Backspacer sales numbers?

Spiritual_Chaos

I think it's dead in the charts.

Better Dan

Spiritual_Chaos wrote:

I think it's dead in the charts.

Do you think it would have done better if it was available at more stores? It could also gain some small momentum next year if the band decides to do a bigger US tour.

elderman

FIRST FIVE WEEKS
"Backspacer": 1-10-16-21-31
"Pearl Jam": 2-8-10-17-22
"Riot Act": 5-36-67-90-100

And remember Riot Act still went gold!

goat

week 6
12,202 for a total of 329,531 #43 on Hits Daily Double

igotid88

Looks like it will be 40th on the Billboard 200. So far 314,617 sold if you add up the hitsdailydouble numbers. Let's hope that little mention in the World Series gives them a bump for next week. I would like another triple digit sales week.

wnh1977

So, five straight weeks of Backspacer selling fewer copies than the previous week and having a downward trend on the charts. I don't think there's any stopping the free-fall. Sounds like, outside of touring, there will be no further promotion for this album. No more Target commercials, no new single blowing up, and apparently no TV appearances in the near future... Again, we may not get to 500,000.

zappa99

Target has to push that new Bon Jovi album they have exclusive rights to.

BF25394

wnh1977 wrote:

So, five straight weeks of Backspacer selling fewer copies than the previous week and having a downward trend on the charts. I don't think there's any stopping the free-fall. Sounds like, outside of touring, there will be no further promotion for this album. No more Target commercials, no new single blowing up, and apparently no TV appearances in the near future... Again, we may not get to 500,000.

This "freefall" is how it works for virtually every album by an artist with an established audience. With rare exceptions, albums debut at their peak and then fall each week from there. "Backspacer" is actually holding up reasonably well compared to other rock albums, not to mention the most recent Pearl Jam studio releases. You can't write the sales obituary on the album until "Just Breathe" has had some time to cross over to CHR/Top 40 radio. That process can take months.

In addition, sales during the holiday shopping season tend to spike dramatically. You could sell 100,000 copies in a week and not be in the top 10. So-- patience, young Padawan.

vedder_soup

down to 15th in Australia after 6 weeks in

William Wallace

vedder_soup wrote:

down to 15th in Australia after 6 weeks in

I'm curious about the influence of the upcoming Australian shows on Backspacers chart position Down Under.

igotid88

So far it looks like it's gonna be down again this week. Was hoping that mention in the World Series would help spike sales. Hopefully Just Breathe continues to do well.

Santa Claus

I noticed that they will start selling Backspacer on Amazon as an import starting Nov 10th. Seems like they've had quite a bit of pre-orders on it, so maybe this will spike some album sells next week.

igotid88

Santa Claus wrote:

I noticed that they will start selling Backspacer on Amazon as an import starting Nov 10th. Seems like they've had quite a bit of pre-orders on it, so maybe this will spike some album sells next week.

they've had many different release dates on Amazon.

soulsinging

wnh1977 wrote:

So, five straight weeks of Backspacer selling fewer copies than the previous week and having a downward trend on the charts. I don't think there's any stopping the free-fall. Sounds like, outside of touring, there will be no further promotion for this album. No more Target commercials, no new single blowing up, and apparently no TV appearances in the near future... Again, we may not get to 500,000.

every album they've released since Ten has done that. but i will agree, the lack of commcercials, show dates, tv appearances, or even a follow up single is really going to hurt them.

igotid88

soulsinging wrote:

wnh1977 wrote:

So, five straight weeks of Backspacer selling fewer copies than the previous week and having a downward trend on the charts. I don't think there's any stopping the free-fall. Sounds like, outside of touring, there will be no further promotion for this album. No more Target commercials, no new single blowing up, and apparently no TV appearances in the near future... Again, we may not get to 500,000.

every album they've released since Ten has done that. but i will agree, the lack of commcercials, show dates, tv appearances, or even a follow up single is really going to hurt them.

they got some good exposure during the playoffs. although the songs were played after the games had ended. and most of the audience either changed the channel by then or went to sleep. Bon Jovi had a better deal during the tbs coverage. As their song was played during every inning.

BF25394

igotid88 wrote:

they got some good exposure during the playoffs. although the songs were played after the games had ended. and most of the audience either changed the channel by then or went to sleep.

That kind of exposure doesn't drive sales. Most people aren't paying attention enough to even notice that there's a Pearl Jam song playing. Even if they did, they'd go to buy it at Best Buy or Wal-Mart and find that it doesn't exist.

The only things that would move the sales needle other than a crossover radio hit would be a reasonably high-profile TV appearance, but there aren't really that many venues unless Oprah decides to endorse "Backspacer." Letterman and Conan draw relatively small audiences, and those audiences are even smaller after 12:30 when the musical guest comes on. "SNL" would probably provide a small boost, if they picked the right songs to play. If "Backspacer" gets nominated for Album of the Year and they perform at the Grammys, then you'll see some sales. But that's not likely.

igotid88

BF25394 wrote:

igotid88 wrote:

they got some good exposure during the playoffs. although the songs were played after the games had ended. and most of the audience either changed the channel by then or went to sleep.

That kind of exposure doesn't drive sales. Most people aren't paying attention enough to even notice that there's a Pearl Jam song playing. Even if they did, they'd go to buy it at Best Buy or Wal-Mart and find that it doesn't exist.

The only things that would move the sales needle other than a crossover radio hit would be a reasonably high-profile TV appearance, but there aren't really that many venues unless Oprah decides to endorse "Backspacer." Letterman and Conan draw relatively small audiences, and those audiences are even smaller after 12:30 when the musical guest comes on. "SNL" would probably provide a small boost, if they picked the right songs to play. If "Backspacer" gets nominated for Album of the Year and they perform at the Grammys, then you'll see some sales. But that's not likely.

yea that's why i said bon jovi had the better deal. as they were constantly played every inning. repetiton helps. just like those direct tv commercials hepled the black eyed peas boost sales.

musicismylife78

I posted a thread about my feelings about the marketing method PJ took, and I wanted to post on this thread, with similar statements. PJ dropped the ball in promoting the record. Obviously they cant be entirely blamed as its a new landscape now and noone save Trent Reznor or Radiohead seem to have any sense of what to do, but overall, it was a boneheaded move on the part of the band to market or rather not market the record.

Press for , and doing a deal with a major corporation in an economic depression, makes zero sense. In 1991, sure this would have been a way to sell records. Do press with Spin and Rolling Stone, make a deal with Target, but in 2009? Not so much.

The plain and simple fact is, people just dont buy records anymore. Not like they used to. And to combat that, to try and get the money that you would have gotten if downloading didnt exist, you have many options. MY first choice sure as hell wouldnt have been to do what I had been doing the last 15 years, which was do the same old press junket rounds. And I sure as hell wouldnt strike a deal with Target, because Target obviously deals with physical products, albums.

When you get beyond the denial stage many on this board seem to be going through, this idea that, "Oh there are so many people who still buy records", you can deal with the issue in a levelheaded and sane and adult manner. So, people are downloading records these days. And that cuts into a huge chunk of profit. Its unfortuante. But once you admit that, you can say, "ok, so people, hundreds of millions of people now, download instead of buying records, what is the next step, how do we deal with this issue?"

Continuing to hope that people storm record stores for the next big record release, is silly and nonsense. Continuing to believe that you are gonna sell 1 million records your first week is silly. The facts are plain and available to anyone with half a brain.

Ultimately you have to come to grips with the world. Do I feel sorry for bands that are losing profits, because of downloading? Sure. But do I feel sorry for some of the bands who continue to follow the same old way they have always followed, and not change with the times? No I dont feel sorry for them.

It would be tough to move on. I imagine its tough. For their entire careers, bands do things a certain way, and then boom...things change. These bands themselves grew up with CD's and records and LPs as physical products. When these band members were kids you couldnt go on Kazza and you couldnt go to iTunes. You had to go to a record shop. I understand its hard to change that pattern. Its hard to let go of a way of life.

The point remains though: its a self fulfilling prophecy. You dont sell alot of records these days period. But you sure as hell dont sell a ton of records by doing what you always did. The bands that are successful these days, have adapted to the new buisness model, to the online world.

BF25394

Look at what Wal-Mart did for AC/DC. The problem is not that Target sells tangible records. It's that next to nothing was done to promote the fact that Target had the record for sale. Wal-Mart set up "stores within the store" selling all kinds of AC/DC merch. The casual shopper who didn't even know AC/DC had a new record out could not help but notice it. It drove hundreds of thousands of impulse buys. Target had tiny displays, tucked away in the CD/DVD sections, with nothing else in the store calling attention to the availability of the record. By the second Sunday of release, the Target newspaper circular gave no special attention to the record. It was just one of several albums pictured in a tiny photo. By the third Sunday, it wasn't listed in the circular at all.

There are a lot of people who would buy the record btu who don't even know it exists or, if they do, where to get it.

igotid88

BF25394 wrote:

Look at what Wal-Mart did for AC/DC. The problem is not that Target sells tangible records. It's that next to nothing was done to promote the fact that Target had the record for sale. Wal-Mart set up "stores within the store" selling all kinds of AC/DC merch. The casual shopper who didn't even know AC/DC had a new record out could not help but notice it. It drove hundreds of thousands of impulse buys. Target had tiny displays, tucked away in the CD/DVD sections, with nothing else in the store calling attention to the availability of the record. By the second Sunday of release, the Target newspaper circular gave no special attention to the record. It was just one of several albums pictured in a tiny photo. By the third Sunday, it wasn't listed in the circular at all.

There are a lot of people who would buy the record btu who don't even know it exists or, if they do, where to get it.

the Target i went to. had their cds way in the back and to the corner. at the time they didn't even have the display up. i had to ask the guy. and he gave it to me from a drawer. i haven't been there since. so i don't know if a display ever went up.