X5 Music Group Extends #1 Digital Success To Blues, Video Game Soundtracks & More

X5 Music Group has scored #1's before with ultra-low priced digital-only classical music compilations. With high track counts and prices as low as $.99 – $1.99 driven by SEO friendly titles like "Mozart – 100 Supreme Classical Masterpieces", X5 has dominated the classical music charts for months. Now they're successfully extending their formula to higher priced compilations with fewer tracks in new genres.

As of Tuesday, X5's "Essential Blues" was #1 on the Amazon MP3 Blues Chart with 20 songs for $5 including hits by Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and John Hammond.  iTunes has the compilation at  #7 on it's blues chart alongside another X5 title "Real American Blues" at #9.

"Digital music storefronts offer unlimited self space, but a very limited end cap," Scott Ambrose Reilly, X5's North American CEO told Hypebot, referring to the prime self space that drives sales in brick and morter retailers.  X5 successfully cuts through the digital clutter for both labels and fans by creating these  value driven packages with SEO friendly titles. "Many of our customers are casual fans and digital music impulse buyers," according to Reilly. "We help them find what they're looking for."

Most X5 compilations draw tracks from a growing cadre of partner labels including Alligator, Vanguard, Sugar Hill and Cooking Vinyl.  But they've also found success commissioning their own recordings. "Greatest
Video Game Music Vol 2", recorded for X5 by the London Philharmonic, was #2 as of Tuesday on the overall Amazon MP3 chart and #1 in classical.  On iTunes, it was at # 2 on
the Classical Chart along with other X5 titles at #3, #5, #11 and sprinkled throughout the
top 100. It's expected to debut in the Billboard 200 this week.

Reilly also says X5 is finding similar success with bluegrass, and is expanding into folk and other genres. What new directions they'll take is also be driven by which new label deals Reilly and his team make.  "Increasingly labels are coming to us after having unsuccessfully tried to mine their own catalogs online," says the former Amazon executive. "They just have to look at our the numbers to see that we bring a lot to the table."