best-selling
20Nov07
So the list of the best-selling (US) titles on eMusic I previously mentioned is now live. You can take a look here. Hopefully next week we’ll be able to dig in and take a closer look at your reactions, as well as how some particular titles place. (PS: UK and EU versions will be live probably next week.)
Indie indie indie indie indie 60s-legend indie indie indie indie indie indie indie counry indie indie indie indie rap indie indie indie hey, The Clientele! indie indie indie.
Seriously, the skew toward indie rock isn’t surprising. Those are the new releases that labels push the hardest.
I am surprised that, aside from Caribou’s “Andora,” more electronic and/or dance and/or dubstep-ish type stuff isn’t on the list. I half-expected either the new disc by Burial (“Untrue”), Apparat (“Walls”), Kathy Diamond (“Miss Diamond To You”), or Sally Shapiro (“Disco Romance”) to make the list.
Well, the Burial has only been out for two weeks, but it is doing EXTRAORDINARILY well.
It should. It’s a fantastic disc.
And Apparat’s “Walls” did make the list.
Bryan, you’re right; I missed that.
Still, heavily skewed toward indie-rock, wouldn’t you agree?
Two thoughts:
(1) What would be interesting would be the best selling albums PER AVAILABLE DAY. Arcade Fire came out in March, Spoon in July, and Beirut in October. How many more records did AF sell than B? Some of these records came out in 06, so they’ve had even longer. This kind of ranking would be biased the opposite way from your current ranking, with newer hotter albums at the top. I’d love to break apart the tails/tales though and see some analysis of download patterns to see, say, comparisons between albums that peak early and die fast and slow burners. Which album had the highest peak daily download rate? Which took the longest to hit its peak? I’m telling you, there’s opportunity for some serious nerding out here.
(2) The indie rock thing is not surprising. The fragmented minor label world of indie rock is perfect for subscription services because folks that may not sell anything at a buck a song still have hope when the cost (monthly, hidden) is separated from the download choice itself. Further, it is not hard to imagine that the “market clearing price” for 2nd tier (in terms of numbers, not quality!) artists would be lower than for artists with national prominence. Also, you are more likely to join a sub service if it has the majority of what you like there – so it becomes a circular effect that is difficult to break. In other words, if you don’t have decent selling country artists, how can you get country fans, and if you don’t have country fans, how can you convince country labels to play along?
But beyond business reasons, I am disturbed and surprised by the suggestion voiced here by 17dotters/emusic folks that this is accidental and surprising to them. Clearly, there is a great deal of editorial biasing, marketing, and community-building that focuses on indie rock and is far from accidental. If this isn’t a conscious choice by emusic to go this route, I wonder what the hell kind of bad crank they’ve been snorting and I worry about the future here (or rather, worry more).
I’m also not surprised about the amount of indie music on this list, but it is disappointing. There were Flash ads galore hyping the Spoon and Arcade Fire discs, which are now at #’s 1 and 2 on the best-selling list. No real surprise at all there. But I’m sad to see that the list is so frightfully heavy on white-boy rock. No Sharon Jones, or even Budos Band (two other high-profile albums from this year that deserve more play). One of the reasons I joined eMusic and stayed was to dig deep into the digital crates of soul, funk, and jazz. With the overwhelming variety of new and archival offerings, it’s unfortunate that this list isn’t more diverse.
congrats, Arcade Fire. you out-sold Paul McCartney. of course, his album wasn’t very good. but then again, neither was yours.
How could Plain White T’s not make the list? It seems as if they have been on the “Today’s Top Albums” chart for months.
And, does this count stuff that is no longer available? I would have thought Neko Case’s Fox Confessor would do better than Live in Austin.
Yeah. I was wondering about that damn Plain White T’s album, too. I always see that thing in the top 10. There must be huge drop off from #1.
Did we ever get the UK/EU versions of this list? I can’t remember seeing any updates?