Gospel versus secular songs: which sell more?

Quite a number of Ghanaians are of the opinion that gospel songs are really making more sales than the secular ones - both on the local and the international markets - basing their argument on the kind of publicity gospel music is accorded on air.

However, surveys conducted by The Saturday Statesman have established that in spite of the fact that the gospel songs are reigning on air, majority of the people buy more of the secular songs like hip-life, than the gospel ones. Not withstanding that alone, the number of people who attend hip-life shows and album launching outnumber that of the gospel.

The paper yesterday visited Accra, around Despite shop area, to interview some people, including shop owners as to which of the two categories of songs they prefer buying and listening to. Most of their responses were in favour of Hip-life music’ and indeed, it was amazing to see how people were purchasing the hip-life CDs in bulk (to go and retail) and those who were just going to listen to them.

Kwasi Agyemang, a shop owner, was asked how many copies he was purchasing and why?  He responded, ‘”I am purchasing 500 copies in all -100 of Ofori Amponsah’s CD, 100 of Kwa Kese’s, 100 of Samini’s, 100 of Daddy Lumba’s and the rest are compositions of some selected gospel artistes like Christiana Love, Phillipa and a few others. Majority of the customers who come to buy at my shop prefer more of the hip-life than the gospel, and it makes my business very faster for me.”

“As for me, my main artistes are Esther Smith and Philiipa Baafi, so if I purchase like 100 copies for them then the rest goes to the other songs because the secular songs are what majority of the youth nowadays like to buy and listen to”, Kofi Konadu of Kings Music Shop disclosed.

Gabriel Nyarko, a student at he University of Ghana, Legon, who was buying Ofori Amposah’s CD, underscored, “I like gospel songs a lot and I do listen to them very often on radio, but if I want to buy a CD I will prefer to buy either a hip-life or high-life one because we have some radio stations which play gospels only, and so I can always tune in there and listen.”

Another vendor, “I’m Samuel, as you can see, I’m a CD vendor I think they (referring to gospel musicians) do not know how to market their stuffs that is why other songs are selling more than theirs. They make too much noise on radio and I also think that they are the ones who pay huge sums of ‘payola’ to DJs for their CDs to be aired. And when that happens, people turn to buy the hip-life since they will always have a feel of the gospel on TV and on radio. So my advice to all gospel artistes is that they should hide themselves a bit for people to reach out to their CDs”. .

A student at Accra Polytechnic (who did not want to be mentioned) posited, “I myself I’m a Christian but I prefer buying other songs than the gospel because I always listen to them freely in church and on radio too. Even when there is a gospel rock show I will rather use my money to attend other entertainment shows by secular musicians and comedians, where I can really get more fun”.

One respondent said frankly that some of the gospel artistes are not creative enough. “Instead of them to sit down and compose creative songs, they try to emulate others. Why is it that almost all the gospel tunes are reggae? Not until they diversify their music, patronage will always be low because the tunes are monotonous”? he quipped.