Comments on: CD Sales: How Low Can They Go?

By: Lax Danja House

Lax Danja House — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:59:26 +0000

Ireland’s population is just over 4 million, but yeah I was estimating the US population to be 400 million when it is in fact closer to 300. And my sums were still wrong. But I mean 6-7 million in the space of a year is still unheard of in the US in recent years as far as I know.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:31:10 +0000

i’m embarrassed to admit that i dug that first single of theirs enough to shell out for the album it appeared on.

By: Cam/ron

Cam/ron — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:15:02 +0000

Papa Roach: making California Central Valley rock look awful since 2000.

By: Al Shipley

Al Shipley — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:35:17 +0000

man it took less than a week for Maura to throw me under the Papa Roach bus!

By: RGve

RGve — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:02:06 +0000

I think that last number is a bit off – Ireland’s population is 5.8m, so it’s the equivalent of nearer 5m in sales… Still a big number, but not quite diamond. NZ (pop 4.28m) had a local album by a kinda av group named Fat Freddy’s Drop sell 105k recently, which works out at 7.5m when adjusted for population. I think the US’s home market is suffering worse than anyone, here local artists still seem to get reasonable sales out of a sense of loyalty that doesn’t exist towards Flo-Rida, for whatever reason.

By: Rock You Like An Iracane

Rock You Like An Iracane — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 07:45:20 +0000

@DocStrange: PLEASE let the Arctics hit #1.

You buy one, I'll buy one, and Domino can buy the other 100K.

By: Lax Danja House

Lax Danja House — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:53:24 +0000

I was reading some interesting statistics yesterday as part of a research project. Snow Patrol's Eyes Open sold a total of around 90,000 copies in Ireland in its first few months, the most of any album in the country at that point. That number struck me as very low, until I adjusted for population and realised it's the equivalent of about 10 million in the US. When was the last time a record sold 10m in the States?

By: ObtuseIntolerant

ObtuseIntolerant — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 12:02:11 +0000

I’m going to cross my fingers that the Jonas Brothers can pull it off at a decent clip again but eh…who knows? It’s an album within 10 months of the last and things are worse out there. Dicey. :)

By: DocStrange

DocStrange — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 04:46:35 +0000

Maybe this means that indie albums will actually make an even bigger splash due to fans of that genre’s preference of physical genres. We’ve seen this happen with big debuts from Arcade Fire and the Shins in the past. Maybe Phoenix or Arctic Monkeys pull a #1 this year in retail sales.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:42:03 +0000

@moomintroll: life keeps getting stranger and stranger doesn't it?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:35:41 +0000

First the possible return Limp Bizkit, and now interscope is forcing me to remember Papa Roach. Man that’s annoying.

By: moomintroll

moomintroll — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:33:06 +0000

@MhS: looks like about 44,456 people do.
@Chris Molanphy: thanks for clarifying, I agree with Maura, it seems as if the rules for album chart calculations have become so convoluted since iTunes that they pretty much mean nothing now. It's really only showing the listening trends of a increasingly smaller section of the public.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:30:32 +0000

Maybe Green Day will go platinum this year?

Also, I think there should be a weekly report on top torrent album downloads. That would be a lot of fun.

By: Chris Molanphy

Chris Molanphy — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:20:30 +0000

@moomintroll: First off, buying an album bundle at iTunes or Amazon counts toward the album chart.

One of the biggest favors Apple did the record industry recently was the "Complete My Album" feature, which basically doesn't penalize the user for buying an advance single, by crediting that purchase toward an album bundle later. A "completed" album also counts toward the album chart. So it's a win-win for the label: they can push the leadoff single like crazy, then try to convert that user to buying the album later, with no downside for either themselves or the consumer.

The problem, as you indicate, is that consumers don't seem to come back to buy the whole album, digitally or otherwise.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:15:18 +0000

I mean do people really buy Papa roach cds?

By: Chris N.

Chris N. — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:12:22 +0000

Maybe a better metric would be some combo of albums sold + individual tracks sold.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:12:14 +0000

Papa Roach, hahaha

By: moomintroll

moomintroll — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:04:50 +0000

@Chris Molanphy:hmm maybe that's the issue? With iTunes and Amazon it's even easier to just buy a few tracks from an album and not the entire album. How do they calculate that? Do they count it if you buy more than two of the tracks on an album or do you have to download the whole thing for it to be counted in the album charts? I know that people bought CD singles in the past, but now you can pick almost any album track, and just get a few. Oh wow, do you think this spells the end for b-sides too? I used to buy CD singles just to get the b-sides, but with the ability to just get the one song you want, are bands even making b-sides?

By: Chris Molanphy

Chris Molanphy — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:45:38 +0000

Can’t believe you resisted the temptation to point out that Flo Rida’s sophomore album, R.O.O.T.S. — the one that Atlantic swears is going to make him “an album artist” — is projected to debut next week with less than 50,000 in sales. That would be about one-thirteenth the first-week sales of “Right Round” at iTunes.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:26:58 +0000

is it just me or are these blogs becoming more depressing and more depressing as time goes? all this recession talk, I need to stay positive godamnit!