Arctic Monkeys’ catalogue continues to perform strongly, according to Music Week analysis.
Domino Recording Company has just published its annual accounts for the 12 months up to August 31, 2023 – and the band’s seven studio albums played a crucial role in the financial performance.
The independent label saw a 39% year-on-year increase in revenue for the 12 months to £31.65 million.
Pre-tax profit increased by 39.5% to £4.24m. Operating profit was up 40.8% to £4.08m.
Domino credited the growth to a “stronger album release schedule and continued strong back catalogue sales”.
According to Music Week analysis, Arctic Monkeys’ UK catalogue consumption totaled 558,765 chart units in 2023 across those seven studio albums released between 2006 and 2022. It emerged last year that the band were the most streamed domestic act on Spotify in the UK.
Arctic Monkeys are well known for their phenomenal catalogue success, including 2013 album AM, which continues to be a chart fixture more than a decade later and was No.20 overall at the midway point of 2024. Music Week can reveal that the album has recently passed two million sales to date. It was their biggest seller last year with consumption of 235,549 units.
However, AM is not their biggest seller overall (see below) – although based on its current streaming trajectory it will probably pull ahead in the next few years.
According to the Official Charts Company, Arctic Monkeys’ AM is on 2,010,351 sales in total (including 669,538 physical copies, 396,448 downloads and 944,366 streaming-equivalent sales). While the LP continues to move physical copies (an impressive 11,724 so far this year), the bulk of its 2024 consumption total of 124,572 so far is from streaming (112,452 units – 90.3% of the total) along with 396 downloads.
With consumption of 3,389,672, Do I Wanna Know? – taken from AM – is the band’s biggest single, although it peaked outside the Top 10 at No.11. That OCC sales calculation is largely based on 355 million streams as well as 486,604 downloads. It’s one of five singles by the band in the Top 200 most consumed tracks for the first half of 2024.
Of course, that’s just UK consumption for the band, who have almost 51 million listeners globally on Spotify. Do I Wanna Know? has 2.26 billion global streams on Spotify, although I Wanna Be Yours is slightly ahead (2.34 billion) – even though its consumption in the UK lags behind at a still impressive 1,394,866. I Wanna Be Yours actually took nearly a decade to chart – No.99 in 2022 – amid renewed interest in the catalogue following the release of The Car.
Arctic Monkeys’ 2006 debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, was No.70 overall at the midway point of 2024 in the UK’s overall album rankings.
Here, Music Week breaks down the UK consumption for their seven studio albums – all released via Domino – which are listed chronologically.
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006) – 2,370,189 (66,137 units in 2024)
Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007) – 1,363,443 (44,926 units in 2024)
Humbug (2009) – 487,704 (11,274 units in 2024)
Suck It And See (2011) – 489,566 (11,451 units in 2024)
AM (2013) – 2,010,351 (124,572 units in 2024)
Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino (2018) – 274,270 (6,776 units in 2024)
The Car (2022) – 216,289 (10,836 units in 2024)
The sales totals indicate how fifth album AM revitalised the band’s albums sales, following a period of relative decline following the huge success of their first two LPs. The onset of streaming in the 2010s then gave their catalogue a huge boost, which continues to this day.
The period covered by Domino’s latest financial results includes the release of Arctic Monkeys’ seventh album, The Car (as well as that remarkably consistent catalogue consumption for the band), in addition to the latter part of the Wet Leg debut LP campaign.
The Car has 216,289 sales to date following a huge opening of 119,016 units in October 2022 – although it’s the band’s only album to miss out on No.1 because it was released on the same date as Taylor Swift’s Midnights.
Wet Leg’s eponymous album, which peaked at No.1 and was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2022, is on 148,765 sales to date. It has moved a further 10,205 units so far this year.
Domino are in contention for the Mercury Prize next month with Beth Gibbons’ Lives Outgrown. The label has previously released winning albums by Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys.
Returning to the financial results, Domino’s revenue from the UK accounted for 31.2% of the total, compared to 31.7% in the prior financial year. Revenue from the rest of the world represented 68.8% of the total (68.3% in 2021-22).
In its financial report lodged at Companies House, Domino acknowledged – as it does each year – that it is “benefiting from the continued global growth and increased consumption due to the success of streaming services”.
The company also keeps a close eye on “future technological and legislative developments,” in terms of any threat to revenues and profitability.
Domino reported that its catalogue sales business has a particularly healthy margin. In the latest figures, catalogue sales dwarfed overheads, representing 338% of those costs, up from 269% in the prior year.
The company’s number of employees increased slightly to 58. It released 30 albums in the 12-month period, the same as the prior 12 months.
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