The musical treats for pop fans continue to roll out in conjunction with national Record Store Day on April 16, the annual event hosted by a consortium of independent record  retailers to recognize merchants who still sell music from brick-and-mortar stores.

Capitol/EMI will put out a 78 rpm vinyl double disc set pairing two Beach Boys’ high watermark recordings, “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains,” both recorded after the “Pet Sounds” album during sessions for the highly anticipated “SMiLe” album that was eventually shelved. The Record Store Day set will include commercially released versions of both songs on the first disc, and early alternate takes of both on the second. 

Adult singer/songwriter Amos Lee leads the U.S. pop charts this week, and though his 40,000 in sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan, mark a career best for the artist, the number will come with an asterisk -- at least for a week or two. Lee's "Mission Bell" marks the lowest-ever No. 1 debut for an album released in the post-SoundScan era, which began in 1991. 

The record-breaking number comes only two weeks after alt-rock vets Cake led the chart with 44,000 in sales. The act's "Showroom of Compassion" is at No. 51 this week, with close to 9,000 copies sold. In three weeks, "Compassion" has sold 68,000 copies, indicative of an album largely playing to die-hards.  

Though Lee's built himself a steady career, he is a long way from the superstars who once dominated the pole position on the chart, often for multiple weeks. A recent concert date in Los Angeles at the Music Box failed to sell out, although a Goldenvoice spokesperson notes that it was close. Nevertheless, the Music Box is midsize venue with a capacity of 1,300, and indie act Beach House has managed to sell out its upcoming two-night stand that begins on Feb. 16. 

Back on the charts, Sam Beam's Iron & Wine muscles a No. 2 in the depressed climate, scoring a career high for his "Kiss Each Other Clean." Yet the 39,000 copies sold by "Kiss" isn't all that much higher than the 32,000 sold by his "Shepherd's Dog" back in 2007, according to Billboard. Three years ago, however, sales in the 30,000-range would have likely pegged an artist to land somewhere in the 20s, as "Shepherd's Dog" bowed at No. 24.

Taken as a whole, the sales news only gets worse. Overall album sales, according to Billboard, are down 18% from the comparable week in 2010, and 13% for the year. BigChampagne's recently launched Ultimate Chart doesn't add much clarity, as its jumble of social-networking sites results in a tally that sometimes feels like little more than a popularity contest.The likes of Bruno Mars, Katy Perry and Britney Spears dot the top five, although there is one surprise at the top of BigChampagne's chart.

Judging the market for big-ticket music box sets continues to be at least as much art as it is science.

Record company executives I spoke to recently said that even though the Internet has given labels unprecedented ability to target fans of specific artists, there’s still a lot of hope and guesswork that goes into these ultra-expensive projects such as the $1,199 Miles Davis 43-CD box set and the $749 30-CD “The Complete Elvis Presley Masters” box.

Seattle indie music store owner Mike Batt of Silver Platters, for instance, noted that when EMI/Capitol Records last year issued CD box sets with the remastered Beatles catalog — one in stereo that list for $259 and one gathering all the Fab Four’s albums that were originally mixed in mono carrying a $299 list price — the company ultimately created a quagmire for Beatles collectors.

“It takes a smart buyer to know the store audience and also the future market value of these items,” Batt told me by e-mail. “If played right they can make a profit, but they can also be a large cash hole." The Beatles' mono box from last year is a perfect example. 

“The Beatles in Mono” box originally was touted as a limited-edition set for which only 10,000 copies would be manufactured. Those quickly sold out by way of pre-orders, sending collectors into something of a feeding frenzy to get their hands on copies.

“Most retail never actually had any to sell to someone that had not already preordered it [by] the day of release. Not even Amazon,” Batt recalled. “This made the actual marketplace demand so cloudy that Capitol/EMI decided to press more a month later, which then flooded the market.

“Today there are hundreds and hundreds of people trying to sell it online and just get something for it. What actually cost retailers $190 each has had a low market value of $110 online so far. Add to that a group of bootleggers and pirates that tried to jump on the bandwagon early and are now trying to recoup their losses by selling the bootlegs in legitimate marketplaces, bringing the value and consumer confidence in the item even lower.”

What’s that line? “I read the news today, oh, boy …”

— Randy Lewis

 
 
When Apple Inc. announced last week that the Beatles’ catalog would at long last be available for legal downloading on iTunes, many skeptics groused that the two entities had come together too late: Everyone who cares about the group’s music long ago found a way to store it on their PCs, laptops or MP3 players.

Apparently not.

Apple announced Tuesday that 450,000 Beatles albums and 2 million individual tracks were downloaded during the first week they went up online. That translates to well more than $8 million spent on Beatles downloads out of the gate, using the single album download price of $12.99 and $1.29 per song. It doesn’t take into account several double albums priced at $19.99 or the digital Beatles box set that iTunes offers for $149.

At the same time the Beatles finally joined the digital world, Amazon began discounting the remastered physical CDs that were released last year, with individual albums now selling for $7.99, double sets for $11.99 and $12.99 and the 16-CD stereo box set priced at $129.99, making the tangible versions cheaper than the virtual ones. Consequently, six Beatles titles are in the Top 100 of Amazon’s ranking of its bestselling music titles as of Tuesday.

-- Randy Lewis

So iTunes may have gotten the Beatles, but the battle for online supremacy in the digital downloading space is just getting started. Yes, the Apple store has a massive head start, but Amazon.com this week is taking direct aim at the spot where iTunes has shown the least flexibility: price.

Downloads of new albums from Kanye West, My Chemical Romance, Ne-Yo and Robyn are priced at $3.99, but with the aid of this handy-dandy $3 off coupon, a brand new digital download can be yours for just 99 cents. At these prices, it's almost as if music on the Internet can be had for free.

Though it's good for just one purchase, and though Amazon reserves the right to "terminate or modify this promotion" at any time, it represents a new low in the valuation of an album (there is no fine print about the deal not being utilized for sale items). It also gives Amazon a head start on Thanksgiving-weekend shoppers, committing them to a music purchase days before they would be tempted to make an impulse buy at a physical retailer this Thanksgiving weekend.

The trend at Amazon's biggest competitor -- and the world's largest seller of music -- has been the opposite. A non-deluxe edition of My Chemical Romance's "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys," for instance, is retailing for $11.99 at iTunes.

Recent releases are getting an even bigger discount. As of Tuesday, the John Legend and the Roots collaboration "Wake Up!" is priced at $1.99 at Amazon. Over at iTunes, it's still comfortably priced at $9.99.

U2 is pitching in with other acts that are offering special releases in conjunction with "Black Friday" promotions Nov. 26 that support independent record stores. The Irish band will be offering  a  limited-edition three-song live EP on vinyl  titled “Wide Awake in Europe.”

“Mercy,” the freshest of the tracks and recently added to the European leg of the "U2360° Tour," was recorded Sept. 22 in Brussels and is being released for the first time in any form on the new EP. The other two -- “Moment of Surrender” and “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” -- were recorded at earlier stops on the tour. Only 5,000 copies of the EP will be pressed and sold, primarily in North American indie record stores, although some copies will be shipped for sale in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Black Friday releases from U2, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Metallica, the Gaslight Anthem, the Black Crowes, Grinderman, the Doors, the Black Keys and others are an extension of national Record Store Day, an event each April that a  coalition of indie music store operators cooked up to highlight brick-and-mortar stores that still specialize in selling physical CDs and vinyl.

"We all wanted to get behind Record Store Day,” U2 bassist Adam Clayton said on behalf of the band in a statement released Monday. “My local record shop introduced me to music I didn’t know and I might never have discovered."

-- Randy Lewis

Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" album is officially the fastest-selling album in half a decade, logging 1,047,000 copies during its first week of release, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That will handily let it debut at No. 1 on the national sales chart, which formally will be announced Wednesday.

The 20-year-old country-pop singer and songwriter bested rapper Lil Wayne, the last act to surpass the seven-figure mark in a debut week. His "Tha Carter III" sold 1,006,000 copies in June 2008. Swift posted the best initial-week figure since rapper 50 Cent sold 1,141,000 copies of his album "The Massacre" in March 2005.

In some respects, Swift's numbers may be more impressive than 50 Cent's, in that overall album sales have been dropping in double-figure percentages nearly every year since 2005. Swift's album also registered the second-highest single-week sales of any country album since SoundScan began tracking retail sales in 1991, according to Billboard. It's second only to Garth Brooks' "Double Live" album, which sold 1,085,000 in 1998.

And "Speak Now" tallied the biggest opening week for a female artist in more than a decade, since Britney Spears' "Oops! I Did It Again" sold 1,319,000 in 2000, Billboard noted. Swift's third album almost doubled the first-week sales of her previous effort, "Fearless," which sold 592,000 copies in November 2008.

The first-week sales record still belongs to boy band *NSYNC's "No Strings Attached," which sold 2.4 million copies, also in 2000.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Taylor Swift backstage at Club Nokia. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Continuing their efforts to reward music fans who still patronize independent record stores, a coalition of small retailers will be offering exclusive releases on Nov. 26 from rock, pop, R&B and country artists including U2, Metallica, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and many others.

The special releases are part of indie retailers' "Back to Black Friday" promotion for the day after Thanksgiving, typically the heaviest shopping day of the year.

Many are being released on vinyl, which gives rise to the "back to black" theme. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Cee-Lo, Iron & Wine and Drive-By Truckers are among the other acts participating.

"These exclusive pieces not only create nice sales, but a lasting memory and connection between the customer, the store, the employee and the artist, whose importance can't be overstated," Mike Batt, who owns Silver Platters, a Seattle indie music store, said in a statement Thursday.

The store owners also seek to increase awareness of existing retailers each spring with National Record Store Day, which also has become something of a cause celebre among pop and rock stars.

"Many of the great indies have disappeared in recent years, but Record Store Day is giving us yet another chance to show appreciation to this wonderful endangered slice of Americana," Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers said in the same statement.

Among exclusive high-profile reissues coming to the indie stores for the holiday season are a special edition of Harrison's 1970 solo triple-album "All Things Must Pass" and a Hendrix holiday EP, "Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year."

-- Randy Lewis

 
Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now” album, which was released Monday, is shaping up to have possibly the biggest first-week sales of any album this year, according to Billboard. The 20-year-old singer-songwriter’s third album is expected to log sales of at least 800,000 to 900,000 copies by Sunday, Billboard reports.  That would put it ahead of the year’s current first-week sales champ, Eminem’s “Recovery,” which posted initial sales of 741,000 in June.

The trade publication gives it a shot at topping 1 million copies in its first week, which would make it the first album to hit that mark since Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” sold 1,006,000 copies in 2008 during its first week.

Swift’s collection appears to be doing better than retailers expected. A month ago, Billboard cited industry projections of 750,000 copies for "Speak Now" in the first week. It also is generating largely favorable reviews, scoring an 81, out of a possible 100, at the Metacritic aggregrate review site.

The enthusiastic response to the album runs counter to the downward trend of overall record sales, which in the latest reporting period were 14% lower than in the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Just two weeks ago, Toby Keith’s “Bullets in the Gun” set a new record for the lowest sales figure for a No. 1 album debut –- 71,000 copies -- since SoundScan began monitoring retail sales in 1991.

Swift also would counter the trend of artists who have been unable to match or top their previous sales figures. Her 2008 sophomore album, “Fearless,” debuted at No. 1 after selling 592,000 copies in its first week of release.

Swift is in the midst of a blitz of media appearances this week in conjunction with the release of “Speak Now”; next year, she plans to embark on an international tour.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Taylor Swift performing at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Country good ol' boys Zac Brown Band and slick pop band Maroon 5 battled for the top spot on this week's pop chart, a bout between two former best new artist Grammy winners. The trophy, in this case, signifies each act's crossover appeal. The Zac Brown Band makes a backwoods country sound safe for pregame tailgates, and Maroon 5 dabbles in funk and soul, but never enough to dirty their designer look.

With "You Get What You Give," the Zac Brown Band follows its major label breakthrough, 2008's "The Foundation," with a No. 1 album. The Atlantic Records album sold 153,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, giving the fast-rising country stars their first ever chart-topper on the pop tally. The first-week sales are just a small dent in the total sales notched thus far by "The Foundation," an album that this week sits at No. 22 and to date has sold just under 2.3 million copies. 

While Maroon 5 still scored a top 5 album, the news isn't quite as good for the Adam Levine-led slicksters. The act's "Hands All Over" lands with significantly less pop than its 2007 effort "It Won't Be Soon Before Long," the latter of which bowed with 429,000 copies sold, according to the Billboard archives. By comparison, "Hands All Over," despite its provocative cover, muscles 142,000 copies sold.

Last week's No. 1, Linkin Park's "Thousand Suns," dips more than 70%, selling a little less than 70,000 in its second week. That gives the Agoura Hills rockers a two-week total of 311,000 copies sold. Its last, 2007's "Minutes to Midnight," sold more than 600,000 copies in its first week.

Other notes from this week's pop chart:

For hip-hop heads of legal drinking age, the name Fat Beats inevitably conjures memories of teenage years spent trawling through racks of vinyl, in-store appearances with the latest underground stars (during a period when "underground" didn't require scare quotes) and encyclopedic employees often pulled from the top ranks of the Los Angeles DJ scene.

And now, the iconic hip-hop retailer will close its last two remaining brick-and-mortar locations in New York and Los Angeles -- another apparent casualty to ever-dwindling record sales and interest in vinyl among hip-hop consumers. The closures reflect the final act of contraction for a chain that had previous shuttered its locations in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Tokyo.

“The closing of Fat Beats is just like one of my friends passing away,” DJ Premier said in a prepared statement. “They promoted vinyl at its highest degree for the culture of good music, and that makes it more difficult to say goodbye.”

Underpinning the statement is the reality that while vinyl has seen an upsurge of interest among indie rock fans, hip-hop fans have moved away from the format in recent years. This reality has been compounded by the rise of illegal downloading, free mix tapes and the general difficulty of finding popular rap records on vinyl.

The New York location will close its doors on Sept. 4, with L.A.'s Melrose Boulevard outpost shutting down on Sept. 18. A spate of goodbye celebrations and sales are planned in the interim. Fat Beats' online store, distribution business and Brooklyn-based record label will remain extant.

“This is the start of a new era in Fat Beats,” Fat Beats owner and president Joe Abajian said in a prepared statement. “We’re adapting to meet the needs of our demographic by revamping and improving our existing systems. While our website, which stocks everything available in our retail stores, continues to do very well, we’re still exploring our options for alternate retail locations in the future. We’re proud of our legacy and will continue to reinvent ourselves."

With the closure of one of Los Angeles' last remaining hubs of independent hip-hop, expect a flurry of tributes to pour in over the next 30 days. In the meantime, this reminiscence from local rapper TiRon nicely captures the store' s place in LA hip-hop culture and illustrates why it will be sorely missed.

-- Jeff Weiss

Rhino Records founder Richard Foos will briefly resurrect the now-defunct Rhino store in Westwood to liquidate a major chunk of his private music collection for charity.

After four decades in Southern California, Foos is moving with his family to New York, and rather than transport thousands of LPs, 45s, CDs, videos and assorted music paraphernalia, Foos decided to open a Rhino pop-up store for two weeks from May 17-31. Proceeds from the sale will go to Chrysalis Enterprises, an L.A. organization that helps jobless and homeless people find employment.

Foos, who started the similarly minded Shout! Factory reissue label after selling Rhino Records to the Warner Music Group more than a decade ago, anticipates selling 100,000 items with a goal of raising $100,000. In addition to culling from his own collection, Foos is getting donated merchandise from friends and associates to include in the sale.