A sales chill for Christmas albums

A man shops for music CDs at a Virgin Megastore in Times Square in New York, November 21, 2007.

NEW YORK (Billboard) - After two consecutive years of strong Christmas sales, seasonal music has lost favor with U.S. music fans.

Some merchants are reporting that seasonal album sales are down as much as 50% from last year. One wholesaler says he has already begun to return Christmas product to the labels because he feels he will have little chance of selling it, marking a break from the customary practice of returning Christmas product after the new year.

The decline comes amid a dearth of big Christmas album debuts, as well as a slide in overall music sales and an economic recession.

Certainly no new Christmas titles have matched the performance of Josh Groban's 2007 album "Noel," which was the top overall seller during Thanksgiving week last year with 405,000 units. It ruled the Billboard 200 for five weeks, and was the year's biggest seller with 3.7 million units.

Currently, the biggest new holiday release is country singer Faith Hill's "Joy to the World," which slipped one place to No. 17 on the Billboard 200 in the week ended November 30.

Other Christmas titles on the Billboard 200 include Irish singer Enya's "And Winter Came..." at No. 18, Elvis Presley's "Christmas Duets" at No. 28, Harry Connick, Jr's "What a Night! A Christmas Album" at No. 33, and the multi-artist compilation "The Essential NOW That's What I Call Christmas" at No. 40.

Reuters/Billboard