Luminate adds Street Pulse data to improve Billboard Indie Album chart

A coalition of independent recorded music business retail and trade groups have partnered with data providers Luminate and Street Pulse to improve the physical sales data that drives Billboard’s indie charts.

At the end of last year, Luminate ignored the pleas of retailers and ended its longstanding practice of using a weighted data model to track sales. That meant that by some estimates, as much as 95% of all independent store sales were going unreported.

Now, The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS), Alliance of Independent Media Stores (AIMS), and Department of Record Stores (DORS), who work together as Record Store Day, The Music Business Association, and Luminate, have announced changes that took affected on April 19th, just before Record Store Day 2024.

Independent physical music sales, including CDs, vinyl, and cassettes collected by StreetPulse, a music industry data provider that receives daily sales metrics directly from stores, will now be incorporated into the physical sales data Luminate collects from other retailers.

Billboard Renames Indie Album Sales Chart

In conjunction with the change, Billboard, which receives streaming, sales, and airplay data from Luminate to fuel its music charts, announced the rebranding of its Tastemaker Albums Chart to Indie Store Album Sales, which reflects weekly top-selling titles across independent stores in the U.S.

Stakeholder Weigh In

“I’d like to thank the coalitions, the retail stores, and Luminate for taking this issue seriously and working together to reach a deal,” said Music Business Association President, Portia Sabin. “Sometimes it takes a pinch to bring people together, and the industry response to the unweighting of physical data was perhaps necessary to highlight the importance of that data to our industry. I’d also like to thank so many people at the labels, distributors, and even individual artists for speaking out and helping us to reach an agreement, because whenever our industry comes together to achieve a common goal it is inspiring for our future.”

Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, who served as the Record Store Day 2019 Ambassador, stated, “We truly love …the [independent] shops. They’ve always meant the world to us. When it gets to this time when you can help out the community and the community record stores, it’s a no-brainer.” Upon hearing that indie retail and Luminate had reached an agreement, Pearl Jam’s official statement was: “For nearly as long as we’ve been a band, there’d been a system that worked. We’re just honored to play a part… so that our beloved record stores can again have a real seat at the table.”

“This new partnership is the most significant development in the independent music retail industry since the creation of Record Store Day,” said Andrea Paschal of CIMS. “Our goal has always been to ensure comprehensive physical sales reporting, and bringing in data from StreetPulse, which collects actual sales from more U.S. indie retailers than ever before, will ensure that every purchase is cataloged and counted correctly.”

“Luminate is always working towards the goal of providing quality and accurate data to the industry,” said Chris Muratore, Director of Partnerships at Luminate. “We always strive to be a good partner to those across the many sectors of the music and entertainment industries, and we are happy to announce this new partnership in alignment with that mission and our values.”

“Comprehensive sales figures are crucial for everyone: for artists and their label partners, for Luminate to provide accurate marketplace reporting, and for independent retailers who rightly own and control their data and the subsequent insights,” said Secretly Group marketing director Hannah Carlen. “Physical retail remains strong and growing, and this deal will ensure that reality is reflected in sales and total consumption figures.”

Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor.