 The Arctic Monkeys will be releasing their next album on 23 April |
The Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs helped independent record labels to one of their most successful years ever, a UK industry organisation has claimed. Indies earned an all-time high of two-thirds of the silver discs awarded to British acts in 2006, the Association of Independent Music said.
The Arctic Monkeys had the year's best-selling indie album.
And releases such as this helped labels to "punch well above their market share", the association added.
It found that eight out of 12 UK albums to sell more than 60,000 copies last year - and therefore go silver - were on indie labels.
Jarvis Cocker, Elbow and two early Snow Patrol releases were among those earning silver discs.
 Jarvis Cocker's silver album Jarvis was released on Rough Trade |
And another eight independent acts - among them Paul Weller, Morrissey, Babyshambles and Embrace - shifted more than 100,000 albums to achieve gold status. The association criticised the "stocking policies" of supermarkets, which generally tend to focus on established major-label names.
It said that these had resulted in independent music "being largely excluded from platinum and multi-platinum sales awards".
But it concluded that there was, nonetheless, cause for optimism in 2007, through the release of "hotly-tipped" albums by acts such as Bloc Party and Enter Shikari.
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