003, 2012, and 2020.  Data is available in a spreadsheet. For each album in the rankings, name, genre, release year, 2003/2012/2020 rank, artist’s name, birth year, and gender are given.
  • Alpha Data Music (formerly BuzzAngle Music).  While coverage was primarily for the USA and Canada (physical & digital sales; on demand audio and video streaming; terrestial airplay), there was also data on video sales for Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Data began in 2015.  Searching was mediated only.   (Company has been bought and unresponsive since 2021; Not available)

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