It annoys me to no end that Nielson SoundScan and Billboard hide some very basic sales information from the public. You have to be an industry insider or pay for a $240 subscription to get the info. Screw that. I gots me a little birdy to fill me in.
This may be the biggest new release week of the year, in terms of quality. Of 13 good to great releases that came out on September 12, 8 made the Billboard Top 200, selling a total of 829,850 albums! All the new releases in the top 200, including crap like Barenaked Ladies, Everclear, Bob Seger, Lionel Ritchie, Papa Roach and John Mayer, totalled 1,704,867 albums sold. Timberlake’s sales of 684,461 might be some kind of record. Who says people aren’t buying albums?
Billboard Rank, Album, Metacritic Score, Sales:
1, Justin Timberlake – FutureSex/LoveSounds, 68, 684,461
9, The Mars Volta – Amputechture, 66, 59,078
32, Mastodon – Blood Mountain, 85, 24,199
41, TV On The Radio – Return To Cookie Mountain, 87, 20,806
66, Yo La Tengo – I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, 86, 14,491
95, The Black Keys – Magic Potion, 75, 10,647
113, The Rapture – Pieces Of The People We Love, 80, 9,204
142, Los Lobos – The Town And The City, 6,964
Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye, 81
Xiu Xiu – The Air Force, 77
Basement Jaxx – Crazy Itch Radio
The Brazilian Girls – Talk To La Bomb, 71
Mouse On Mars – Varcharz, 75
I bought about half of these, and heard them all. TV On The Radio and Mastodon are fighting it out for my top position. I just saw Mastodon last week, and they were on fire. Fire, I tell you! I don’t know why it hasn’t sold more—everyone’s raving about it – it’s already received four perfect 10 reviews (Pitchfork basically said it was flawless, yet only gave it an 87) with silly ol’ Guardian messing up the curve.
Pitchfork did give Junior Boys a 90, yet it sold less than 4,180 copies. Perhaps their influence isn’t so strong. Brazilian Girls, Black Keys and Basement Jaxx are all decent, but relatively disappointing. I like the Los Lobos, Mars Volta and Yo La Tengo tons.
Here’s the first-week sales totals for other recent releases:
Beyonce – B’Day, 9/5, 541,196
Christina Aguilera – Back To Basics, 8/15, 341,988
Outkast – Idlewild, 8/29, 196,137
Bob Dylan – Modern Times, 8/29, 191,933
Lamb Of God – Sacrament, 8/22, 62,990
The Roots – Game Theory, 8/29, 61,097
Kelis – Kelis Was Here, 8/22, 57,917
Iron Maiden – A Matter Of Life And Death, 9/5, 55.722
Razorlight, 8/22, 4,320
Last year Rolling Stone published a list of 500 of the greatest albums according to their grizzled critics. They listed total sales figures for those albums. Here are just some of the ones that were listed as selling under 500,000. I don’t understand how the industry can whine about album sales when Beyonce can sell more albums in a week than any of these revered, classic albums listed below.
The Stooges * Fun House (Elektra) 70
Talking Heads * Remain In Light (Sire) 80
The Velvet Underground * The Velvet Underground & Nico (Verve) 67
Television * Marquee Moon (Elektra) 77
Joy Division * Closer (Factory) 80
David Bowie * The Rise Of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars (RCA) 72
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band * Trout Mask Replica (Reprise) 69
Jimmy Cliff * The Harder They Come (Mango) 72
The Sex Pistols * Never Mind the Bullocks (WB) 77
Bob Marley & the Wailers * Natty Dread (Tuff Gong/Island) 74
David Bowie * Low (RCA) 77
Ramones * Rocket To Russia (Sire) 77
New York Dolls * New York Dolls (Mercury) 73
My Bloody Valentine * Loveless (Sire) 91
The Who * My Generation (MCA) 65
Velvet Underground * Loaded (WB) 70
The Kinks * The Village Green Preservation Society (Reprise) 68
Dr. John The Night Tripper * Gris-Gris (Atco/Rhino) 68
Kraftwerk * Trans-Europe Express (Capitol) 77
The Replacements * Let It Be (Twin/Tone) 84
MC5 * Kick Out The Jams (Elektra) 69
The Meters * Look A-Py Py (Josie) 69
Love * Forever Changes (Elektra) 67
Ramones * Ramones (Sire) 76
The Jesus & Mary Chain * Psychocandy (WB) 85
R.E.M. * Murmur (IRS) 83
Otis Redding * Otis Blue (Stax/Atlantic) 65
Nick Drake * Bryter Layter (Island) 70
Otis Redding * Dictionary Of Soul (Stax/Atlantic) 66
