Billboard 200 -6/18/11: Lady Gaga No. 1- 174,000

[Honeymoon]

Jun 10, 2011 16:35:26 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

Jun 10, 2011 11:04:12 GMT -5 Honeymoon said:

What are these figures supposed to mean? They're incorrect

It's hypothetical.

We're trying to come up with some guesstimates about how each of the packages sold in each form based on what we know now.

How much did The Fame sell by the time the re-release came out in late 2009? that's the best estimate you can really come up with, I'm guessing the original single disc The Fame album was deleted once it got re-packaged.

The Fame Monster EP as a separate entity sold 1.45+ million

[Arabella21]

How much did The Fame sell by the time the re-release came out in late 2009? that's the best estimate you can really come up with, I'm guessing the original single disc The Fame album was deleted once it got re-packaged.

There were still physical copies of The (old) Fame in stores from before the re-release, I doubt all of them were sent immediately sent back to the warehouse.

[Deleted]

Jun 10, 2011 16:38:29 GMT -5 Honeymoon said:

How much did The Fame sell by the time the re-release came out in late 2009?

Sometimes I really wonder why people won't read before asking a question that was answered one page ago...

[areyoureadytojump]

SOUNDSCAN (WEEK ENDIING 6/5/11)

1) Lady Gaga – Born This Way – 174,311 (After 2 weeks – 1,285,058)
2) Adele – 21 – 120,913 (After 15 weeks – 2,095,219)
3) Death Cab For Cutie – Codes And Keys – 102,319

Other Debuts
4) Eddie Vedder – Ukulele Songs – 71,227
5) My Morning Jacket – Circuital – 54,990
9) Flogging Molly – Speed Of Darkness – 25,449
19) Trin-I-Tee 5:7 – Angel & Chanelle – 15,329
28) Black Stone Cherry – Between The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea
47) Jordan Knight – Unfinished – 9,432
48) Dave Matthews Band – Live At Wrigley Field – 9,371

[areyoureadytojump]

Top 20 Current Albums:

01 Born This Way, Lady Gaga 174,311 (1,285,058)
02 21, Adele 120,913 (2,095,219)
03 Codes And Keys, Death Cab For Cutie 102,319
04 Ukulele Songs, Eddie Vedder 71,227
05 Circuital, My Morning Jacket 54,990
06 This Is Country Music, Brad Paisley 52,802 (205,755)
07 NOW 38, Various Artists 38,146 (327,149)
08 My Kinda Party, Jason Aldean 33,095 (1,270,176)
09 Speed Of Darkness, Flogging Molly 25,449
10 Glee, The Music: Season Two Volume 6, Soundtrack 25,141 (105,129)

11 Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons 22,346 (1,510,093)
12 Maybach Music Group Presents: Self Made: Vol. I, Various Artists 18,496 (77,418)
13 Lemonade Mouth, Soundtrack 17,632 (225,468)
14 Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Bruno Mars 17,364 (1,070,704)
15 Teenage Dream, Katy Perry 16,013 (1,515,985)
16 Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray, Seether 15,938 (100,928)
17 You Get What You Give, Zac Brown Band 15,805 (951,059)
18 Love?, Jennifer Lopez 15,510 (171,917)
19 Angel & Chanelle, Trin-i-tee 5:7 15.329
20 Speak Now, Taylor Swift 15,249 (3,450,836)

[when the pawn...]

Only 5k until Mumford & Sons passes Katy Perry! Should be 2 weeks ish. Though I could see her overtaking them again? They're pretty close in weekly sales though M&S has been consistently better during '11. Both over 1.5m.

[pnobelysk]

^katy released a new video this week so she should expierence a nice boost

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/genre/rock-and-pop/chart-moves-lil-wayne-blasts-up-hot-100-1005222092.story

The Billboard 200:

-- Lady Gaga: While her "Born This Way" remains at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 174,000, it does so with a massive 84% drop in sales. Next week, Gaga will likely step aside after two weeks in the penthouse, as Adele's "21" is aiming to return to No. 1.

-- Miguel: The R&B singer's "All I Want Is You" earns Greatest Gainer honors (moving 53-39 with 10,000 sold -- an increase of a little over 1,000) as the set's current single, "Sure Thing," skips 21-18 on Rhythmic and holds at No. 2 on R&B/Hip-Hop Singles. The album also moves 10-9 on R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.

-- Maroon5, Kesha & Michael Jackson: The former's "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" (a re-entry at No. 102) is among AmazonMP3's collection of titles priced at $5 throughout the month of June. It's up by 230% in overall sales. Kesha's "I Am the Dance Commander + I Command You To Dance" also re-enters (No. 143) following iTunes' offering of it as part of its "$7.99 Great Albums of 2011" campaign. Meanwhile, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (a re-entry at No. 187) is included in iTunes' Black Music Month promotion and it scores a 60% gain.

-- needtobreathe: The band's "The Outsiders" sports a giant 357% sales increase (a re-entry at No. 163) thanks, perhaps, to a little help from Taylor Swift. The band is supporting Swift on her just-launched North American Speak Now tour, which started May 27 in Omaha, Neb. Their trek with Swift continues through October.

-- Matthew Morrison: The "Glee" star's self-titled album takes the second-largest positional fall on the chart this week, dropping 97 rungs to No. 182 (3,000; down 43%) in its fourth week on the list. His tour with NKOTBSB (New Kids on the Block & Backstreet Boys) begins on July 6 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/how-lady-gaga-s-99-cent-born-this-way-sale-1005227962.story

How Lady Gaga's 99-cent 'Born This Way' Sale Hurt Interscope, Distributors

June 11, 2011

By Ed Christman, New York

Let's get one thing straight. The Lady Gaga 99 cent sale for 'Born This Way' was a great thing for the artist, and for Amazon. On a short-term basis, you could even make the case that it was great for the industry.

The 99 cent sale was big mainstream-media news, and that certainly benefited everyone, including other retailers. The album sold 1.1 million units--662,000 digital, 449,000 physical--in its debut week ending May 29, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The story lasted all week in the press. It worked the same way that Target and Best Buy circulars work: driving traffic to everyone's stores, not just those two big-box chains, or, in this case, Amazon's site. I'd argue that the glitch arising when Amazon's overwhelmed servers couldn't satisfy customer demand was a good thing, too, since it made the sale even bigger news. Given Amazon's impeccable service reputation, that blip won't hurt it long term.

For the cost of $3.3 million-that is, $8.40 wholesale minus 99 cents retail times 443,000 scans during the two-day sale-Amazon put itself on the map as a digital music merchant, in a way that the same amount of money spent on traditional advertising could never have bought.

But whether the sale helps Interscope remains to be seen. First, Interscope and Universal Music Group Distribution (UMGD) shipped 2.1 million album units before street date. If they knew in advance of Amazon's sale, you can bet they would've cut back on the initial CD allotment.

As is, Interscope has an inventory liability, with some merchants saying they need to return product. And if some of that talk comes from a few retail accounts being miffed over the Amazon deal, some is also due to simple math. The CD album sold 449,000 units of the 2.1 million shipped, for a 21.4 percent sell-through. Second-week sales are at 174,000 units (136,000 CDs), or 27.8 percent sell-through.

A decade ago, major-label shipment formulas called for shipping three units for everyone expected to be scanned in the first week. Nowadays, with a more efficient inventory replenishment, the ratio has dipped under 2-to-1.

But in Lady Gaga's case, UMGD shipped 4.7 units for each first-week scan. Even another big hit single, which would ensure a sooner sell-through of all 2.1 million units, won't stop merchants now from returning the album to improve their cash position. Interscope is probably looking at a few hundred thousand returns, depending on whether the label comes up with a sweetener to keep inventory in stores.

Competing labels and distributors may be even angrier than merchants about the sale. "This was a really bad move," the head of an independent distributor says. "Ninety-nine cents is almost free."

"If this happened in the 1990s, there would have been a big hue and cry from retail, even bigger than what it was this time," the head of sales at a major label says.

But these are different times. And in the digital world, "there are going to be times when music is the toy in the Happy Meal," a UMG executive says. Another Universal exec adds, "If Amazon tries to turn 99 cent superstar albums into a regular thing, I would be outraged."

Yet, some suggest that a few label marketers themselves may now start pushing such a pricing strategy to break an artist, or get an album into the No. 1 spot. Others say that, in the '90s, that inevitably would've followed-but not in today's market, when profit trumps chart success.

For all the talk about how the industry has evolved, though, former distribution executive Jim Caparro says, "It is shocking how consistent the industry is with the past. Today, it is almost parallel to how traditional music retail acted back then, with big accounts looking to steal market share by pricing."

But one executive familiar with Amazon's thinking says the Gaga pricing won't hurt the industry.

"Of course 'Born This Way' is worth more than 99 cents," the executive says. "That's why it created such retail excitement and buzz, when it was offered for 99 cents ... If it wasn't actually worth more, no one would have cared."

[neverduplicated]

That's an interesting story, but I can't help but think that even without the 99 cent deal, Interscope would've massively overshipped the album. As has been discussed to death (so not trying to rehash an argument, just stating), many would never have bought the album without the 99 cent deal. And for those who would've bought the album anyway - don't you think there's a really good chance they were going to digitally purchase the album regardless? Surely the number of people who would've bought the album in stores if not for the 99 cent deal couldn't be more than 100,000.

[badrobot]

I love articles like that which give greater industry insight.

The 2.1 million shipped was kind of crazy, I don't understand why they would have done that.

Didn't something (at a much larger scale) like that happen with Backstreet Boys' "Black & Blue" album? They shipped like 8 million copies but then even years later it still had only sold 5m.