Dan + Shay - Self-Titled

[.indulgecountry]

The third, self-titled studio album from Dan + Shay is out now and someone mentioned in the "Tequila" thread it didn't have a listening party yet so... here we go:

[bluepaisley]

I enjoy this album a lot! Shay's got powerful pipes but he has learned to add nuance to his singing -- compared to earlier albums -- and that is great. They have also stepped up their songwriting and Dan's production work is also impressive.

I think the pre-release tracks are among the strongest in the album, save for "My Side of the Fence". I think any of those can be singles down the road.

Finally, I think releasing "Keeping Score" as the next single will make it a one-two punch for Dan + Shay, and will make them a serious contender for Duo of the Year at the CMAs (and maybe a big CMA moment with Kelly Clarkson when they sing this live). Dan + Shay have the momentum right now and this album is really about them taking it to the next level.

[justin5545]

What I would pciked for singles:

2. "Keeping Score" feat. Kelly Clarkson.
3. "All To Myself"
4. "My Side of the Fence"

[bigfan101]

I think Speechless has to be a single. Its a smash.

[collinkottke]

Jun 27, 2018 11:41:10 GMT -5 bigfan101 said:

I think Speechless has to be a single. Its a smash.

I agree. Probably the third single from the album to try to getting it building and peak around next summer wedding season, at least that's what I would suggest.

[vann]

I thought the album pretty good and it is very nice to see how they´ve been growing musically.

"What Keeps You Up At Night" is one of my favorites on the album.

[CoJoFan]

As I just mentioned this album is fantastic! May be my favorite album of the year so far! Pretty big to say that considering I'm comparing it to another duo's outstanding album by the name of Brothers Osborne.

[justin5545]

It would be nice if they could do a song that isn't about a girl.

[recordyear]

They confirmed Keith Urban played the guitar in What Keeps You Up At Night.

[codyj100]

This, to me, is easily their best album yet. I wasn't a big fan of their debut and just *liked* Obsessed. But this is an album I cannot stop playing. I would put the singles in this order:

1. "Tequila"
2. "Keeping Score" or "Alone Together" 
3. "All To Myself"
4. "Speechless" 

[edph1]

Really solid album. Not sure where I’d rank it compared to their other two, I haven’t really played them much outside the singles.
Keeping Score should be huge!!! By far the highlight!!

[onebuffalo]

#1 country, #6 top 200 album with 24,000 sold. Congratulations, Dan + Shay!

[tartanmayz]

Leslie Fram tweeted out this PR from Warner Bros that says "their self-titled album debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums Chart, accumulating more than 200,000 album equivalents and 200,000,000 streams along the way."

Is there any way that that is not a complete fabrication? Are they taking their career sales and trying to play it off like this is one week activity??? Or am I reading it wrong?

[recordyear]

Jul 2, 2018 9:32:08 GMT -5 tartanmayz said:

Leslie Fram tweeted out this PR from Warner Bros that says "their self-titled album debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums Chart, accumulating more than 200,000 album equivalents and 200,000,000 streams along the way."

Is there any way that that is not a complete fabrication? Are they taking their career sales and trying to play it off like this is one week activity??? Or am I reading it wrong?

As I said in the Cry Pretty thread, albums are certified together with sales and streams of songs included in the album prior to album release as well. Tequila obviously is a massive streaming hit. It is then converted into units of album (1500 streams = 1 album unit). The method really has existed for a long time already.

[tartanmayz]

I never knew that Burning Man. Makes total sense what you're saying. Wish the label were more transparent in how they report that, but I know that's wishful thinking.

[thewp]

I still don’t get the math. 😐

[tartanmayz]

Jul 2, 2018 13:16:20 GMT -5 thewp said:

I still don’t get the math. 😐

Basically, if you added up all the streams that "Tequila" had gotten before the album's release, along with all the streams that promo tracks like "Keeping Score" and "All To Myself" and "Speechless," all of which dropped before the album, they had amassed at least 170,000,000 streams across Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music over the course of a few months. Not a bad number at all!

Then the album dropped, and as Billboard reported, it sold 24K copies, and 44K "units" total in its first week. So that means that 20K album equivalents were "sold" in release week because songs from this album got a total of about 30,000,000 streams during that release week. 

BUT -- what Warner Brothers is doing in this press release is adding in those 170 million song streams from the months before the album release into the total count. So now they're saying that the album passed 200,000,000 streams in its first week, which, if you turn your head and squint, is technically true, but very deceiving since it suggests that all of that happened in a week. But those would be Ed Sheeran/Rihanna type numbers, so it looks pretty egregious to me.

[thewp]

Jul 2, 2018 17:37:04 GMT -5 tartanmayz said:

Jul 2, 2018 13:16:20 GMT -5 thewp said:

I still don’t get the math. 😐

Basically, if you added up all the streams that "Tequila" had gotten before the album's release, along with all the streams that promo tracks like "Keeping Score" and "All To Myself" and "Speechless," all of which dropped before the album, they had amassed at least 170,000,000 streams across Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music over the course of a few months. Not a bad number at all!

Then the album dropped, and as Billboard reported, it sold 24K copies, and 44K "units" total in its first week. So that means that 20K album equivalents were "sold" in release week because songs from this album got a total of about 30,000,000 streams during that release week. 

BUT -- what Warner Brothers is doing in this press release is adding in those 170 million song streams from the months before the album release into the total count. So now they're saying that the album passed 200,000,000 streams in its first week, which, if you turn your head and squint, is technically true, but very deceiving since it suggests that all of that happened in a week. But those would be Ed Sheeran/Rihanna type numbers, so it looks pretty egregious to me.

I guess it’s the 200k album equivalent I don’t get. Doesn’t that mean the pre release streams sales would equal about 160k?

[tartanmayz]

Spent a few minutes crunching numbers this morning.

Warner Bros keeps touting 200,000 album equivalents and "over 200 million streams" so that's what we'll go off of.

200,000 album equivalents minus the 24K in sales they got would mean they have amassed 176,000 album equivalents that come only from streaming. (If 1,500 streams equals one album equivalent, then that would mean that they have gotten 264 million streams, which is probably a little high, but not insane. After all, "Tequila" alone has gotten 150 million streams by itself.

In all likelihood, between sales and streaming the total number of album equivalents falls short of 200,000, BUT then track sales come into the equation. Every ten tracks sold also equals one album equivalent. I know "Tequila" has sold at least 250,000 copies, so that would be 25,000 more album equivalents right there. And then with other tracks that's probably about 30K at least.

So now, between the 24K of album sales, the 30K of album equivalents from track sales, and the 150K-ish of album equivalents from streams, this sort of makes sense to me.

The real question I am now pondering is why track sales should count as their own metric AND as part of album sales at all. Of course, that's not Dan+Shay's problem, but it never struck me til right now how weird that practice is. It's just double-counting!

[recordyear]

It is the assumption that ten sales of a song in a 10-track album are equal to a sale of each song in a 10-track album (at least in revenue I guess), the latter being the same as buying the whole album and hence "equivalent" to one album sold. Streaming equivalents also have this weird thing.

[rsmatto]

It’s all a marketing tool.