The "fans" VS. album sales

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bathiu

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There are few people here :)wave: Hi U2girl) that like to use this argument:
"U2 lost fans with their 90's music, look at the sales/sales of the albums prove it...etc"

...so, my question is: how -we- fans (the number of us) compare to total album sales?
(and by a "fan" I mean a person that has at least all albums; lets leave singles, videos, dvds and bootlegs out of this)

For example: if U2 had 6mln fans after 'War', the sales of Boy and October would be much bigger after that... if U2 had 28(?)mln fans after JT than all albums before JT would get a huge boost in sales as well... also R&H would sell much more than it did.

Do you get what I'm saying?
Why after so many albums Boy and October are still around 3mlns in sales?
Does it mean U2 have only 3mln "hardcore" fans? Does it make the sales of of POP (7-8mln) more impressive?

I want to say that this argument: "U2 lost fans in the 90's" is a huge BS, it doesn't work that way IMO.

How many of us have one or two (out of 5 or 6 or 11) albums of some artist and we don't care about the rest of his/her/their work?

What I want to say is that U2 did not have (almost) 30mln fans in the 80's and they did not have 8mln fans by the end of the 90's... and they do not have 10-12mln fans in the 00's.
(IMO)
What do you think?
 
Great post, good point!! I think u2 has 'only' 3 million hardcore fans, otherwise the sales of boy,october were much higher. Let's not forget u2 has different styles per album. Maybe the people (the fans that aren't hardcore fans) that bought joshua tree are other people that bought pop. I think there are many fans that don't have ALL the albums. Also there are a lot of people that have 1 album from u2. From some bands I have only one album too, their masterpiece. But I'm not a fan of that particuylar band.

Another point is the illegal copying and downloading that started late 90's. Of course that aren't the hardcore fans but what if there never was illegal copying. Maybe POP sold 20M as well.

And the hardcore fans? Are that the people who have all the 'original' albums. What about that Ipod thing? Than you don't have to buy all the albums.

But I think it's bullshit that u2 'lost' fans in the 90's because I think that many people that bought JT aren't fan but just bought the album because it was a masterpiece.

It's very difficult to say of course but u2 didn't lose fans.
 
POP-ROMANCER said:
Also there are a lot of people that have 1 album from u2. From some bands I have only one album too, their masterpiece. But I'm not a fan of that particuylar band.

That's my point. I have Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chilli P., Muse, Depeche Mode...etc, lot's of single albums out of many from some artists... I even have Madonna's 'Ray Of Light'... but they never "lost me" as a fan, because I never was one. Of course I was a part of making album 'B' or 'E' someone's bestseller... but so what? I'm not their fan.
 
In 1987, U2 was "the thing"...there were a lot of people who had never bought a U2 album before JT, and never did again. Were these really fans or bandwaggoners trying to be "with the times"? I'd say the latter, and they quickly jumped off the bandwagon when R & H came along. Therefore you can't say they lost any fans when they weren't real fans to begin with.

While JT is definitely a masterpiece, it was the "times" that was at least in part due to its enormous sales.
 
In the '90s, ok maybe u2 lost SOME fans (the people that bought JT) because u2 was so different (AB ZOO POP). But 1 thing for sure: u2 made a LOT of new fans in the 90's, and these were automatically interested in the other albums. I'm 21 years old and I got into u2 in 1995 because of HMTMKMKM. So maybe we can ask the question: how many copies did JT sell until the release of AB and how many copies after the release of AB??
 
Sanchez said:
I remember when I first heard HMTMKMKM, I thought the new album would sound like that. Imagine what may have been......

Come on, it's not that far... HMTMKMKM and SATS, Gone, LNOE, Wake Up Dead Man, Please... would look good on one album... :rockon:
 
The industry would define anyone that spends money on an album or a concert ticket to be a fan on some level. While it may be true that U2 did not lose many of its hardcore/diehard fans in the 1990s, it is true that they lost a lot of the more casual fans. In the United States, U2 lost roughly half or more of its overall fan base(the most casual fan to the diehard) with the POP album and tour. The loss was less outside the United States, but it was still a very low period for the band in Popularity compared to its own previous levels. Despite this, they remained the most popular band in the world at that time, primarily because most veteran competitors were still behind them, and the new blood while they could sell albums could not sell concert tickets on the level of a band like U2.
 
So the band lost fans with R&H also? ("only" half of JT sales)
Or is this term used only for POP?:rolleyes:

STING2 said:
U2 lost roughly half or more of its overall fan base(the most casual fan to the diehard) with the POP album and tour.

...and why with POP?
The diference between POP's and Zooropa's sales is around 500.000 (1mln at the most)
 
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There is also those Diehard fans who 'Die harder',and have the release of each album in all formats and an edition from every country where it was sold and then re-issued,re-mastersd,etc,...
 
I got into U2 when i stole my fathers copy of ATYCLB, listened to it and was blown away for the second time in my life i was in love with a album, Whats the story Morning Glory. I then routed through my fathers tape collection and lsitened to the old albums, now I have started to buy them on CD, I have them all except the last 2 on tape, and have ATYCLB, HTDAAB, Boy, R&H, and the two greatest hits, I badly need money to buy the others on CD.
 
Roughly 20 of my friends absolutely love U2, and have been fans continuosly since Joshua Tree. I am the only one of them that owns all the cd's. The others may have 1 or 2 cd's, the rest are copied.

I remember during the Lovetown tour, one of our friends bought the LP, everybody else copied it to cassette from his record player, same thing happened on a grander scale when ZooTV/Zooropa toured downunder.

I personally think U2 were at their most popular during the AB/ZooTV era, even moreso than they were during the Joshua Tree era. Its just copying became more simple in the 90's, hence the slow decline of music sales over the past decade and a half. 10 million albums sales these days is a huge success. How many missed sales were there for U2 when the full HTDAAB album was downloaded before it was released?
 
LeafsNation said:
In 1987, U2 was "the thing"...there were a lot of people who had never bought a U2 album before JT, and never did again. Were these really fans or bandwaggoners trying to be "with the times"? I'd say the latter, and they quickly jumped off the bandwagon when R & H came along. Therefore you can't say they lost any fans when they weren't real fans to begin with.

While JT is definitely a masterpiece, it was the "times" that was at least in part due to its enormous sales.

Maybe they just preferred that version of U2.
 
bathiu said:


:ohmy: :hyper: That's also my story... only I'm 23 yo.

Sadly, I didn't start to get "into" their music until a few years later, but I really liked that song when it first came out. Would've really enjoyed Zootv and Popmart.

++++++++++++++++

I'd imagine their album sales do go up a little when they get new fans/release a new album.

I'm 23, started getting "in" to their music 5 years ago. Since then, I now own all their albums, a few singles, videos.
 
bathiu said:
Why after so many albums Boy and October are still around 3mlns in sales?
Does it mean U2 have only 3mln "hardcore" fans? Does it make the sales of of POP (7-8mln) more impressive?


I know quite a few people (including me) who have Boy and October but do not have several of the later albums. Some just like the early work and not the later stuff.
 
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