In the age of downloads, how to tell if a cd is selling?
musicismylife78
Posts: 6,116
In the old days it was somewhat easy. Billboard or Soundscan would release those weekly sales chart lists and you could see that so and so's new album sold 1 million copies last week. it would also list how many albums were sold to date.
Nowadays Rolling Stone magazine doesnt even list the number of albums sold next to the "top selling albums list" in every issue and in many ways those sales charts are useless anyways.
Whether people like illegal downloading or not, the fact remains, its something millions of people engage in. And I would wager that those who do download, arent just downloading one album every six months or something, and then buying an album at Walmart or whatever. They are downloading and not buying physical albums at all.
So my question is, record labels no doubt still care about hit songs. Hit albums. Hits and big sellers.
When they are engaged in meetings as they no doubt do, and discuss an artists success, how is this discussed?
Look at the sales chart for the top selling albums next week. Most likely the top selling album will sell only 100,000-200,000 copies over the week. Now I can tell you definitively that more than 100,000 people boubt that album but still the charade continues...
Some of the more popular albums of the past few years, have seemingly sold a few thousand copies, which is absurd. Certainly, they arent selling 20 million copies, but come on...
The most hyped and blogged about album of the entire year Fleet Foxes, sold 210,000
Death Cab's two most fan friendly records, after endless hype and chatter on popular teen soap operas sell only a million copies. Trans sold 500,000, Plans sold 1 million.
Arcade Fire, one of the most buzzed about and hyped bands I can think of, ever, and whose two albums are basically considered classics. cant find sales for Funeral, and Neon Bible selling 1 million in canada and 100,000 in the Uk, not sure on u.s. sales
My feeling is we will never really know ever again how many albums an artist has sold.
Nowadays Rolling Stone magazine doesnt even list the number of albums sold next to the "top selling albums list" in every issue and in many ways those sales charts are useless anyways.
Whether people like illegal downloading or not, the fact remains, its something millions of people engage in. And I would wager that those who do download, arent just downloading one album every six months or something, and then buying an album at Walmart or whatever. They are downloading and not buying physical albums at all.
So my question is, record labels no doubt still care about hit songs. Hit albums. Hits and big sellers.
When they are engaged in meetings as they no doubt do, and discuss an artists success, how is this discussed?
Look at the sales chart for the top selling albums next week. Most likely the top selling album will sell only 100,000-200,000 copies over the week. Now I can tell you definitively that more than 100,000 people boubt that album but still the charade continues...
Some of the more popular albums of the past few years, have seemingly sold a few thousand copies, which is absurd. Certainly, they arent selling 20 million copies, but come on...
The most hyped and blogged about album of the entire year Fleet Foxes, sold 210,000
Death Cab's two most fan friendly records, after endless hype and chatter on popular teen soap operas sell only a million copies. Trans sold 500,000, Plans sold 1 million.
Arcade Fire, one of the most buzzed about and hyped bands I can think of, ever, and whose two albums are basically considered classics. cant find sales for Funeral, and Neon Bible selling 1 million in canada and 100,000 in the Uk, not sure on u.s. sales
My feeling is we will never really know ever again how many albums an artist has sold.
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