Songs of Experience - Let The Chart Speculation Begin

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womanfish

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I posted this on the TBT thread, but I think it would be more appropriate to open a new thread for the actual album:

Looking forward to the actual album itself. I would think on Dec. 1st that they should be able to score a number 1 or number 2 spot. Taylor Swifts album will have been out for 3 weeks and will probably have dropped off quite significantly.

Foo Fighters, which I would say probably garner about the same backing as U2 commercially at this point (aside from touring). Just went to number one with 127,000 units.

Hopefully on that October 25th date, the band gets the album up for pre-order on iTunes, Amazon, etc...

Taking the new streaming/views rules into consideration, I was thinking they most likely would get:

around 3,000 units from TBT lyric video views
around 1,500 units from the official video (depending on when that is released)
and around 5,000 or so from spotify streams
then some more from other streaming sources...

So maybe 10 to 12 thousand equivalent units to add to whatever actual album sales they get that first week.

Not sure what to expect from first week actual sales. But I would think somewhere in the 100,000 to 150k range.
Anyone have any more insight into that sort of thing??

Still think they should just do the ticket sales tie in thing like so many other artists do now. It got LCD soundsystem to number one this time around.
Would probably put U2 at the top for a few weeks.


I know this is a little early as we don't have all the facts. But as it stands, there are no albums of note being released the couple of weeks before U2, and U2 is the only one listed on December 1.
I think this gives them a good shot.

I looked back at other artist's number one numbers for 2017

Ed Sheeran - 451k
The Weeknd - 348k
Harry Styles - 230k
The Chainsmokers - 221k (used ticket for album promotion)
Katy Perry - 180k (used ticket for album promotion)
Lana Del Rey - 107k
Arcade Fire - 100k (used ticket for album promotion)
LCD Soundsystem - 85k (used ticket for album promotion)

My guess as of today,

U2 hits the number 1 spot with 140k in sales.
If they use the ticket for album promo - 170k (i really have no idea on this, could be much higher, no experience on these figures...)

They will be knocked off by week 2 by Fall Out Boy, but will stay in the top 5 or 6.
If they use the ticket promo, they will stay in the top 3.

That's all I've got for now. What do you guys think?
 
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Hmmm...

ok, I'm still sticking with my numbers for now, but just for some other numbers to think about when making your guess, i looked at some 2016 number ones. I didn't include any of the big names like Jay-Z or Beyonce or Adele.

Panic at the Disco - 190K
Blink 182 - 186k
Sean Mendes - 145k
Bon Jovi - 129K - Followed by the largest second week drop in Billoard history down to number 45 :huh:
Tribe called Quest - 135k
Metallica - 291k

Now I know Metallica is a stronger selling album band than U2 for the most part. But that's a big number. BUT they also used the ticket for album promotion thing. I'm guessing this highly contributed to that number.
 
There is always a pent-up demand for U2. There are oceans of older fans who love an actual CD to hold (as well as vinyl). And it's holiday time. Therefore, even with today's numbers in mind, I could see a bigger first week (especially after their JT tour) and see the number sky-rocket past 200,000 and maybe even 300,000 in sales. I'd be a bit disappointed if it were only 140K.
 
There is always a pent-up demand for U2. There are oceans of older fans who love an actual CD to hold (as well as vinyl). And it's holiday time. Therefore, even with today's numbers in mind, I could see a bigger first week (especially after their JT tour) and see the number sky-rocket past 200,000 and maybe even 300,000 in sales. I'd be a bit disappointed if it were only 140K.

Whoa! Doc! Long time no see.
I am trying to be very conservative, and to be honest, i just am not versed well enough in the all of the new rules and regs that come with todays chart numbers.
I mean, Metallica got 291k. And i would say that they would also have an older base that would get physical copies as well. They also employed the ticket for album promo, so not sure how many that stacks on top of the actual sales number. Katy Perry only got 180k, which seems crazy low to me.

The Killers will hit number 1 with 110k this next week. So I am sort of guessing U2 will fall somewhere in between Metallica and Killers.
200k I think would be a very good showing, and the high end of what I would guess.

Good to see you again!
 
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Thanks! Not a lot to post about lately - but thought I'd see what's going on in here. Happy to see lots of discussion.

I keep recalling how Adele still sold 1M in a week with her last album! So bigger numbers can happen. Not saying U2 will come anywhere near that, but after a successful tour, a catchy song, and more traditional release, U2 could see some success. Heck, SOI still hit #10 on the U.S. chart after it was given away for free! And it hit #1 in other parts of the world (again, despite being free). It appears people like having the physical copy.
 
Thanks! Not a lot to post about lately - but thought I'd see what's going on in here. Happy to see lots of discussion.

I keep recalling how Adele still sold 1M in a week with her last album! So bigger numbers can happen. Not saying U2 will come anywhere near that, but after a successful tour, a catchy song, and more traditional release, U2 could see some success. Heck, SOI still hit #10 on the U.S. chart after it was given away for free! And it hit #1 in other parts of the world (again, despite being free). It appears people like having the physical copy.

Glad to have you hop in.
I think now its about streaming and views that now count as "equivilent" sales. 1500 views = 1 album sale. So when Swift gets 600,000,000 views, she already has 400,000 albums banked.
Since U2 and other older bands don't get a lot of views and streams (relatively) it puts them at a huge disadvantage.
 
Brand New hit number one in the US a month ago with 55k sales

Yep. Unheard of just 6 or 7 years ago. The bar for number 1 will definitely be higher on December 1 as holiday sales will bring everything up. I think 200k will be a stretch for U2 unless they do a ticket tie in. U2 won't rack up a ton from streaming and views.

Which brings me to the very puzzling low numbers for Katy Perry
She debuted with 180k. She used a ticket for album tie in. But she had already wracked up a couple hundred million Youtube views and streams, which i thought would have counted for a ton of albums being added to her first week numbers.

But now that i think about it...
They must only count streams and views for the actual week that is being tracked, and they don't add up the total amount that has been streamed up to that point... Which is kind of odd.

Does anyone have any insight into this?? This would mean that U2 would receive next to nothing in terms of a sales boost for streaming if they are only counting the actual total from the one week.

And then how are those "sales" from streams reflected?? I guess just added to the total number of sales for certification purposes? Its all a little hard to understand.

So when Katy Perry only gets 180k and Lady Gaga only gets 210k her opening week. I am pretty comfortable with my original guess of 140k for U2, and closer to 200k if they do the ticket tie in.
 
Katy Perry's album also was laughed at by most critics. Metacritic has it as the 6th worst album of the year.
 
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In all fairness, the first couple Taylor Swift songs are pretty horrible. Sure, "critics" are giving her a big pass. Katy Perry's number came up as the one to bash this time around, and she got hammered pretty hard. Gaga also didn't have great reviews of her last one. But they are still huge names with an enormous social media following and streaming/view numbers.

That's why I'm looking more at how bands like The Killers, Foo Fighters, Metallica, etc are performing. They are ranging from 110k to 290k for their first week. Metallica using the ticket thing. So I'm still comfortable with my 140k estimate.

So hard since SOI gave us NO barometer of sales for U2 in the modern chart set up.
 
U2 will hit #1 with sales north of 250k and possibly as high as 400k(assuming a normal promotional cycle of playing some TV shows and events).

The built in fan base is huge and still just as strong as ever. The new single is still growing on radio and as Doc mentioned, is looking like it could be a slow burn success.
 
Another good group to look at would be The Chili Peppers. They opened with 118k for their last one.
Imagine Dragons hit 147k
Panic At the Disco hit 190k
GreenDay only had 90k

Nothing I'm seeing is pushing me to change my guess to anything north of 200k.
 
Glad to have you hop in.
I think now its about streaming and views that now count as "equivilent" sales. 1500 views = 1 album sale. So when Swift gets 600,000,000 views, she already has 400,000 albums banked.
Since U2 and other older bands don't get a lot of views and streams (relatively) it puts them at a huge disadvantage.

I agree streaming and views play a role - but with SOI, the album was given away digitally. So streaming (where it was available a few years ago), probably didn't play as big of a role in charts. I think it was people buying an actual copy. I know I'll still want the CD and vinyl versions of SOE, even if I have it digitally. And I bet older fans think similarly. Something about having a tangible copy of music that makes it enjoyable for many.

I am curious what will happen in today's world. If YTBT can gain more traction, the numbers might be closer to 200-300K. If the fades quietly, then SOE may only debut with 150K.
 
I agree streaming and views play a role - but with SOI, the album was given away digitally. So streaming (where it was available a few years ago), probably didn't play as big of a role in charts. I think it was people buying an actual copy. I know I'll still want the CD and vinyl versions of SOE, even if I have it digitally. And I bet older fans think similarly. Something about having a tangible copy of music that makes it enjoyable for many.

I am curious what will happen in today's world. If YTBT can gain more traction, the numbers might be closer to 200-300K. If the fades quietly, then SOE may only debut with 150K.

Also, SOI came out Sept of 2014, and Billboard only started including streaming as part of the tally beginning in December of 2014, and probably in a much more limited way than it is gathered today.

There's always the talk of a second single as well. Would think it would almost be a given, seeing as that we are looking at 2 more months before the album...

I always think about what could have been in regards to SOI. I think if they had partnered with Apple and instead of the auto free download. They had a pop up come up on your phone when you opened iTunes - one time only - Get the new U2 album now for $4.99 [accept] or [decline]. (I believe 4.99 is the lowest price that counts as an album purchase) Either choice - you would never get another pop up asking about it.
They probably would have gotten about 5 to 10 million downloads right there that day/week. Becoming the band that had the largest one day/week total of any band in history. And you could guarantee that it would have been copied by tons of artists after that.
 
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Also, SOI came out Sept of 2014, and Billboard only started including streaming as part of the tally beginning in December of 2014, and probably in a much more limited way than it is gathered today.

There's always the talk of a second single as well. Would think it would almost be a given, seeing as that we are looking at 2 more months before the album...

I always think about what could have been in regards to SOI. I think if they had partnered with Apple and instead of the auto free download. They had a pop up come up on your phone when you opened iTunes - one time only - Get the new U2 album now for $4.99 [accept] or [decline]. (I believe 4.99 is the lowest price that counts as an album purchase) Either choice - you would never get another pop up asking about it.
They probably would have gotten about 5 to 10 million downloads right there that day/week. Becoming the band that had the largest one day/week total of any band in history. And you could guarantee that it would have been copied by tons of artists after that.

I have to disagree. Given how many people complained about a FREE album that they could then delete, I doubt there would have been that many downloads. Maybe in the U.S. they'd have seen 100-200K and the rest of the world may have been 1-2M total. I'm just looking at actual albums of NLOTH that were purchased for that estimate.
 
I have to disagree. Given how many people complained about a FREE album that they could then delete, I doubt there would have been that many downloads. Maybe in the U.S. they'd have seen 100-200K and the rest of the world may have been 1-2M total. I'm just looking at actual albums of NLOTH that were purchased for that estimate.

Well, that was kinda my thinking. People were mad because the album just showed up on their phone, no asking, no accepting, no nothing. The backlash came because people were playing their libraries in shuffle and had these songs come up that they didn't ask for.
I think that if you had a pop up, asking only once if you wanted a U2 album for half the price that you would normally buy it for, you would at least get a million in the states, and a few million outside.
But i could be way off.

Jay-z i think did something that was really tricky. The album was "free", you just had to go and grab it, through Sprint or something, and it counted as a "sale" even though the record company or Sprint had covered the price of the album.
It's all very tricky stuff, and i think should have been utilized by U2 instead of just pushing it to all devices. Hindsight and all of course.
 
The Killers are getting their first number one with 118k.
Seems like rock bands across the board are hitting the charts at this level.
somewhere between 90 and 180k.
Makes me pretty confident in my 140k guess thus far.
But I'm still hoping I'm really wrong and am underestimating by a lot. :)
 
The Killers are getting their first number one with 118k.
Seems like rock bands across the board are hitting the charts at this level.
somewhere between 90 and 180k.
Makes me pretty confident in my 140k guess thus far.
But I'm still hoping I'm really wrong and am underestimating by a lot. :)



I originally said a range of 250k to 400k but that’s a bit wide, so I’ll go with 350!

Yes it’s a lot higher than those other bands but here is my reasoning:

1-U2 has a very large built in and loyal fan base.

2-U2 is not a singles band, they are an album band. U2 fans (see bullet 1) will go for the album

3-U2s fan base skews older and still have attachment to the physical album. Therefore, that group in bullet 1 is more likely(could be 5% of them or 25% of them) to not only buy the digital version but also a CD or record.

4-holiday season. Doesn’t have the sales boom it once did but it still has an effect

5- TBT....this is a wild card of course but IF this song continues to gain on radio, it could bring more attention to SOE

6- Im banking on U2 doing promotional performances the week before/of the release
 
I originally said a range of 250k to 400k but that’s a bit wide, so I’ll go with 350!

Yes it’s a lot higher than those other bands but here is my reasoning:

1-U2 has a very large built in and loyal fan base.

2-U2 is not a singles band, they are an album band. U2 fans (see bullet 1) will go for the album

3-U2s fan base skews older and still have attachment to the physical album. Therefore, that group in bullet 1 is more likely(could be 5% of them or 25% of them) to not only buy the digital version but also a CD or record.

4-holiday season. Doesn’t have the sales boom it once did but it still has an effect

5- TBT....this is a wild card of course but IF this song continues to gain on radio, it could bring more attention to SOE

6- Im banking on U2 doing promotional performances the week before/of the release

I'll give you all but one of those points in different degrees.

Built in fan base, yes. This will most likely push them to a higher level than someone like The Killers. But a band like the The Chili Peppers and Greenday have a strong fanbase as well, and both were 90 to 120k.

Holiday sales will make it higher as well. So This is where i may be off on my calculation. Also, it remains to be seen if they do a ticket to album tie in. Then I will revise.

TBT could definitely boost sales a bit if it gets to be more successful. But probably by only 5 to 10k.

An older fan base i actually think is a negative. It makes no difference if they go get it at the store or download load it on iTunes, amazon, etc...
It might make it so they don't have as big of a second week drop off. But i don't see it giving them higher numbers the first week.

I could see them getting 170 to 180. 200 to 230 if they do a ticket promo. But I love your enthusiasm and of course hope YOU are right! :D
 
Just a side note on something i just noticed.

It looks like the Foo Fighters may have just achieved the dubious feat of having the second largest second week decline in Billboard history. Katy Perry holds the record with an 89% drop. And it looks like the Foos will have about an 87% drop, which will put them neck and neck with Madonna who had an 86.7% drop with MDMA...

Youch. I hope that U2 can avoid that sort of decline...
 
Just a side note on something i just noticed.

It looks like the Foo Fighters may have just achieved the dubious feat of having the second largest second week decline in Billboard history. Katy Perry holds the record with an 89% drop. And it looks like the Foos will have about an 87% drop, which will put them neck and neck with Madonna who had an 86.7% drop with MDMA...

Youch. I hope that U2 can avoid that sort of decline...

HTDAAB had a big drop (granted, that was a different era), but it also debuted with huge numbers.

With the holidays, I too think U2's release might last - provided they have the songs on radio to back it up. Otherwise the fan base will rush to get it and it may indeed see a far bigger drop than expected. But... it might rise again as the holidays draw closer and people buy more gifts.

After that, though, it's all about streaming and such. And without airplay, the album will fade fast (might be a slight uptick with a tour).
 
Barring any sort of gimmick (tied to ticket sales, etc) I see the album coming in in the 80k to 120k range, probably hitting #1. It'll likely stay in the top 25 for another week or two, and then probably fall off the face of the Earth as far as charts go.

If it manages to stay in the upper half of the charts for longer than a month it would be a huge success for them this late in the game.
 
I think the following month or so for the album is the wild card. We have no real data from SOI to help with this.

I fall in between Cosmo and Headache -

I'm guessing - No ticket gimmick - 150k week one, 60% drop to about 60k keeping them in the top 5 or 6. Then in the top 20-25 for another few weeks, then down to the 40-50 range for a week, and then down to the 75 range for a couple weeks and then 150's, then one last week at the very bottom and then off...

So about a 3 month run on the top200.

SOI had an 8 week run on the chart. So I feel like SOE has to do better just for the simple fact of people actually having to buy the album if they want it...

This of course is without any knowledge of future single performance, or promos they might have planned. But it feels reasonable to me.
 
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HITS Daily Double : Rumor Mill - SAY IT AIN'T SO, AMATO

The billboard album chart is apparently going to count youtube streams now. Before it was just spotify and other services.

Big question here is, will it only include the view numbers for the 1 week of tallying, or will it include built up view numbers for singles that were released months before the album?
I'm hoping its just for the week, or it would cause an absolutely crazy shift in numbers.
 
So just checked out hitsdailydouble for the final numbers for this week. The number one album (by NF) sold about 36k and Marylin Manson was at number 2 with 30k.

wow that's crazy low. I think they said something like the lowest number 1 since 2015

Can't wait to start getting more info on U2's release to start to get a better idea of how they might do.
 
And yet for the week after, Pink's new album sold 400,000 copies. That's more than the rest of the Top 15 combined, which includes new releases by the likes of Beck, St. Vincent, Robert Plant, Gucci Mane, and Wu Tang Clan.
 
And yet for the week after, Pink's new album sold 400,000 copies. That's more than the rest of the Top 15 combined, which includes new releases by the likes of Beck, St. Vincent, Robert Plant, Gucci Mane, and Wu Tang Clan.

There was a substantial element of this number for tour ticket tie-ins wasn't there? Hopefully U2 do this as well. May as well do it now, as a lot of artists do it, especially the bigger ones, otherwise you'll never really be able to compare sales numbers and chart positions. Its hard enough as it is these days!
 
Yep, the Pink numbers I think were almost half from the ticket tie in promo. That's pretty huge. Just think, if U2 did this and staggered the ticket sales over a couple weeks, they would have a number 1 album for a couple weeks and avoid the huge drop off that most artists see now.
 
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