Songs of Experience - Let The Chart Speculation Begin

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Headache in a Suitcase said:
They haven't played there in a decade, and they're old.

Why is any if this shocking to anyone?
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Oh just slightly shocked as in "oh really? well who woulda thought..." - as opposed to "holy fucking shit WTF just happened..."

slightly...

rennowba said:
Dropped to 19 on the uk mid week chart. Wow I knew it would drop but out the top 20 by the end of the week :-(

They better hope millions watch this BBC show next week
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And the UK midweek charts are notoriously inaccurate, so it's probably worse that that, so you can maybe add about 8 to that #19.

Yeah, most people want the nostalgia of JT 2017 but not the current version of the band YET.. some of those same people are currently spending some seriously daft money on a ticket to a concert where they know they will hear/see about 60% of that gig featuring songs they don't own or clearly don't want.

As for the UK reaction? just anecdotal but I know and talk to several longterm UK based 1983 onwards "seen them several times and own everything" fans who are posting on FB just now who are really just not into this record one bit and have not spent their money on SOE or plan to go to the gigs.
 
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Think you can swing the sales and chart placings either way.

On one hand if you were to judge this record on past u2 record sales/chart placings then this record is a huge ridiculously massive flop. Plain and simple really.

But on the other if you compared to what other rock bands are selling, the current music climate and the fact that u2 are nearly 60 years old now. Then I'd say it's done very well. How many bands 40 years in get these sales and chart placings ?? Nobody.

Can swing it both ways really
 
rennowba said:
What we know so far

Israel 7
Argentina 7
New Zealand 9
Holland 1
Uk 5
Taiwan 4
Ireland 1
Greece 10
USA 1
Canada 1
France 3
Norway 5
Czech Republic 2
Slovakia 2
Germany 2
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Belgium 1
Finland 6
Germany 2
Australia 5
Scotland 3
Sweden 1
 
rennowba said:
Dropped to 19 on the uk mid week chart. Wow I knew it would drop but out the top 20 by the end of the week :-(

They better hope millions watch this BBC show next week
Click to expand...



Personally hoping they have more promo planned that week in the UK to maximise sales in the run up to xmas, who knows maybe that was the plan all along? And they wanted to bbc thing to air alongside other promotional stuff?
 
More than the ranking positions in individual countries I would look at the number of copies. Moreover, in many countries (for example: in Italy) U2 have fight against local artists (in Italy Jovanotti, but also in Germany, France was the same) that are very, very popular.
The real goal of the band was No. 1 in the US and so it was.
The only band with number 1 albums in the '80s, 90s, '00s, '10s four 4 decades!
Incredible results given the age of the band and the current music market that does not favor the rock genre / old artists / artists that focus on albums and not on singles.
Finally a reflection: the overall figures of the UK music market (I refer to album sales) for some years now are no longer at the level of many others world markets.
 
Haven't seen any uk press tearing into u2 for a number 5 chart placing. All I'm seeing is the news about them being the only band ever to have a number 1 record in the states in the 80/90/00/10's [emoji41]
 
rennowba said:
Haven't seen any uk press tearing into u2 for a number 5 chart placing. All I'm seeing is the news about them being the only band ever to have a number 1 record in the states in the 80/90/00/10's [emoji41]
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I have a feeling the press in general is moving on from this album.
 
CosmoKramer said:
So It was the 13th biggest sales week of the year in the US. It's a solid result for sure but a holiday week(if those are even a thing anymore) coupled with a ticket bundle I would have thought a much higher result would have occurred.


View attachment 11674
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Per Billboard, they sold sold 180k, so it's the 12th biggest sales weeks of the year.
 
CosmoKramer said:
Not only sales in the US but World Wide too. In fact, while we don't know U2s projected World Wide sales, we do know in the US they are projected to have ~190k sales (not SPS) and in the UK at minimum ~30k (likely a lot higher than that). So with just those 2 countries, thats an estimated 220k. So how would that stack up against similar bands/other artists recent albums?



Coldplay: 827k

Red Hot Chili Peppers: 341k

Foo Fighters: 277k

Arcade Fire: 241k

Linkin Park: 212k

Bon Jovi: 211k

Killers: 208k

Green Day: 206k

Maroon 5: 183k

Kings of Leon: 165k

Beck: 81k



Here are a couple of the bigger ones:

Adele- 5.706 million (thats real....no really, her 2nd week was 2.336 million and her 3rd week was 1.793 million)

Taylor Swift- 1.619 million





I think they will pull in between 500k-750k.
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So SOE world Wide results are in and they sold 441k albums(it reads "album equivalent Sales" but I believe the above I posted also included that number.

That number is lower than I would have thought but still a sold result considering they sold more than all of the artists I listed above except Coldplay(not counting Swift or Adele).

http://www.mediatraffic.de/albums.htm
 
That "#1 album in each decade" part? clearly that's been added into the PR blurb, because it's been featured in almost every item I've read since last Friday.

On the other hand, the usual suspects within the UK music press not having a wee naughty Nelson Munz HAHA dig is probably more galling in a way, THAN them taking another obvious pot shot, because it shows how they have fallen off the radar as in "aye, them were the days when that 'ere U2 was music press whipping boys and punching bags, alas no more" etc etc.
 
djparky said:
the world at large doesn't care that much. It's no surprise to see it dropping quickly in week 2
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Of course they don’t, they are a rock band all in their late 50s.

If U2 is to matter again, THEY will need to make it happen. If these songs catch on with people, it will happen. If the songs don’t, then it won’t.

U2 can no longer live on their name alone. Long gone are they days that U2 release a song and it immediately goes to the top 10 only because it’s U2 like Discotheque did in the US or countless singles did in Canada and the UK for ATYCLB and Bomb.

If U2 wants to be relevant, they will need to write a relevant song.....we will find out.
 
Still sold more it their first week then any other band apart from Coldplay. Which is good going!
 
I do think that if the album were released in October, it would have hit number 1 in a lot more countries. The holiday effect is reaching its peak and it definitely hindered the album chart position, not sales, but chart position.

That said, I'm a little surprised that there wasn't more of a ticket bundle effect for the second week. How many shows went on sale after Dec 1?
 
womanfish said:
I do think that if the album were released in October, it would have hit number 1 in a lot more countries. The holiday effect is reaching its peak and it definitely hindered the album chart position, not sales, but chart position.

That said, I'm a little surprised that there wasn't more of a ticket bundle effect for the second week. How many shows went on sale after Dec 1?
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Are these 2nd shows selling though?. There isn't many maps up but the ones that are show a lot of unsold tickets.

In the uk they sold 40k, Would that be enough to get to number one any other time in the year?I'm not sure
 
womanfish said:
I think South Korea is like 86 or something...
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South Korea
weekly shipments
week 49, 9 december
Top International

1 (58 on Combined)
Songs Of Experience
U2

This is what I saw. Read it wrong their number 1 on the international chart. Presuming 58 on th overall charts
 
It's being pretty resilient on the uk iTunes chart.....the regular version almost dropped off the top 200 but has now come back to 104 with the deluxe version bobbing between 27 and 22 daily, hope it hangs on to top 40 before Tuesday and then gets a nice boost with extra promo
 
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