The Million Sellers

Published to mark the 60th anniversary of the launch of the Official Singles Charts in 1952, The Million Sellers tells the story of every million-selling single in the history of the UK music industry.An analysis of the 123 singles which have passed the magical million sales threshold in the UK in the past 60 years, from Bill Haley & The Comets’ very first UK million seller right through to more recent singles by Lady Gaga, Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas. Interviews with artists like Mel C, Kevin Rowland and Midge Ure, reflecting on their own million seller and what they most remember of their success at the time. Interviews with artists including Engelbert Humperdinck, Steps, Bernard Sumner (New Order), Midge Ure (Ultravox), Mel C (Spice Girls), Boney M, Kevin Rowland and many more. Each one reflects on their own million seller and what they most remember of their success at the time. The Official Charts Company are the providers of the UK's only official music and video charts, compiling its charts purely from sales information gathered across all key distribution (or entertainment) channels including all major high street retail chains, independent stores, supermarkets, mail order internet retailers and digital music service providers. This market research sample equates to 99% of the total UK singles market; 98% of the total UK albums market and 90% of the total UK DVD market. The Official Charts Company is a joint venture between record labels' body the BPI and ERA, the Entertainment Retailers Association. The Official Charts Company are responsible for the commissioning, marketing, distribution and management of the UK's industry standard music charts and industry sales data.

In this sharp, invigorating read, Fortune 50 consultant Stephen Harvill discovers twenty-one common behaviors of top earners across seven major industries that set them apart. These are the secrets of the world’s best salespeople who rake in at least one million dollars a year. For over thirty years, Steve Harvill has helped successful sales teams do what they do better, smarter, more elegantly, and more imaginatively. As a consultant for some of the top companies in the world, including Apple, Pepsi, Samsung, and Wells Fargo, he aids in simplifying processes that have become unwieldy and making teams more effective. His work inspired him to ask the question: What exactly sets the top producers apart from their peers? After spending a year interviewing 175 sales superstars from seven different industries, he found twenty-one distinct behaviors of successful salespeople. Organized by these best practices and filled with hundreds more tips, stories, and takeaways, 21 Secrets of Million-Dollar Sellers reveals how you can improve in every aspect of your job and rise to become one of the best.

Annotation An analysis of the 123 singles which have passed the million sales threshold in the UK in the past 60 years, and including interviews with artists reflecting on their own million seller and what they most remember of their success at the time.

This is the first book that comprehensively describes the history of the game software industry in Japan. A major objective here is to identify the key determinants of the emergence of the business, the maturing of the market, and the changes brought about by innovations, based on the history of the Japanese industry. To date, similar books have focused only on particular topics of the game software industry, such as the success of Nintendo and Sony and the uniqueness of the Japanese industry. There are no books that interpret the development process of this industry from the point of view of innovation. To fully understand the business and derive insightful lessons from it, however, requires a careful and thorough examination of its development process. Currently, many companies aim to improve efficiency by using information and communications technology (ICT), but it is difficult to maintain a balance between the pursuit of efficiency and the encouragement of creativity. In the case of Japan’s game software industry, firms have pursued higher efficiency in product development to build competitive advantage, resulting in a low rate of radical innovation and causing the slow growth of the industry. In certain situations, the development activities that target the creation of new products may, in themselves, hinder the creation of truly new products. This book conceptualizes this phenomenon as a “development productivity dilemma” and clarifies the mechanisms behind it. The dilemma, like the productivity dilemma in the manufacturing industry, evokes a certain innovation pattern and prevents potential growth. Understanding the lessons from the game software business presented in this book, managers, researchers, and policymakers can gain insight into the mechanisms leading to industrial maturity and clues to avoid the development productivity dilemma.

Fortune 50 consultant Stephen Harvill reveals the secrets of the world’s best salespeople who earn at least one million dollars a year in “the only sales book most superstar hopefuls will need” (Publishers Weekly). In this sharp, invigorating read, Fortune 50 consultant Stephen Harvill discovers twenty-one common behaviors of top earners across seven major industries. These are the secrets of the world’s best salespeople who rake in at least one million dollars a year—and the strategies that set them apart from the rest. For over thirty years, Steve Harvill has helped successful sales teams do what they do better, smarter, more elegantly, and with more imagination. As a consultant for some of the top companies in the world, including Apple, Pepsi, Samsung, and Wells Fargo, he aids in simplifying unwieldy processes and making teams more effective. His work inspired him to ask the question: what exactly sets the top producers apart from their peers? After spending a year interviewing 175 sales superstars from seven different industries, he found twenty-one distinct behaviors of successful salespeople. Organized by these best practices and filled with hundreds more tips, stories, and takeaways, 21 Secrets of Million-Dollar Sellers reveals how you can improve in every aspect of your job and rise to become one of the best.

For nearly a century, New York's famous "Tin Pan Alley" was the center of popular music publishing in this country. It was where songwriting became a profession, and songs were made-to-order for the biggest stars. Selling popular music to a mass audience from coast-to-coast involved the greatest entertainment media of the day, from minstrelsy to Broadway, to vaudeville, dance palaces, radio, and motion pictures. Successful songwriting became an art, with a host of men and women becoming famous by writing famous songs.

In this lively ethnography Ian Condry interprets Japan’s vibrant hip-hop scene, explaining how a music and culture that originated halfway around the world is appropriated and remade in Tokyo clubs and recording studios. Illuminating different aspects of Japanese hip-hop, Condry chronicles how self-described “yellow B-Boys” express their devotion to “black culture,” how they combine the figure of the samurai with American rapping techniques and gangsta imagery, and how underground artists compete with pop icons to define “real” Japanese hip-hop. He discusses how rappers manipulate the Japanese language to achieve rhyme and rhythmic flow and how Japan’s female rappers struggle to find a place in a male-dominated genre. Condry pays particular attention to the messages of emcees, considering how their raps take on subjects including Japan’s education system, its sex industry, teenage bullying victims turned schoolyard murderers, and even America’s handling of the war on terror. Condry attended more than 120 hip-hop performances in clubs in and around Tokyo, sat in on dozens of studio recording sessions, and interviewed rappers, music company executives, music store owners, and journalists. Situating the voices of Japanese artists in the specific nightclubs where hip-hop is performed—what musicians and fans call the genba (actual site) of the scene—he draws attention to the collaborative, improvisatory character of cultural globalization. He contends that it was the pull of grassroots connections and individual performers rather than the push of big media corporations that initially energized and popularized hip-hop in Japan. Zeebra, DJ Krush, Crazy-A, Rhymester, and a host of other artists created Japanese rap, one performance at a time.