difficult sort of update, sort of.
about record sales. and charts. and etc.
i’ve written about this before, but i thought i’d address it again, especially in light of the fact that i have a new-ish record in stores.
a while ago i wrote about the ‘pearl jam effect’. i described the ‘pearl jam effect’ as being a phenomenon wherein bands who have very technically savvy fans will see their records do poorly in the charts, whereas bands/artists who have less technically savvy fans will see their records do quite well in the charts. this is owing to the fact that bands/artists with technically savvy fans will have a lot of fans who will end up downloading music or burning cd’s, whereas less tech-savvy fans will generally end up buying their cd’s. looking at the 3 week sales history of weezers new record, for example, has proven to me that this ‘pearl jam effect’ is strongly influencing the album charts in the states (and elsewhere, although not so much with weezer cos they seem to only sell a lot of records in north america). weezer sold a lot of records in their first week of release, but since then their sales have dropped off considerably. even though they have radio hits. even though they have a very loyal fan-base. even though they’ve made a record that their fans really like. even though there’s good press coverage on the band and their new cd. etc. i would be very interested to know not how many cd’s weezer have sold, but how many copies of their record are actually in existence.
i have a feeling that there might be almost twice as many copies of their new record in existence (in the form of mp3’s or burned cd’s) as have actually been sold.
i’m not saying that this is a good or a bad thing. i’m not writing this to voice my opinions. my concern is more for the way that the industry looks at the success of a musician or of a record that sells or doesn’t sell. popular artists traditionally sold a lot of records. in the future that might not be the case. in fact even now that might not be the case. pink outsells weezer in the states not so much because she’s more popular, but because her fans are more likely to buy, as opposed to burn, her cd’s.
i don’t mean this as a criticism of pink, i’m just using her as an example. just look at the american top 20 and you’ll see what i’m talking about. most of the records in the american top 20 are by bands whose fans are, for the most part, more inclined to buy a cd as opposed to burn or download it.
again, i’m not editorializing. i’m just pointing out a strange phenomenon and wondering at what effect it will have on the future of music. this whole issue of burning and downloading is too big and too complicated for me to really voice my opinion on it (not to mention the fact that having an opinioin on burning and downloading is kind of like having an opinion on the weather. meaning that having an opinion about the weather isn’t really going to change anything.)
ok, that’s it.
good night.
moby
