The music market in 1998 showed a boom, with 10 albums selling more than 4 million albums at the end of the year, compared to five last year, and doubling this year. However, last year's top three albums sold more than 6 million, but this year's 6 million albums sold only one.

From this point of view, there is a striking convergence between the development of the music market and the film market: the collective momentum is rising, the dominance of the unrivaled works is declining, but the potential of the overall market is being tapped to new heights.

Topping the 1998 year-end sales charts, country singer Garth Brooks reached the pinnacle of her career, following on from her last brand-new album that topped the year-end rankings last year, and then released a double live album in October this year, "Double Live." Live)", a non-studio album that chronicles Garth's live performances, has received a cult following from country music fans, and in less than three months, it has sold 12 million sales, shocking the entire market!

Last year, "Storm" sold 10.17 million albums in a single year, becoming the first album in the 90s to exceed 10 million sales in one year, pushing the momentum of this album to the peak in one fell swoop; But now Gas's "double live" has reached a new high, easily breaking the achievements created by "Storm", making people deeply feel the unshakable absolute dominance of country music in the North American market!

In the past few years, rock, pop, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop have taken turns to make waves in the North American market, but in this bustle, the countryside has always occupied an unshakable place, from Lianne Lyme to Shania Towne to Garth Brooke, from the beginning to the end of the market distribution can not be ignored.

This year, Garth relied on a "double scene" to not only prove the dominance of country music, but also the huge mass base and long history that have made the genre enduring; At the same time, it has also pushed the music market to a new peak with $12 million in annual sales, and in the past three years, the North American year-end sales champion has been rising year by year.

The dominance of the album "Double Live" is manifested in the fact that it broke the achievements created by last year's "Storm" and became the highest-selling work at the end of the 90s; At the same time, this is the only album to surpass six million sales this year.

It can be seen that the absolute dominance of the "double scene" can be called the most in the nineties.

The work that ranked on the year-end album sales chart surprised everyone, and it was actually a "storm" of glory to death! The album, released in October 1996, had been in the top 20 of the Billboard albums chart for more than 115 weeks, and showed no signs of abating, but in 1998, sales actually slowly recovered, and this year the cumulative number of weeks back in the top 10 reached 21 weeks - including 10 weeks in the top three.

In the end, "Tempest" won 5.95 million for the whole year, infinitely approaching 6 million sales, which not only made "Tempest" occupy the runner-up position on the year-end sales chart in 1998, but also made the cumulative sales of this album exceed 20 million, to 24.4 million copies!

24.4 million, what does that mean? This means that "Storm" has become the tenth album in the history of North American local music to exceed 20 million cumulative sales - a total of eight albums before 1998 have reached such heights, and the ninth to achieve such a result is "Bathing in the Morning Light"; It also means that Glory to Death has officially qualified to challenge the Eagles' compilation and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" sales record.

In fact, as early as the end of last year, the pace of "stormy" to create history was already unstoppable, and people had long expected the arrival of "20 million", which was only a matter of time. After entering 1998, "Bathing in the Morning Light" took the lead, exceeding 20 million sales before the end of April, and "Storm" was slightly half a step late, reaching such a height in the middle of May.

At the end of 1998, the final sales of "Bathing in the Morning Light" were 21.8 million, while the cumulative sales of "Storm" temporarily settled at 24.4 million.

This makes Glory to Death the only singer in music history to have two albums that have sold 20 million in North America — and judging by the current momentum, Gass is very likely to be the second best. Moreover, "Bathing in the Morning Light" is currently ranked seventh all-time, while "Storm" has surpassed Pink Floyd's album "The Lost Wall." Wall)", came to the third place in history.

Now, standing in front of the "storm" are the last two bastions, the Eagles' 1976 compilations and Michael Jackson's "Thriller", the former with 26 million cumulative sales by the end of 1998, and the latter with more than 25 million cumulative sales.

This makes people can't help but start their blood boiling, is it possible that "Storm" is about to complete the transcendence of the two great singers in 1999, and once again write the history of this band - perhaps, glory to death can really become a legend.

Although Glory to Death has hardly had any collective activities in the past year, and album promotion has long been stopped, the momentum of "Storm" has not weakened, after winning the North American year-end championship for two consecutive years, it is still in the runner-up position this year, and there is hope that like "Independence Day" broke the shackles of the entire North American history, the height of the entire history, and created a new record for the North American music market.

In particular, the "Twisted Tour" launched by Glory to Death has held more than 80 tours in the past year and a half, including 300 rock bands of all sizes throughout the North American continent, giving rock and roll power unprecedented vitality, even compared to the golden age of the 70s. Even for today's young people, this is the real golden age of rock 'n' roll.

Even though more than two years have passed since the release of "Tempest", the momentum of Glory to Death is still thriving, as if it has surpassed the guns and roses of its peak, and has teamed up with Nirvana to attack the legendary classics The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Queen, Pink Floyd, and more.

The 1998 music market was buzzing with Gas-Brooks' devastation and death to glory, and the success of other works was added to them after them.

1998 was a year to remember, following the rise of idol groups such as Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, and Destiny True Girl, Superboy was born, challenging the supremacy of the current Backstreet Boys. Superboy's debut self-titled album sold 5.13 million copies, ranking third on the year-end list, even better than last year's Backstreet Boys, making North America a classic pattern of "Backstreet Boys VS Superboys", marking the official arrival of the era of idol groups.

Different from the competition between music genres such as country, rock, pop, etc., the emergence of idol groups means the ultimate in music commercialization, and also means the complete maturity of music market commercialization. Compared with the music itself, the idol effect began to gradually exert its power, and the simple and crude pop arrangements and powerful dance music choices brought into play the advantages of the idol group members' appearance, personality, and charm, and successfully changed the market pattern.

In particular, the confrontation between the Backstreet Boys and Superboy has become a decisive factor in driving the vitality of the entire North American music market, even surpassing the pattern of "Oasis Band VS Glory to Death VS Mariah Carey", because the three-legged battle of the century is more of a hard-fought battle of strength, while the confrontation between the two idol groups has opened a beautiful era of fan culture.

The three albums of "Double Live", "Storm" and "Super Boy", three works with different forms, postures and styles, jointly occupied the top three album sales charts in 1998, which is also one of the most important manifestations of the changes in the music market this year.

After this, the southern chick (Dixie. Chicks), Master P. P）、R。 Kelly, "City of Angels. Of。 Angels)" soundtrack, Brandi, Madonna, Jay. The works of Z and other singers were all shortlisted in the top 10, constituting the top 10 works on this year's year-end sales list.

Throughout the list, Garth and Southern Chicks represent the countryside, Master P and Jay. Z is for hip-hop, R. Kelly, Brandi for rhythm and blues, Superboy and Madonna for pop and dance, glory to death, plus Elanis Morissette in 11th place for rock, and finally there is a movie soundtrack that appears conventionally - the soundtrack of "City of Angels" can be summarized in the pop and rock department.

It is worth mentioning that the "City of Angels" soundtrack includes songs by Glory to Death and Alanis - the song "Angel" in the album "Tempest" is the theme song of the movie, and after it was released as a single, it was very popular and stayed in the top ten for a long time.

In the midst of this, the countryside represented by Garth and the Southern Chicken shows the ability to dominate the level, one champion and one champion, and there is no work to compete with the championship results; And the historical achievements created by glory to death have invisibly gained a firm foothold, and the collective outbreak of rock and roll forces has officially come.

Like the album market, the singles market is still a colorful scene of fireworks, but compared to the boom of records, the performance of the singles market has dropped slightly, not only has it not been able to produce such a dominant work as "Sail", but the overall average performance is not satisfactory.