| Wednesday 27 February 1991 |
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Reaping the sales
Now that the Grammys have been bestowed, the bonanza of post-Grammy record sales is just beginning. The day after Quincy Jones's album "Back on the Block" (Qwest/Warner Brothers) won eight Grammy awards, including album of the year, Warner Brothers Records received more than 50,000 orders for it. Until then, it had sold 1.8 million copies, said Lou Dennis, the label's senior vice president of national sales. Sales of "several hundred thousand more albums," he said, were expected. The record was released in November 1989 and reached No. 9 on Billboard's pop album chart.
Last year, after Bonnie Raitt's Capitol album "Nick of Time" won three Grammys, including best album, its sales swelled to more than two million from 800,000. Four months after the Grammys, Ms. Raitt's former label, Warner Brothers, released "The Bonnie Raitt Collection," an anthology that sold 300,000, in what Mr. Dennis described as "a coattail effect".
Warner Brothers has begun national advertising and sales campaigns for "Back on the Block", based on the Grammys. And the company will soon release a single from the album. Of the five singles released so far, the most successful was the Ray Charles-Chaka Khan duet "I'll Be Good to You", which reached No. 18 on the pop singles chart and won a Grammy for best rhythm and blues performance by a duo or a group with vocal.
Had "Back on the Block" been released later, it probably would have benefited more from the Grammys. At the time of the show, it had fallen off the charts, and no single from the album was being promoted. Marketing "Back on the Block" also presents a problem of identification, since Mr. Jones conceived, cast and produced the all-star record but performs on only the title cut as one among a group of rappers. Hearing a particular album cut on the radio, consumers might recognize the performers but not know, unless they were told, what album it was from.
The record that was best positioned to take commercial advantage of its Grammys was the debut album of Mariah Carey, who was chosen best new artist and won best female pop performance (for "Vision of Love"). This week, "Mariah Carey" rises to No. 1 on Billboard's pop album chart, displacing Vanilla Ice's "To the Extreme" (SBK), which held the top position for 16 weeks. Ms. Carey's "Someday" stands at No. 2 on the pop singles chart. Her performance of "Vision of Love" on the Grammy telecast also gave her crucial visibility at exactly the right moment. Columbia Records estimates re-orders in the past week to be roughly 50 percent above what they would have been without the Grammys. (excerpt from The New York Times)
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