Brit Awards - Sales Increase

Florence and The Machine was a major domestic beneficiary from last week's BRIT Awards, with a 53% week-on-week sales increase in the U.K. for her debut album "Lungs" (Island/Universal) and a No. 2 single.

The alternative artist's set, which won for best British album, moved 9-3 on the U.K. chart with weekly sales of 39,000 according to the Official Charts Company. Florence and the Machine performed at the Feb. 16 ceremony with rapper Dizzee Rascal, and their duet "You Got The Dirtee Love" made No. 2 on the singles chart following its Feb. 17 release exclusively via iTunes. It moved almost 63,000 units in four days.

Lady Gaga's "The Fame" (Interscope/Universal) increased weekly sales by 54% to 53,500, and moved 5-2 behind the Glee Cast. She won three international awards and performed during the ceremony, which got an average 5.8 million viewers for the live broadcast on ITV1.

The majority of BRITs performers' albums benefited. Robbie Williams increased sales for "Reality Killed the Video Star" (Virgin/EMI) by 22% and moved 21-8; Lily Allen's "It's Not Me It's You" (Parlophone/EMI) was up 13% and moved 28-19; and Jay-Z's "The Blueprint 3" (Roc Nation) increased sales by 25% and moved 22-10. The BRIT Awards album tops the compilation chart.

Ted Cockle, co-president of Island U.K., says Florence and the Machine's success - U.K. shipments are now over 800,000 - justifies their slow build for the artist, who released her debut album several months after winning the critics' choice award at the 2009 BRIT Awards.

"She's just a rare breed, which gives you the confidence to take your time with her," says Cockle. "Most of the time [with other artists] we drive one hit single and the airplay on that and the album off the back of it, whereas this [success] is coming from five or six tracks that people are enjoying."

Cockle is eyeing a total of 1 million-plus sales in the U.K. with two further singles to come. "Historically, the million-seller has always been the hallmark of the records that seem to stay around forever and always hold a precious place in people's hearts," says Cockle. "If we can get beyond that it would be good, but we don't need to be pushing on forever because I think it will have a natural life of its own without us needing to market it too aggressively."

The single "You Got the Love" also improved 29-12 post-BRITs, and Cockle notes that Candi Staton, who had a 1991 top 20 U.K. hit with the Source on the original dance version, has given her approval. An on-stage collaboration between Florence Welch and Staton is "something talked about for across the summer," he says.

There have already been some studio sessions for new material because Cockle says it is "the best way to keep her excited," and there is also discussion about her writing a "power ballad" with Duffy songwriter Eg White.

Cockle stresses that Island has encouraged Florence to take risks musically. "People fell in love with her for the wild songs and for the more alternative stuff," he adds.

Florence and the Machine follows the current European tour with dates in the U.S. in April including Coachella festival.

Rock act Kasabian also got a BRITs boost following their win for best British group and performance of "Fire." "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum" (Columbia) increased weekly sales by 179% - although this was from a lower base than "Lungs" - and moved from No. 63 to No. 20. The album sold almost 12,000 copies last week.

"They were also the only rock act to win an award during the night and that probably reflects the way music went during 2009 unfortunately," says Columbia Records U.K. managing director Mike Smith. He says consistent support from U.K. national top 40 station Radio 1 has been crucial.

Smith believes Kasabian is "the biggest band [active] in the U.K. now and we want to go on and take that message out around the world, and that's certainly where Serge [Pizzorno]'s head is at with the new material he's writing at the moment."

"It's interesting that rock music has not had as much exposure in the last 12 months as other musical genres, but Kasabian has proved that people love this kind of music," he adds. "What's been great is that Kasabian has consistently researched and tested incredibly well at the radio stations that have played them, people absolutely love this kind of music. When they get the opportunity to hear them and see them live, the record sales certainly grow in accordance with that."

Rapper Dizzee Rascal increased sales of his album "Tongue 'N' Cheek" (Dirtee Stank/PIAS) by 75% for a weekly sale of 6,600, which sent it 73-33. Dizzee's best British male victory was "totally deserved" according to PIAS U.K. managing director Peter Thompson, who says that "2009 was the year that Dizzee Rascal became a major commercial force."

The brand new Dizzee track "Disco" will be released to radio in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Ellie Goulding, winner of the critics' choice award, enjoyed a 400% increase on pre-orders for her March 1 debut "Lights" (Polydor) according to download store 7digital.

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Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back

As the leader of Genesis in the early '70s, Peter Gabriel helped move progressive rock to new levels of theatricality. He was no less ambitious as a solo artist, but he was more subtle in his methods. With his first eponymous solo album in 1977, he began exploring darker, more cerebral territory, incorporating avant-garde, electronic, and worldbeat influences into his music. The record, as well as its two similarly titled successors, established Gabriel as a critically acclaimed cult artist, and with 1982's Security, he began to move into the mainstream; "Shock the Monkey" became his first Top 40 hit, paving the way for his multi-platinum breakthrough So in 1986. Accompanied by a series of groundbreaking videos and the number one single "Sledgehammer," So became a multi-platinum hit, and Gabriel became an international star. Instead of capitalizing on his sudden success, he began to explore other interests, including recording soundtracks and running his company Real World. By the time he returned to pop with 1992's Us, his mass audience had faded away and he spent the remainder of the '90s working on multimedia projects for Real World.

Following his departure from Genesis in 1976, Peter Gabriel began work on the first of three consecutive eponymously titled albums; each record was named Peter Gabriel, he said, as if they were editions of the same magazine. In 1977, his first solo album appeared and became a moderate success due to the single "Solsbury Hill." Another self-titled record followed in 1978, yet received comparatively weaker reviews. Gabriel's third eponymous album proved to be his artistic breakthrough, however. Produced by Steve Lillywhite and released in 1980, the album established Gabriel as one of rock's most ambitious, innovative musicians, as well as one of its most political — "Biko," a song about a murdered antiapartheid activist, became one of the biggest protest anthems of the '80s. "Games Without Frontiers," with its eerie chorus, nearly reached the Top 40.

In 1982, Gabriel released Security, which was an even bigger success, earning positive reviews and going gold on the strength of the startling video for "Shock the Monkey." Just as his solo career was taking off, Gabriel participated in a one-shot Genesis reunion in order to finance his WOMAD — World of Music, Arts and Dance — Festival. WOMAD was designed to bring various world musics and customs to a Western audience, and it soon turned into an annual event, and a live double album was released that year to commemorate the event. As Gabriel worked on his fifth album, he contributed the soundtrack to Alan Parker's 1984 film Birdy. His score was highly praised and it won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes that year. After founding Real World, Inc. — a corporation devoted to developing bridges between technology and multiethnic arts — in 1985, he completed his fifth album, So.

Released in 1986, So became Gabriel's commercial breakthrough, largely because his Stax homage "Sledgehammer" was blessed with an innovative video that combined stop-action animation with live action. So climbed to number two as "Sledgehammer" hit number one, with "Big Time" — featuring a video very similar to "Sledgehammer" — reaching the Top Ten and "In Your Eyes" hitting the Top 30. As So was riding high on the American and British charts, Gabriel co-headlined the first benefit tour for Amnesty International in 1986 with Sting and U2. Another Amnesty International Tour followed in 1988, and the following year, Gabriel released Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, a collection of instrumentals used in Martin Scorsese's film. Passion was the furthest Gabriel delved into worldbeat, and the album was widely acclaimed, winning the Grammy Award in 1989 for Best New Age Performance. In 1990, he released the hits compilation Shaking the Tree.

Gabriel labored long on the pop-music follow-up to So, finally releasing Us in the spring of 1992. During the recording of Us, Gabriel went through a number of personal upheavals, including a painful divorce, and those tensions manifested themselves on Us, a much darker record than So. For various reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it was released six years after its predecessor, Us wasn't as commercially successful as So, despite positive reviews. Only one single, the "Sledgehammer" knockoff "Steam," reached the Top 40, and the album stalled at platinum sales. In 1993, Gabriel embarked on the most ambitious WOMAD tour to date, touring the United States with a roster including Crowded House, James, and Sinéad O'Connor, with whom he had an on-off romantic relationship. The following year, he released the double-disc Secret World Live, which went gold. Later in 1994, he released the CD-ROM Xplora, one of many projects he developed with Real World. For the rest of the decade, Gabriel concentrated on developing more multimedia projects for the company and working on a new studio album.

Up was released in 2002, a full decade after Gabriel's last studio effort. Dense, cerebral, and often difficult, the record peaked at number nine but failed to sell well in America. It fared slightly better in Canada, where it went gold. He then turned his attention to a host of different projects, although the release of Big Blue Ball — a compilation of collaborative performances recorded at Real World Studios during the '90s — helped placate fans while Gabriel focused his energies elsewhere. He eventually returned to the studio for another album, Scratch My Back, which featured orchestral covers of songs originally performed by Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Paul Simon, David Bowie, and others.