Album Sales Afterthought

I was just reading Coolfer's chart recap for this week and this particular line really caught me off guard:

Silversun Pickups' Carnavas (Dangerbird) has now sold 106,000 units in ten weeks of release. They've got big numbers in Los Angeles, San Diego, the Bay Area and Seattle. In comparison, the latest Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album has done 40,000 in eight weeks, and Bloc Party's latest has sold 95,000 in seven weeks.

This is amazing to me and really says a lot about how far SSPU has come in such little time. There are few indie bands out there that have worked as hard as these guys (and girl) to get into the minds and ears of the masses. I guess it remains to be seen whether this leads to any sort of long tail longevity and a dedicated fan base because I've definitely noticed the hipster crew is starting to jump ship. I, for one, am happy for them but I also expected a bit more from Bloc Party.

Album Sales Continue Downward Spiral

I still believe that the ability for a consumer to buy one song instead of an album, takes a bigger chunk out of revenue than piracy or pear-to-peer song sharing. But, that's just me. And I don't have any statistical data to back that up. Pollstar has the lowdown on album sales so far this year:

"While overall music sales are up 19 percent compared to last year at this time, translating into 46 million additional music purchases, sales of physical CDs have dropped 20 percent compared to 2006.

"So far this year, consumers have purchased 89 million physical CDs. That's 23 million fewer than the 112 million music fans bought last year.

"'And while digital album sales increased 100 percent over last year, overall album purchases, including 'track equivalent albums,' where 10 digital track purchases count as one album sale, dropped 10 percent to 118 million from last year's 131 million benchmark.

"Of course, piracy is still a factor in declining music sales. Despite the recording industry's efforts, peer-to-peer song sharing refuses to go away. Chances are you can find anything you want if you look hard enough. And, in most cases, you don't have to look very hard."

Album Sales: The Shins Top 100,000

The Shins new album Wincing the Night Away starts off strong with "Sleeping Lessons" and then cools off to what amounts to a solid album overall (other highlights include "Phatom Limb," "Split Needles," and "Girl Sailor"). I am a big Shins fan - although I have never seen them live - and apparently, I'm not the only one enjoying their latest effort. This from Coolfer:

"For the first time in 2007, an album topped 100,000 sales per week. Pretty Ricky's Late Night Special (Atlantic) debuted at #1 with sales of 132,000 (3% digital). The Shins' Wincing the Night Away (Sub Pop) debuted at #2 with sales of 119,000. What is most amazing about The Shins' week, other than the fact that an indie rock (legitimately indie rock, because it's on an indie label) sold that many albums, was the digital share. An incredible 30% of The Shins' sales were digital. In the past, a digital share that high would come from a lack of distribution to national accounts. In this case, Wincing The Night Away was available virtually everywhere. Still, 30% of consumers chose to buy an album download. Only in indie rock." [Read more at Coolfer]