It's going to be very interesting, too, to see what the charts look like, this week. Given that the run is completely sold-out, 4,500 copies of Merriweather Post Pavilion have been sold to consumers. This should certainly be enough to threaten the Billboard 200. That in itself wouldn't be too shocking a feat, as I think their last record may even have debuted in the fading lights of the top 100...what would be pretty beyond-shocking would be the fact that a vinyl-only release could chart handily[/I]. I'd be stunned to see this happen, but it seems that chances are good.
It might be just as unlikely, though, given the major label-favoring schema favored by Soundscan (which oftentimes doesn't bother to poll "indie" stores; and while I can't say that this is certain, I'm willing to bet that stubborn, anti-_____ indie retailers are also, at the very least, partly to blame for this problem).
All the same, whether or not this record lands in the top 200, it has sold enough copies in an arguably obsolete format to land there. Ridiculous. With more generous a pressing, it could conceivably have charted substantially higher--I mean, the backorder list for the damn thing is already miles long...
