Amid industry troubles, some sterling moments

Last year, concert sales were down while album sales were up. This year, both took a turn for the worse. Ticket sales dropped 6.2 percent in North America compared with last year, and album sales slid 10 percent, according to Billboard. It seemed that Nero was playing a mean fiddle while the music business burned.

There was, of course, a bright spot for the industry: digital music and the hardware on which to play it. An estimated 37 million iPods are now in use, and music lovers downloaded more than 155 million tracks in the first six months of the year alone.

Still, one of the biggest stories in pop music sounded an awful lot like an old story. Payola, a term that recalled the radio scandals of the 1950s, made headlines again after some label executives were discovered bribing programmers to play songs by certain artists. An investigation led by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into pay-for-play schemes resulted in Sony-BMG making a $10 million settlement and the Warner Group paying another $5 million.

Others in the industry proved, however, that rock still has a conscience. The Live 8 concerts, held around the globe on July 2, 20 years after Live Aid shook the music world, brought the focus back to Africa's poor. Two months later, the music community was likewise galvanized by the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Led by the outspoken Kanye West, performers joined benefits to help victims of the disaster.

As for the music itself, 2005 had many highs for music lovers. U2 set a Boston record, playing seven shows at the TD Banknorth Garden. (It was still the FleetCenter for a few of those shows.) The Tweeter Center matched the previous summer's attendance of nearly 500,000 visitors, according to general manager Bruce Montgomery, and featured great package tours by Eminem and 50 Cent, Santana and Los Lonely Boys, Oasis and Jet, and John Mellencamp and John Fogerty, as well as nights with Coldplay, Alan Jackson (one of a record five country music headliners there), and Jimmy Buffett. Lower-priced lawn tickets factored into Tweeter's attempt to be more consumer-friendly.

Gillette Stadium was more active than usual with punk-pop kings Green Day drawing 40,000 fans, and with country-rocker Kenny Chesney pulling 50,000 -- the second-largest crowd on his tour. The Bank of America Pavilion sold close to 150,000 tickets, up 10 percent from a year ago, according to general manager Jim Jensen, and saw a number of sold-out shows by Trey Anastasio, O.A.R., Mark Knopfler, Donna Summer, and the first-ever Celtic Woman Tour. Across town, the Agganis Arena became a vital new venue, hosting memorable shows by Sting, Wilco, David Gray, and Phil Lesh & Friends.

The right phrase for 2005 was ''top-heavy." Upper-echelon acts ruled the stage like never before, grabbing the lion's share of concert profits. U2 was magic at the box office -- and so were the Rolling Stones, who blew into Fenway Park with a multimillion-dollar stage set.

At 62, Mick Jagger was a marvel of physical conditioning -- and few fans, who paid up to $453 for field seats, could be heard complaining. (The complaints actually came from the Fenway ground crew, which had to put in new sod because the Stones' gear destroyed the outfield grass.)

Other superstars hitting the road were Paul McCartney and Neil Diamond, both of whom put out critically acclaimed albums this year. Their fall tours, together with those of U2 and the Stones, helped ease a midyear decline of concert grosses that at one point were 20 percent lower than last year. The figure ended up just 6.2 percent lower, with an overall gross of just over $2 billion, according to Billboard.

Statistics alone, however, can't describe the quality of the year's tours. The White Stripes sizzled at the Opera House, as singer-guitarist Jack White added to his eccentric legacy. Bruce Springsteen mesmerized with his solo show at the Orpheum, though he was out of place when he later brought it to the bigger TD Banknorth Garden. And several British rock bands made their mark, from the killing-them-softly Coldplay to the explosive Kaiser Chiefs, who put a stranglehold on the Middle East Downstairs, as singer Ricky Wilson grabbed onto an overhead pipe and shimmied his way out into the audience.

The Orpheum Theatre was the scene of many other triumphs. Tracy Chapman, the former Tufts student and Harvard Square busker, came back with a polished performance. Death Cab for Cutie affirmed its alt-rock credentials, while Merle Haggard (who opened for Bob Dylan and had the upper hand when I saw him) staked a claim for country music at the venue, as did Vince Gill, Jon Randall, and Alison Krauss & Union Station. Bonnie Raitt and Fiona Apple also played well-received shows there.

The year will also be remembered for the many new acts that hit their stride. They included M.I.A., the Bravery, Matisyahu (a Hasidic reggae singer), the poppy Click Five, the Dead 60s (evoking the ''Sandinista!" era of the Clash), Australia's John Butler Trio (an electrifying acoustic-rock set at the Paradise), singer-songwriter Ben Taylor, the rootsy Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers, and Boston acts Furvis, Fluttr Effect, Sarah Borges, and the Mittens.

Reggaeton -- a Latinized hybrid of reggae and hip-hop -- also took off this year, with Daddy Yankee driving the craze. And punk staged yet another comeback, fueled by Green Day but also by young acts My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. A new event called the Taste of Chaos Tour became the winter counterpart to summer's punk-themed Vans Warped Tour. And another new tour, the Sounds of the Underground (featuring Lamb of God) became a popular spinoff of the heavy-metal Ozzfest.

Additional comebacks were notched by Dinosaur Jr., Loggins & Messina, and yes, Madonna and Stevie Wonder, who both released new albums. And a farewell came from Destiny's Child.

The most positive development, though, was the unity among artists who helped the victims of African poverty and the hurricane-displaced residents of New Orleans. These gestures proved that 2005 was a year of the heart as much as anything else.

R.I.P.: Luther Vandross, Shirley Horn, Chris Whitley, Paul Pena, R.L. Burnside, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Link Wray, Richard Pryor, Hunter Thompson, Danny Sugerman (Doors biographer), Ray Peterson (''Tell Laura I Love Her"), Jim Capaldi (Traffic), Spencer Dryden (Jefferson Airplane), Henry Spencer, Merle Kilgore, Ras Junior, Keith Knudsen (Doobie Brothers), Jimmy Smith, Big Joe Burrell, Sandra Dee, John Raitt, Chris Ledoux, Bobby Short, Rod Price (of Foghat), Johnnie Johnson (Chuck Berry's pianist), Mindy Jostyn, Jimmy Martin, Scott Larned (of Dark Star Orchestra), Obie Benson (Four Tops), Big Al Downing, Long John Baldry, John Herald (of the Greenbriar Boys), Eugene Record (founder of the Chi-Lites), Little Milton, Detroit Junior, Vassar Clements, Bea Lilly, and Fritz Richmond.