Sales-Week Ending-5/8/11
1. Adele "21"
Sales this week: 155,209
Percentage change: +26
Weeks on: 11
Cume: 1,554,291
This is the future of the mainstream. A quality album of songs that sells itself. Sure, there was set-up, but word of mouth is selling this album. Otherwise, Katy Perry’s "Teenage Dream" would be number one, and it’s not.
In other words, airplay is no longer king.
When people could only be exposed on radio and MTV, record labels could drive sales of their priorities across broad demographics. Now, so many have tuned out the mainstream and are waiting for the imprimatur of their friends, which causes them to check music out and buy it, become fans of it.
Adele is not perceived to be fake. No one feels her music is being jammed down their throats. People are coming to her. Becoming fans of her.
So, focus on getting the music right, not the marketing. And your music doesn’t have to sound like everybody else’s, you don’t have to work with the usual suspects, it’s just got to be good.
And Adele can SING! In order to overcome a lousy voice you need A+ material. Too many people operating in the rock genre believe their attitude trumps material. You have to be so good that those who are not fans of your genre take notice and are enraptured. And those who can only sing but can’t write… Your time is dying. Either you’ve got to be a great interpreter or you’re gonna find no one cares, the usual suspects can make you a hit, but not a career.
2. Beastie Boys "Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2"
Sales this week: 127,833
Debut
For fans only.
4. Fleet Foxes "Helplessness Blues"
Sales this week: 91,132
Debut
The previous record never died, it percolated in the marketplace, gaining more and more fans. In a perfect world they’d write a hit, it’d be played on Top Forty radio and they’d be the new Crosby, Stills & Nash. Alas, they haven’t written that song and Top Forty wouldn’t play it if they did.
A great story. But the audience is limited by the quality of the act. Pair Fleet Foxes with Richard Russell and maybe you’ve got a worldwide breakthrough. Richard inspires you, makes sure you get it right, if you’ve got it to begin with.
5. Jennifer Lopez "Love?"
Sales this week: 82,895
Debut
No one really cares. This is fashion. And will be gone by next season.
6. Stevie Nicks "In Your Dreams"
Sales this week: 52,370
Debut
I don’t understand this. This record was promoted like it’s 1980, but it’s 2011.
Hell, check out her Website, it positively SUCKS!
All these old rockers have it wrong. First and foremost you’ve got to know who your audience is. Stevie Nicks needs to have her fans’ e-mail addresses, she needs to be in constant communication, creating a relationship, so people feel the bond. Today, with all your dirty laundry exposed online, you can’t speak from above down to the masses, no one cares.
I would have said an EP would have been enough.
And then she should have motivated her fans. To the point where the mainstream media she’s courting finally pays attention.
And after playing to her core, Stevie should be broadening her audience not by playing to the usual suspects, but to those on the fringe, who don’t care or don’t know. Stevie needs to play Bonnaroo. Even show up and sing backups with Katy Perry. Have a sense of humor about herself. Even show up in a new outfit.
She needs to fire her manager. It’s a new world, not only about scorched earth media and booking tours. It’s about being in the pits with your fans. Stevie’s not.
But the album is better than anything she’s done in eons. Critics don’t matter. Only fans do.
9. Mumford & Sons "Sigh No More"
Sales this week: 32,222
Percentage change: 0
Weeks on: 64
Cume: 1,409,325
Story of the year.
It’s all about authenticity.
People believe Mumford & Sons is real. It’s not about hysteria, but music. They underplay and undercharge, you’d think it’s 1970 all over again.
12. Foo Fighters "Wasting Light"
Sales this week: 27,079
Percentage change: -21%
Weeks on: 4
Cume: 368,709
Too much marketing. They reached those who already care, but just turned off those who don’t. If you think people read your name in the newspaper and then check out your music you probably still work for the newspaper!
The challenge is reaching those who’ve tuned out. Used to be if you made it to the top of the heap, we all anointed you, bought your record and you lived like a king.
Now we just shrug and ignore you.
15. Alison Krauss & Union Station "Paper Airplane"
Sales this week: 22,966
Percentage change: -2
Weeks on: 4
Cume: 171,944
She’s bigger than Robert Plant.
She did it her way, didn’t sell out, isn’t beholden to country music, she’s got fans and no one’s got a bad word to say about her or her music. She’s winning.
16. Katy Perry "Teenage Dream"
Sales this week: 21,839
Percentage change: -8
Weeks on: 37
Cume: 1,450,577
A singles act.
Her career is gonna live and die on hits. Like Christina Aguilera, without hits, no one’s gonna want to see her, no one’s gonna want to buy her music.
Meanwhile, enough with the religious upbringing. Katy wasn’t raised by outsider fundamentalists, but Hollywood hipsters. Before they became religious zealots, her parents were big on the scene. Her mother dated Jimi Hendrix, her father was Mr. LSD.
And all that’s fine, but her constant trumpeting of her religious background, the restrictions, is b.s. What next? Chaz Bono claiming he was the scion of a right wing politician?
17. Paul Simon "So Beautiful So What"
Sales this week: 21,519
Percentage change: -8
Weeks on: 4
Cume: 150,885
I call bullshit. This is the emperor’s new clothes. The press is giving him a pass, pouring down accolades, when this is so far from Simon’s best work it’s laughable.
Classic Simon is the first solo album, and "Rhymin’ Simon". Here there are too many beats, not enough memorable melodies and lyrics don’t make a record.
Come on Paul. Give us another "Kodachrome". Another "One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor". Another "Duncan".
Meanwhile, did you see this?
This is why you go to the show.
If only Paul hadn’t tried to be so hip, if only he’d been challenged to be what he once was. The press is fawning, but no one cares.
Once again, Paul needed Richard Russell. Or at least Rick Rubin.
59. Cee Lo Green "Lady Killer"
Sales this week: 8,686
Percentage change: 5%
Weeks on: 26
Cume: 346,381
Cee Lo may have a hit track, but it’s questionable how many fans he’s got.
____________________________
The Internet era is taking hold. And what we’re learning is, it’s about the music. It had better be really good, or you’re gonna be passed by.
It’s easier than ever to play, but harder than ever to be noticed.
You say you must make an album to make a statement, that your fans and reviewers demand it. But all we really demand is great music. If you can string ten quality tracks together, more power to you, but almost no one can.
And if you work with the usual suspects, you can have success, but it’s fleeting, there’s train-wreck value, people will come see you live once, but no one believes you’re real. And now, more than ever since the sixties and seventies, you’ve got to be real to last. Not only because tickets are expensive, but because there are so many other quality diversions. Tell me again why I should endure your CD when I can be connecting with people on Facebook?
And connecting via Facebook, text, BBM and IM has a vitality too much music does not. Just because something must be good, that doesn’t mean you need to labor over it for eons to perfect it. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s article " Creation Myth" in last week’s "New Yorker", it’s not about getting one thing right, but constantly coming to bat. Most people with successful ideas had TONS of ideas, you just only know about one or two.
Now, more than ever, it’s about individuality. Being different from the crowd, assembling your tribe, which will spread the word for you. Otherwise, you’re just news, here today, gone tomorrow.
Adele shows that the public will buy, the public will react.
As does Mumford.
Even the Fleet Foxes.
But people have no time for that which they see as substandard.
First and foremost, you must have fans. And you don’t garner them from publicity. That’s easy. You just pay someone, they get you ink, but it’s meaningless. Fans pay attention to friends. And the way you reach these friends is by being incredibly good. Because I’m not gonna pass on that which is subpar, because it’s going to hurt MY credibility.
You want it to be easy. But it’s incredibly hard. With all your warts now visible. Can you leave the mistakes in the recording? Can you go on HDTV without getting your teeth fixed, without plastic surgery?
It’s hard to stand up there naked, for all to see and pick over.
But don’t be scared.
We’re drawn to your humanity. That’s the secret of Adele and Mumford’s success, that’s the key to legendary, lasting music. Whereas Katy Perry is pure train-wreck, a hit single to be devoured and forgotten.
Either you’re a pro or you’re not.
A pro practices. A pro knows it’s not about the haircut, but what’s in the grooves.
And a pro can be a studio rat, but we’re really interested in artists. Artists test limits, have something to say.
Artists triumph.
Not the very first day.
But they always win the race.
If you need instant gratification, go on "American Idol", "The Voice" or "X Factor". Be grist for the mill, part of the machine.
But you can’t get to the top level of a video game in one day.
And you can’t make it into the musical pantheon fast. It’s incredibly slow. Even though to those just joining the bandwagon, it seems like you made it overnight.
Artists sign with major labels because they want insurance.
They make albums for the same reason.
Like the antiquated labels, they cling to the old as opposed to experimenting with the new. It’s easier to mail out your CD, pay a publicity agent and wait for something to happen than record a great track that sells itself, even if it’s not for sale!
Everybody’s lonely. Everybody wants to feel alive and connected. The artist’s job is to fill this need. To bond the listener to him or her.
When you focus on the intermediaries, make deals with corporations, you’re missing the point.
Ignore your handlers, the agents, the managers, they don’t know. Otherwise, they’d be the artists. But they’re not.
Only you have the power, only you have the insight, only you have the answers.
Go into your bedroom, fire up your computer and create something so good that all you’ve got to do is post it online and it blows up. Something great that requires no radio, no marketing.
It’s completely possible.
But very few are that good.
Today you’ve got to be that good.
