"Dark Matter" and its tracks on the charts

igotid88

The Juggler said:

Still shocked Running was a single.....

I think if they pushed it to radio it would have done well. 

igotid88

Hopefully the physical sales will tell a different story. But based on the Spotify streams and YouTube views for the first 3 singles. They're behind Gigaton's. For example Wreckage will be viewed at least 200k less times than Quick Escape which was also the 3rd single off Gigaton. I obviously don't have all the data. But so far it looks like it might sell less than Gigaton 

T-Bone 82

I think Wreckage is going to catch on at radio and probably cross into AAA more than Dark Matter did. WMMR in Philly played it a couple times yesterday and I saw some other rock stations around the country put it out. 

Really catchy tune and I think it'll do well.

igotid88

T-Bone 82 said:

I think Wreckage is going to catch on at radio and probably cross into AAA more than Dark Matter did. WMMR in Philly played it a couple times yesterday and I saw some other rock stations around the country put it out. 

Really catchy tune and I think it'll do well.

Dark Matter is not really a Triple A type of song. Wasn't sure why it was on those stations. Unless I'm wrong about what Triple A station should play

BF25394

igotid88 said:

T-Bone 82 said:

I think Wreckage is going to catch on at radio and probably cross into AAA more than Dark Matter did. WMMR in Philly played it a couple times yesterday and I saw some other rock stations around the country put it out. 

Really catchy tune and I think it'll do well.

Dark Matter is not really a Triple A type of song. Wasn't sure why it was on those stations. Unless I'm wrong about what Triple A station should play

I agree. It was an odd fit for that format. I think they were just responding to the enthusiasm for the song among their demographic and took a flyer on it. But "Wreckage" fits Triple-A perfectly. Of course, being a Triple-A hit is being a big fish in a small pond. The aggregate Triple-A audience is small.

The Juggler

I bet Wreckage does well. 

I can honestly see 3 or 4 other ones doing well on radio too. Album seems very accessible...don't think that's been the case in quite a while for them. 

kramerica4

I think the Dark Matter album will sell more than Gigaton.
Gigaton was released when all the shops were closed because of the pandemic.
So Dark Matter has a huge advantage.
Plus many music fans will storm out to record stores on saturday (rsd) and see that there is a new Pearl Jam album out.

demetrios

https://twitter.com/brainofjoacohen/status/1781761277070561695

Jonathan Cohen @brainofjoacohen Looking like a debut week of between 55-60,000 copies sold for @PearlJam's "Dark Matter" :

igotid88

demetrios said:

https://twitter.com/brainofjoacohen/status/1781761277070561695

Jonathan Cohen @brainofjoacohen Looking like a debut week of between 55-60,000 copies sold for @PearlJam's "Dark Matter" :

Darn. Lower than I was hoping for especially with all the positive press and radio play. And with all the variants

kramerica4

That seems pretty low.
Let's hope the real numbers will go up.

Everyone of the buyers is experiencing a fantastic record, so gratulations to all of them / us!

igotid88

kramerica4 said:

That seems pretty low.
Let's hope the real numbers will go up.

Everyone of the buyers is experiencing a fantastic record, so gratulations to all of them / us!

The numbers usually hold up. But hope there's a spike. So much for excuse when Gigaton came out that they couldn't buy it because of the stores not being opened because of the pandemic.

And if they didn't add the RSD numbers it would 45k

BF25394

igotid88 said:

kramerica4 said:

That seems pretty low.
Let's hope the real numbers will go up.

Everyone of the buyers is experiencing a fantastic record, so gratulations to all of them / us!

The numbers usually hold up. But hope there's a spike. So much for excuse when Gigaton came out that they couldn't buy it because of the stores not being opened because of the pandemic.

And if they didn't add the RSD numbers it would 45k

Somewhere on this board, I predicted it would fall short of Gigaton's first-week number despite the COVID effect just because of the overall trend for artists like Pearl Jam. (I posted some numbers about this.) Having said that, Cohen is almost certainly getting his numbers from Hits Daily Double, and that number is a bit of a spitball at this point, so it wouldn't surprise me to see the final number overshoot (or undershoot) that total. These variants are a real wild-card. Taylor's tracking for over 2 million units, which would be a career best, and a lot of that is driven by the variants.

I still also have questions about the reporting of direct-to-consumer sales from the Ten Club and whether they are accounted for by Luminate. They ought to be, but I have no independent verification of this, and knowing how the system works, I have at least a little reason to doubt.

Bear in mind also that many independent retailers, like my local record store, do not report to Luminate. Does Pearl Jam sell a disproportionate number of albums at non-reporting record stores? I don't know, but it's not implausible.

igotid88

BF25394 said:

igotid88 said:

kramerica4 said:

That seems pretty low.
Let's hope the real numbers will go up.

Everyone of the buyers is experiencing a fantastic record, so gratulations to all of them / us!

The numbers usually hold up. But hope there's a spike. So much for excuse when Gigaton came out that they couldn't buy it because of the stores not being opened because of the pandemic.

And if they didn't add the RSD numbers it would 45k

Somewhere on this board, I predicted it would fall short of Gigaton's first-week number despite the COVID effect just because of the overall trend for artists like Pearl Jam. (I posted some numbers about this.) Having said that, Cohen is almost certainly getting his numbers from Hits Daily Double, and that number is a bit of a spitball at this point, so it wouldn't surprise me to see the final number overshoot (or undershoot) that total. These variants are a real wild-card. Taylor's tracking for over 2 million units, which would be a career best, and a lot of that is driven by the variants.

I still also have questions about the reporting of direct-to-consumer sales from the Ten Club and whether they are accounted for by Luminate. They ought to be, but I have no independent verification of this, and knowing how the system works, I have at least a little reason to doubt.

Bear in mind also that many independent retailers, like my local record store, do not report to Luminate. Does Pearl Jam sell a disproportionate number of albums at non-reporting record stores? I don't know, but it's not implausible.

I'm disappointed in this fanbase if these numbers hold up. The Rolling Stones, another great band sold 100k their first week.  

JimFletcherPearlJam

Hey, as long as Dark Matter debuts in the top five on the charts. Every Pearl Jam studio album has reached top-five album sales status on the Billboard 200. I just want that streak to continue. Long live Pearl Jam! 🥑 

igotid88

JimFletcherPearlJam said:

Hey, as long as Dark Matter debuts in the top five on the charts. Every Pearl Jam studio album has reached top-five album sales status on the Billboard 200. I just want that streak to continue. Long live Pearl Jam! 🥑 

Fingers crossed. I did my part. 4 vinyls, cd and cd/blu-ray, and the digital. Thinking about getting the red white blue vinyl. But at $80. I don't know 
https://amzn.to/4aE9kBK

BF25394

I bought a CD, an LP and the Blu-ray. When you think about how many of us bought multiple versions of this album, if the number ends up being 60,000, it might be that there are only 30,000 unique individuals who bought the album.

To your point about disappointment, I guess I would just say be disappointed, but don't be surprised. Look at this community for perspective. We are ostensibly the biggest fans this band has, and yet look at how many of us have little interest in the band's new music. I have a close friend I've attended dozens of shows with, and I learned the other day that, although he has bought baseball cards and license plates and posters and a bunch of other crap in recent years, he never bought Gigaton. When I asked him if he went to the theater event the other day, he said no, and then he asked me whether they gave away any stuff at the one I went to. He didn't ask me what I thought of the album, bugt he asked me about merch. There are a lot of people who go on record here about how much they dislike the last 20 years of the band's output, and who say they only keep their memberships active so they can get tickets to live shows where they mostly want to see them play the same old songs. And these are the band's biggest fans, in theory. If everyone here isn't buying the new albums, how many people outside of the fan club should we expect to be buying them?

marjen

PJ is a band that has been around for over 30 years. That hit me when I realized when I was in college in 1991 LeD Zepplin came out 22 years before that and seemed ancient. PJ is not relevant anymore. We still love them but they aren’t on the radar of current music fans.  They are mostly a nostalgia act.  They will never rule the charts again. And that’s ok. Dark matter is a great album but it’s not bringing rock music back to the an average music fan. They have moved on. 

BF25394

marjen said:

PJ is a band that has been around for over 30 years. That hit me when I realized when I was in college in 1991 LeD Zepplin came out 22 years before that and seemed ancient. PJ is not relevant anymore. We still love them but they aren’t on the radar of current music fans.  They are mostly a nostalgia act.  They will never rule the charts again. And that’s ok. Dark matter is a great album but it’s not bringing rock music back to the an average music fan. They have moved on. 

Those classic-rock acts kept selling albums long after they were defunct. "Relevant" is not the right word-- there's no modifier; the better word is "popular"-- Pearl Jam is not popular anymore. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin went kaput in 1970 and 1980, respectively, but they never stopped being popular. The bigger issue is that, when you say "we still love them," that love doesn't translate into record sales even among a large swath of the fan base for whom, as you note, they are a nostalgia act. Most Pearl Jam fans seem to want to just hear the songs from the '90s and never really gave much attention to the 21st-century albums.

They don't need to sell to the average music fan to put up big sales numbers. If there are 200,000 active members of the fan club, for sake of argument, and there are only 30,000 unique individuals buying the album, that's a lot of sales left on the table without even considering the average music fan. If Pearl Jam sold 200,000 copies of the album in the first week, it would be one of the biggest sales weeks of the year. Instead, they won't come close to that because too many of their fans stopped caring about new music (and/or their new music) a long time ago. Not me, not you, but lots of people who post here and are very straightforward about their apathy.

Vedd Hedd

All my friends just stream everything now. I literally don't know anyone who has bought a new album by any artist in years. 

Vedd Hedd

Same thing goes for movies and newspapers. They are dieing media. Mediums? Dying.

Dying mediums.