Lucian Grainge’s Universal Music Group, John Janick’s Interscope and Ken Bunt’s Walt Disney Records were the big overall winners in BuzzAngle Music’s year-end report for 2017, which was released this morning.
UMG topped the music group category with a total of 155,111,382 Total Project Units, a combination of actual album sales, song sales and on-demand audio streams. Sony Music was next, with 95.7 million project units, followed by Warner Music Group (67.9 m) to round out the big three, with TuneCore, RED, ADA and The Orchard leading the way among the indies.
Thanks to Top 10 albums from Kendrick Lamar (#2) and Imagine Dragons (#10), Interscope Geffen A&M led the way on the label side, with 30 million total project units. Runner-up RCA (24.8m) was boosted by hit albums from Khalid and Pink, while #3 Atlantic Records (24.4m) boasted hits from #1 Ed Sheeran and #5 Bruno Mars. Columbia Records (23.6m) was bolstered by The Chainsmokers (#13) and Epic Records (16.9m) broke out rapper Future (#12), who had two chart-topping albums in 2017. Republic (16.3m) had three in the Top 10, including Drake (#4), Post Malone (#6) and The Weeknd (#8), followed by Capitol (12.4m), Def Jam (10.6m), Island (8.6m) and Warner Bros. (7.7m) rounding out the Top 10.
In the indie sector, Walt Disney Records topped the market with 4.7 million total project units, thanks largely to the “Moana” Original Motion Picture soundtrack (#7), followed by Big Machine (4.5m), boosted by #4 Taylor Swift, Hollywood Records (2.9m), 300 Entertainment (2.6m), Valory (1.8m), Curb Records (1.78m), Razor & Tie (1.7m), Glassnote (1.6m), Concord Records (1.56m) and BMLG Records, formerly Republic Nashville (1.55m).
