doctorwho
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phanan said:Are you certain? I read somewhere that Vertigo had about 30,000 and Speed Of Sound had 44,000 (both numbers reflect first week sales), although to be quite honest I can't recall where I saw that and if it referred to only the U.S. or the entire world.
EDIT:
After some searching, I have found this article regarding music sales. The last paragraph is specific to Vertigo.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/11/biz_musicsales11.html
And then this article, from Billboard, states the 44,000 figure for Speed of Sound:
http://www.billboard.com/bb/search/article_display.jsp?schema=&vnu_content_id=1000901122
Am I missing something?
Good work!
I think what people are confusing are total downloads vs. weekly downloads. I think "Vertigo" has more downloads total.
Also, I think that at the time, "Vertigo" had the most downloads ever. "Speed of Sound" charted high mostly based on downloads - the airplay really hadn't kicked in yet at all. And the song down the charts quickly after its debut, suggesting total downloads were waning.
In contrast, "Vertigo" rose on the charts - showing that airplay was increasing. Furthermore, it held the top spot on the download charts for several weeks. All of this combined definitely would have made "Vertigo" a top 10 hit for U2. I would argue that it would have even reached the Top 5. Whether it hit #1 or not is debatable - but there was an outside chance.
Of course, this is my big problem with Billboard's Hot 100. They are constantly changing how the songs chart. This is good in a way as Billboard needs to keep current. However, it's also bad in that one can't compare eras. Based on airplay alone, I can guarantee you that "Speed of Sound" would NOT have hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Yet, Coldplay have this Top 10 hit due to the change in the charting format. It's not fair then to compare "Vertigo" and "Speed of Sound" - two songs released just months apart - because different charting procedures were used. But history doesn't look at this - history will just see that "Speed of Sound" reached #8 and "Vertigo" reached #31, so "Speed of Sound" was the far bigger hit. And I truly question if that is true.