A Historical Investigation of Patterns in Sophomore Album Release

Abstract

IntroductionUsing Nielsen SoundScan and Billboard chart data for the periods 1993-2003, this paper develops a cohort panel dataset comprised of artists and groups for the purpose of studying historical patterns of sophomore album release. Knowing when and why sophomore albums are released is of importance to social scientists as it allows the testing of various behavioral theories. Additionally, music industry practitioners and educators may find the description of sophomore album releases important because it indicates how acts (artists, groups, and labels) have historically behaved thus identifying a standard for industry behavior.The estimation model includes variables that affect the timing of an act's sophomore release. How these variables impact the timing is a priori unknown and thus is a puzzle. One such variable is the cumulative debut album sales. A successful debut album could indicate the future success of a sophomore album resulting in a shorter sophomore release time frame. Alternatively, debut release success may give acts more time to improve and complete the sophomore album thus delaying its release. Another possibility is that past success may not be as important since all of the acts studied have had initial success as indicated by the Heatseekers Albums chart.Another variable used to test the timing of release is the genre of the act. For various reasons, certain genres may be more efficient in the production and release process due to the number of tracks associated with the album. For example, classical and jazz albums can be more efficiently recorded relative to Hot 100 pop albums that often consist of more than one hundred tracks to edit and mix. Additionally, given the common wisdom that artists have their entire life to write the first album but only a year to write the second, the availability of material within a genre may impact the timing.1 In total, the main variables used to explain the timing of sophomore album release are chosen based on a theoretical description of the primitives that describe the economic motivations to release an album.For the panel of acts, the paper documents the following empirical facts about the timing of the sophomore album release. First, the hazard function indicates that most sophomore albums are released 45 months after the debut album and if a sophomore release does not occur within 80 months of the debut album there will most likely be no sophomore release. Second, the time between album release is a function of past album sales; all else equal, the larger the hit the less time it takes for the next album to be released. Third, genre influences the timing of release. Holding all else constant, the Rap/R&B/Dance genre consistently delayed sophomore albums relative to the Country/Blues and Rock genres. Fourth, conditional on successful debut album sales, acts from the Country/Blues and Rap/R&B/Dance genres release more quickly than acts from the Rock genre. Although the third and fourth empirical facts seem to contradict each other, a simple example clarifies the two. At the extreme, a rap artist with zero debut album sales would have a delayed release relative to a rock artist with the same sales level. However, the probability that a rap artist will release before a rock artist increases as debut albums become more successful.DataFollowing Hendricks and Sorensen (2008), a sample cohort is constructed using Billboard s Heatseekers Albums chart of new or developing acts2 for the time period 1993-1994. To estimate the econometric model, a sample cohort is needed for two main reasons: (1) the universe of possible acts is too large and (2) employing a sample cohort allows one to compare acts in the same part of their career lifecycle. In total, the sample cohort describes the album sales history of 111 acts whose album reaches Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart in 1993 and 1994. The Heatseekers Albums chart lists the sales ranking of the top 25 new or ascendant artists and bands each week. …