Quote:
Originally Posted by Porco
How many sales gets you 6th in the physical sales chart? Is it really in the hundreds? That would mean I could self-fund my own top 10 album if I stop buying multiple Manics releases for a few years(!)
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It's difficult to say because obviously it changes week-by-week, but there are many albums that have reached the top 100 albums with barely more than 1,000 that I've read about in the past, and sales continue to drop year-on-year, so if it's at 101, maybe it sold 1,000. If it's at 135, maybe it sold 750. The sales will be published somewhere I'm sure, but I'm not sure it's worth paying for industry publications to find out.
I find it all fascinating, to be honest. I'm still staggered by how quickly download sales have tapered off in general. And, of course, with numerous deluxe editions and things going on, it's actually impossible to get a good sense of what's been sold really. How many fans actually bought Critical Thinking? How many in the UK? How many bought two copies? How many bought five? I think the number who bought multiple was probably not
that high, but even if it was a couple of thousand, that's still maybe enough to knock off 5-10,000 sales, which brings the total down massively.
I also find it odd how some artists with lengthy careers sell even worse these days. Underword's latest album reached number 43 - that can only be a couple of thousand sales, which strikes me as bonkers. Idlewild's last two have only scraped the top 20. I wonder how many acts are living largely off income from their biggest hits, either newly gained or stuff in the bank. A lot of small-and-mid sized acts actually struggle to make money from touring, despite the general belief that live is where the money comes from, so a lot of these bands wouldn't be able to survive on those kind of chart placings if they were starting out.