"LOL, Eminem is doing fantastic and still has a chance to surpass NLOTH sales for 2009 provided NLOTH continues to decline and Eminem's new one stabilizes"
Well, I ws thinking about his previous albums. There is a significant decline in his sales. If you adjust for the size of the markets, I'm sure his results are disappointing. He is basically the best selling act worldwide of the last 12 years, I was expecting more from him (5 to 6 million), we will see how he keeps.
1. Something you always fail to mention are the full market figures for 2009. Thats right, they are not in yet, but based on current results will be 15% to 20% less thant the figures for 2008. That will put it at about 1973 levels in the list you put up, and well below anything in the early 80s.
2. As most people know, the decline for big selling albums since the year 2000 has been much steeper than the overall decline in the market. Something that you continue to ignore for some reason although I have posted the factual numbers MULTIPLE TIMES.
As for piracy in previous decades, look at this:
Billboard - Google Libros
Billboard - Google Libros
There are many more. Even as serious organizations as IFPI Germany (and its counterparts in other cuntries like Italy, Sweden, other Scandianavian markets, Netherlands and others) were thinking on new policies to stop the high level of piracy, which means that they actually had invest money, time and effot in that. If piracy was as insifnificant as you claim, they wouldn't have been doing that. But because they were losing money, they had to do something. The situation was even worse in other parts, like Latin America, Africa, Russia and other European countries (mainly in the East).
Irrelevant! Yes, Piracy has always occured on some level everywhere. But its only been since the year 2000 that it has seriously impacted the industry. Unless you can show a steady decline in sales in any of these countries year after year, you got ZIP.
I didn't ignore your list of albums certified on each year, it is just that I didn't understand if those albums are supposed to have been the ones released on a given year and eventually certified in any other or the ones certifed on a given year regardless of when they were released; and also, I didn't understand what you were supposed to prove with that list. There were more albums selling well back then, even if their overall market wasn't bigger than it is right now, that is partly what i'm claiming, although not exactly the same.
The factual list of 500,000 plus sellers that I showed, clearly shows that it is much more difficult in 2009 to sell 500,000 copies that in was in the early 1980s. Again, the market in 2009 for big selling albums, 500,000+ or even 100,000+ is where it was all the way back in the 1960s.
In which posts did exactly claim that U2 aren't as popular as they supposedly are?. I remember having a slight argument with you with regards to the best selling album during 1991 and 1992. I clearly remembered that I mentioned Queen's "Greatest Hits 2" as being one of them and provided enough evidence and links in order for you to check it. I didn't dispute what U2 were selling but the fact that you were clearly missing an album. I even gave you plenty of links you had no idea about for you to find new information. Is that what you call "trolling"?.
This post, and every post in this thread is aimed at discrediting NLOTH sales of 3 million copies as not being a significant achievement or that being the best selling album of the year does not mean what it did in the past. Any attempt to say that being #1 in 2009 is not as significant as being #1 in 2005, 2000, 1995, 1990, 1985, 1980, or 1975 is an obvious attempt to discredit U2's album sales this year!
Trolling, is when ALL your post consistently are an attempt in some way to discredit or say something negative about the band. You have around 28 or 29 posts now. It does not take that long to go through them. I challenge you to find ONE, just ONE that could be construed as being 100% positive about the band. Nothing neutral or negative, just 100% positive.
You also have one post where you
PRESUMPTIOSLY declare that U2 have NEVER had the best selling album ever in any year. Your bias is very clear, and the lengths that you went to discuss QUEEN album sales on a U2 FAN WEBSITE are further evidence of that fact as well is your consistent insistence that the fact that U2 has the #1 selling album of 2009 at the moment does not mean as much as it did in any other year.
The only post I remember making about The Edge is this one:
"Well, the guy of Rush is by far a better guitarist, at least in terms of technical aspects, which is a very important factor. Personally, I don't even regard The Edge as super guitarist or anything like that. He was just what a band like U2 needs. I don't imagine Steve Vai or Becker playing with the Irish folks, for example."
That wasn't negative. All I said was that I don't regard him as an extremely technical guitarist, but the perfect instrumentalist for U2. Why?. Because he is extremely creative and gives the songs what they need: never more nor less, just the necessary.
Check this qoute out, your words:
"WELL, THE GUY OF RUSH IS BY FAR BETTER GUITARIST,"
Sorry, but that is not a positive comment about the Edge, its certainly neutral, and definitely in the negative column. When you come on to a bands FAN WEBSITE and state that another guitarist is FAR BETTER your clearly making a negative comment in the context of where you are posting the message.
If you ask any guitarist, I'm sure most of them will tell about the same.
Sorry, most guitarist I know would disagree. Not a surpise though because when it comes to ART, it is a matter of OPINION!
When you say that people don't admit that U2 have the best seling of the year, I guess you are talking about many people, but I'm definitely not concerned because I haven't said anything negative towards them.
The thrust of every single one of your post in this thread is to discredit the sales of No Line On The Horizon in 2009 in some way shape or form.
I'm not the one who is discredicting the sales of the top artist in 2009, YOU ARE! You just discredited the sales of Eminem above with LOL and your absurd claims that he should have sold X or Y or Z. He has the 3RD best selling album of the year after only 8 weeks!
But you see, you can't say he is selling well, because that would also mean U2 is doing great as well.
Many fans do that here. I'm just a casual fan and I don't do that.
Most posters have something in their posting history which shows they are actually a fan, and not just a big fan of some other artist coming onto a U2 forum to argue why they think U2 is NOT this or NOT that.
Disagreeing with you doesn't mean being a U2 hater or anything like that.
Your posting history doesn't show just simple disagreement about VARIOUS issues. Each post consistently attempts in some way to discredit the bands commercial success or artistic talent or in fact does not discuss the band at all.
And I don't think you are the crrect person to tell to stop with arguments, when nearly your whole post history is made up of uch arguments, you are continually involved in such debates, I'm not.
I'm not involved in consistently attempting to discredit the band from a business or talent standpoint. All of your post are consistently engaged in attempting to do one or the other.