NLOTH already slipping down the charts

[siblis50]

NEW @U2 NLOTH CHART UPDATE
March 18, 2009
posted by: m2
Not a real good second week in North America for NLOTH. In the U.S., the album fell to No. 3 on the Billboard chart, with sales of 132,000 -- a 73% drop from opening week. Up in Canada, NLOTH remained No. 1, but sales dropped 67% to about 21,000 copies.


This is not good considering that Taylor Swift held the #1 spot for 17 weeks in a row before U2 bumped it out. This Album could be out of the Top 40 before the Tour kicks off.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

It has held # 1 in Australia for 2 weeks. Not sure what was released this week though?

 

[KUEFC09U2]

There are already dicussions going on about this?

 

[cjboog]

NEW @U2 NLOTH CHART UPDATE
March 18, 2009
posted by: m2
Not a real good second week in North America for NLOTH. In the U.S., the album fell to No. 3 on the Billboard chart, with sales of 132,000 -- a 73% drop from opening week. Up in Canada, NLOTH remained No. 1, but sales dropped 67% to about 21,000 copies.


This is not good considering that Taylor Swift held the #1 spot for 17 weeks in a row before U2 bumped it out. This Album could be out of the Top 40 before the Tour kicks off.

It's totally unfair to compare Taylor Swift's long rein to U2. She had ZERO competition. She had all these #1 weeks where she was selling like 60 and 70k.

And Magnificent is looking very promising on the radio right now so don't give up hope just yet. It picked up a lot of steam in the last week and will probably be a bigger hit than GOYB in terms of radio airplay, which will keep the album around for a while.

 

[U2FloridaFan]

Pretty sad to be knocked off by someone from American Idol...what is the music world coming to (the Grammy's were like and "Idolfest")?

Hopefully Magnificent will propel them back into the #1 position. Such a brilliant album.

 

[purpleoscar]

U2 is going to have to use their tour to market the songs. Many songs like New Years Day and Pride were not huge on the billboard charts but are classics today. Artists should always be looking at the long run.

 

[doctorwho]

NEW @U2 NLOTH CHART UPDATE
March 18, 2009
posted by: m2
Not a real good second week in North America for NLOTH. In the U.S., the album fell to No. 3 on the Billboard chart, with sales of 132,000 -- a 73% drop from opening week. Up in Canada, NLOTH remained No. 1, but sales dropped 67% to about 21,000 copies.


This is not good considering that Taylor Swift held the #1 spot for 17 weeks in a row before U2 bumped it out. This Album could be out of the Top 40 before the Tour kicks off.

Swift was not #1 for that long. Several albums bumped her out (like Springsteen's). Also, she would be #1 with sales of 40-50K. This is a reflection of the weak music market. You have to very careful of looking at chart position vs. sales. When "Pop" was released, the entire top 10 would have sales of 100K. Now, it was considered "news" that the top 3 albums had sales of 100K. Swift's album had some hits, so even with soft sales, it was able to remain at or near the top.

Furthermore, as there are no new big releases coming this week, U2 may see another sales drop, but still hold their spot (or even rise) on the charts. Chart wise, NLOTH may look great, but sales are down for everyone. U2's had the best selling release this year and after only two weeks, it is the second best selling album this year (after Swift's album, which was released last year).

At any rate, we have discussed this ad nauseum in other threads. For the first time ever, I feel the need to say:

 

[farmall]

being fair

Swift nor Clarkson management go to amazon to sell latest release for 3.99 either, u2 did. that in itself says alot about u2 being obsessed with numbers. I would really like to know of the 484,000 they sold in week one were from amazon at that dollar tree price just to say u2 is #1 in sales.

 

[doctorwho]

Even if Amazon didn't sell it at that price, the album easily would have been #1 as NLOTH outsold the next 17 or so albums combined in its opening week.

Also, U2 are hardly the first to offer specials. Some sign deals with Walmart. Others have specials on iTunes, etc. Nothing new in the music world.

I also hate the title of this thread. When an album debuts at #1, of course the only way to go is down. To see it's "already falling" is suggesting it's failing. Clarkson's album remained at #1 in the U.S., but saw a 65% drop in sales. What if U2 had a similar situation? NLOTH remained #1, but saw that drop? Chances are the haters would still find something to bitch about.

And why are you bitching? If you don't like the album, fine. But this is a U2 forum. I don't get why people here WANT to see U2 fail.

 

[farmall]

If your the biggest band in the world why do it? i hate clarkson but never reduced her to 3.99. just being fair like the rest of us u2 fans and admitting the truth.

 

[Chief43]

There are plenty of Nuff Nuffs doctorwho. 6 posts and picking apart U2's promotion to suggest that the only reason they went #1 to 35 countries is because they sold their album for 3.99 on Amazon is one example.

3 weeks in a row at #1 on the World Chart is the most important statistic in my opinion as it suggests success in a big market (like the US) and success in markets around the world. This is a band that has been around for 30 years and the fact they can sell a considerable amount of albums relative to the market (without having to break up and reunite) suggests something special.

2 million albums have already been sold in the first month before U2 have gone on tour or released a second single. To me this suggests that by the end of the year we could be looking at 5 million sold for the album. While its not VLV's numbers, its also U2's 12th studio album and not their 4th. Coldplay will not create a similar commercial and musical history.

By the way, I used Coldplay as the example since everybody seems to want to compare bands 20 years apart.

 

[Chief43]

If your the biggest band in the world why do it? i hate clarkson but never reduced her to 3.99. just being fair like the rest of us u2 fans and admitting the truth.

It's called promotion mate. Album sales are down. The mentality is why buy an album when you can download it for free. Selling it for 3.99 at least entices people to get a physical copy themselves. It's called getting with the times in the music industry.

 

[farmall]

Well at 3.99 u2 numbers are inflated then for media reasons.how many were sold through amazon?

 

[macawaca]

one of the minor reasons I love my band is that lots of people have a go at them! only a minor reason though!

 

[CosmoKramer]

Well at 3.99 u2 numbers are inflated then for media reasons.how many were sold through amazon?

How do we know this was a "U2" choice and not an Amazon/Universal choice?

On the flip side, you say that it is unfair for U2 to do this but then Kelly Clarkson/Flo Rida/ Lady Gaga get "automatic" airplay on all top 40 stations because tweens like them and U2, who are in their late 40's, have to really fight to be played on a top 40 station. Have you heard Poker Face by Lady Gaga? Its very catchy but really? Po-Po-Po-Po Poker Face is the chorus. It makes Sexy Boots sound almost cool......Just saying mate, look at all sides.

I know Docwho will feel me on this......

 

[u2search]

Well at 3.99 u2 numbers are inflated then for media reasons.how many were sold through amazon?

Amazon only have 8% market share and most of that is from physical sales.

I'm not sure the $3.99 price was available from the first week on - it's a promotion for Amazon's download shop as well as it is for No Line. They have $1.99 promotions for just about anything (The Who, Abba) just to be able to compete with iTunes.

 

[Maoilbheannacht]

Swift nor Clarkson management go to amazon to sell latest release for 3.99 either, u2 did. that in itself says alot about u2 being obsessed with numbers. I would really like to know of the 484,000 they sold in week one were from amazon at that dollar tree price just to say u2 is #1 in sales.

In No Line On The Horizon's first week:

32% of the albums were digital downloads from the internet.

18% were from purchasing the physical album over the internet.

50% were from in store purchases.

I believe the $3.99 was only for digital downloads at Amazon.com. So the number is a fraction of the 32% of albums that were digitally downloaded. My guess is probably less than 10% of the overall total were digital downloads from Amazon.com at the $3.99 price.

 

[Chief43]

In No Line On The Horizon's first week:

32% of the albums were digital downloads from the internet.

18% were from purchasing the physical album over the internet.

50% were from in store purchases.

I believe the $3.99 was only for digital downloads at Amazon.com. So the number is a fraction of the 32% of albums that were digitally downloaded. My guess is probably less than 10% of the overall total were digital downloads from Amazon.com at the $3.99 price.

Thanks for the info. I would chase all this myself but I'm afraid I'm lazy.

 

[hiphop]

(once, Lefsetz gets it right):

Sales just suck. U2 is doing better than Bruce. They've got a cume of 693,310. But this last week, their third on the chart, showed another 42% drop, they sold 76,317 albums. Not exactly chicken feed, but there's no way they get to ten million, there's no way the label takes everybody out to CUT and orders thousand dollar bottles of wine on this revenue.

 

[Native_Son]

no one sells 10M anymore, these days an album that sells 10M would be as successful as Thriller

 

[Irishteen]

no one sells 10M anymore, these days an album that sells 10M would be as successful as Thriller

Amy Winehouse Back to Black

 

[Native_Son]

Amy Winehouse Back to Black

haha, theres always one

but that was 2 years ago, sales have fallen fast since then.

 

[zoo99]

if you want to count all the 3.99 albums then to be fair you have to take into account all the deluxe $20 albums and the $35 albums and the $80 albums that were also included in those sales numbers, pretty sure the average price works out to more then a regular cd release

 

[Maoilbheannacht]

(once, Lefsetz gets it right):

Sales just suck. U2 is doing better than Bruce. They've got a cume of 693,310. But this last week, their third on the chart, showed another 42% drop, they sold 76,317 albums. Not exactly chicken feed, but there's no way they get to ten million, there's no way the label takes everybody out to CUT and orders thousand dollar bottles of wine on this revenue.

I think U2 will be buying the thousand dollar bottles of wine for the record label people, given that their last tour grossed $389 million and this tour will likely gross over $600 million. A Billion gross for two back to back tours.

 

[Irishteen]

I think U2 will be buying the thousand dollar bottles of wine for the record label people, given that their last tour grossed $389 million and this tour will likely gross over $600 million. A Billion gross for two back to back tours.

The record label couldn't care less how much money U2 make on tour, they don't get the money from it. The record label probably want U2 to tour for free so people have more money for CDs

 

[doctorwho]

The record label couldn't care less how much money U2 make on tour, they don't get the money from it. The record label probably want U2 to tour for free so people have more money for CDs

U2's last two albums sold over 20M combined (worldwide). I'm not sure how well NLOTH will do worldwide, but it's already up to 2M and the tour hasn't started nor has there been any real big hits from the album. Get a big hit, get the tour going and I can see NLOTH approaching those types of numbers.

Now if someone meant 10M just in the U.S. - uh, no. It will be interesting to see what Eminem's new album does, but I highly doubt it will be 10M.

And Irishteen is right - labels don't make money from tours. But artists tour because THEY make money from touring. In fact, most artists have their incomes generated from touring - not CD sales.

Record labels are in an uproar over illegal downloads for one reason - they aren't making money. Sure, they try to cover it up with the fact that it's illegal and violates copyrights and may hurt the artists, etc. But they wouldn't care about any of that if they made $$ (like with iTunes downloads). They care because they aren't making money.

Record labels are becoming a thing of the past. The future will most likely be only downloads. More and more artists will work on independent labels. They might connect with promotion companies, who help promote the release - but only if they also help promote the tour. This way the promotion company gets a cut of the real money - the tour money.

CD's still sell. I still like holding a CD in my hands. But I have to admit, that's mostly for the bands I truly love - and that's dwindled to U2. I still buy some CD's here and there, but mostly, I download too. If I want info. on a band, I look it up on a website.

If record labels and the RIAA were smarter, they would have jumped on something like iTunes well before Apple came up with it. Instead, they sued people and made a fuss. Fortunately, the RIAA has stopped the lawsuits (and it's probably because they were expensive for little return - and it didn't discourage people from illegal downloads).

Hit songs can still sell a lot (like Clarkson's and Eminem's latest) - in fact, some hit songs have sold over 2M legal downloads! U2 have had some big hits in the download world too. Hopefully they'll get one from this album. But CD sales - I'm hoping NLOTH eventually gets to 2X Platinum. I'll be thrilled with that.