Let's talk sales figures
 

I think a lot of people have very little knowledge on the sales figures of some of their favorite acts. while sales figures do not matter too much to sonic youth fans, it just goes to show how many people took the time to actually purchase an album. of coruse this does not say how many listened to the album more than once. Of course these figures are a bit outdated. getting up to date figures is a bitch.

This is from http://sfj.abstractdynamics.org/

NIRVANA:
Bleach / 1.6 million
Nevermind / 8.2 million
In Utero / 3.9 million
Incesticide / 1.2 million
Unplugged / 4.5 million
Nirvana / 1.6 million


HOLE:
Pretty on the Inside / 204,000
Live Through This / 1.6 million
Celebrity Skin / 1.4 million


PAVEMENT:
Westing (By Musket and Sextant)/ 63,000
Slanted and Enchanted / 144,000
Watery, Domestic EP / 33,000
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain / 237,000
Wowee Zowee / 118,000
Brighten the Corners / 142,000
Terror Twilight / 96,000


SLINT:
Tweez / 24,000
Spiderland / 50,000
Slint (EP) / 19,000


PJ HARVEY:
4/Track Demos / 119,000
Rid of Me / 204,000
To Bring You My Love / 369,000
Is this Desire? / 163,000
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea / 282,000
Uh Huh Her / 131,000


THE BREEDERS:
Last Splash / 987,000


SONIC YOUTH:
Sonic Youth / 4,100
Bad Moon Rising / 33,000
Confusion Is Sex / 41,100
Starpower / 1,000
Evol / 48,400
Sister / 72,000
Sonic Death / 5,500
Made In The USA soundtrack / 21,000
Daydream Nation / 162,000
Goo / 169,000
Dirty / 329,000
Experimental Jet Set Trash & No Star / 246,000
Washing Machine / 159,000
A Thousand Leaves / 66,000
Nyc Ghosts & Flowers 46,000
Murray Street / 63,000
Sonic Nurse / 65,000

Notice how, in spite of every single hipster indie rocker out there sucking at the Slint teat, (including myself) less than a hundred thousand of us have actually purchased what is considered by many a truly seminal piece of post rock/whatever you want to call it.
Note also, how the single greatest album of the last twenty five years (in my opinion), Daydream nation, has yet to break the two hundred thousand mark. I know I have personally bought it 5 times, be it cassette, CD, or vinyl. I personally account for 1/8000th of daydream nation sales.

Most of the albums I buy have a maximum sales potential of 500 or less.

I do remember marvelling in the 80s at a Rolling Stone "100 greatest albums of all time" feature that the first Modern Lovers album (which was way op in that list) had sold less than 4000 copies. Compared to all the other "heavy hitters" on that list, it was insanely small.

i can't believe In Utero sold so little in comparison with Nevermind!!

i really don't give a crap about that.

i have albums that have sold 50 copies and others that have sold 50 million, either way, the music inside is what matters.

where did you find that from? i went to the blog and couldn't find anything.

borrrrinnnng

thanks for the completely unnecesary imput there


I think it should build a sense of musical community to know that, if you love bad moon rising, there are just under 35thousand people that own that album.

while it astounds me that some of these albums do not sell more, it also makes me think about the 35 thousand or so people that DI go out and buy bad moon rising.

did they list any other bands?

4 million in sales is nothing to sneez at though. nevermind sold a shitload of albums. If I was in a band I would eb ecstatic if I sold 10 thousand, and cannot even begin to comprehend selling over a MILLION albums of my music.

Michael Jackson's thriller has sold well over 37 million worldwide.

the first violent femmes went gold about 20 years after it's release.

maybe in a decade or so we will hear how Dirty has gone gold.

nope, or I would ahve put them there. It is very hard to find record sales figures for underground/indie bands.

and to a record collector like myself, sales figures are sometimes the only number you available to gauge rarity. the more something sold the less rare, and the less valuable it can be. trying to find those early misfits releases pressed in batches of 100 or 200 is a fucking BITCH

look rob, maybe 2 people might like an album and you can say "yeah, only two people like it, so it's not important" but if those two people take that album as inspiration and go do something else, then that album is a way better album than thriller or any other billion seller.

like sy, the fact that only 4000 people have bought the first ep (which, by the way, is a wrong figure since it probably talks about the blast first or sst version of the album and not the dgc reissue), and yet it got reviewed in pretty much every single music publication in the world and talked so much that it seems like more people are into them, that speaks volumes more than records that actually sell like crazy but are forgotten in a year or so.

like, are people still talking about how fucking groundbreaking was alanis morissette's jagged little pill? did she get to ask to play the whole thing in concert, like slint were with spiderland?

everyneut, If you re-read every thing I ahve written in this thread you will not see me mention or even refer to an albums worth, or value, or importance, or any such "value judgement" to be based on sales.

I did say that slint's matsterpiece spiderland, has sold so little, it is a wonder so many people name drop their ass.

this was just a discussion on sales, and how some of our fave "classic" acts compare.

Last Splash sold almost a million copies? Did any of Pixies stuff even get close to that?

I only own Spiderland, Last Splash, Evol, Daydream Nation, Sister, and Washing Machine of all those.

There will be one more under Bad Moon Rising when I get the money to buy the vinyl.

do you realize how incredibly difficuilt it is to sell 100 records, let along 100,000? thats a shitload of ablums. when youre makin it into the 500,000 range, your basically rich at that point.

most artists get their of money up front on a record deal that is to be re-couped by the record sales. That money is spent on studio time, mastering, promotional shit, etc. you can have an album go gold and still have each band memnber make less than 3 thousand from that album.
also, much of these sales figures are spread out over a decade or longe, and i the case of sonic youth albums, sometimes 25 YEARS

that breeders song was so fucking huge, they played it everywhere. that is why it sold so much and why you se endless ciopies of that CD at used CD places.

Wow, this actually makes me feel a little better. Much of what I like is still cultish.

Any idea how much The Modern Lovers has sold to date? It's been reissued a few times, and seems to increase in popularity with each passing decade.

Check it out: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/ar...ROES_ROCK.html

Weird that I've never seen any of Lydia's pornography, considering.

I don't care about sales figures. I just like to figure out that it was all done in my best interest or yours.

Have you ever talked about the shape of someone's turds to someone? You know, the density, the different chromatic values and all that? It's better than staring at a wall.

interesting stuff, i never would have guessed the breeders had sold a million records

well she released an all acoustic version of it ten years later, so i guess its kind of the same thing

what if she recorded this to try and replicate the success of that album, something she couldn't repeat ever again? like, wouldn't at least 5 or so million of the 20 million people who bought it for "ironic" and "you ought to know" be tempted to buy a different version of those songs?

why do you think they keep repackaging and reissuing and remastering the same top sellers every year?

the old shit still sells. people keep "rediscovering" led zeppelein and bowie (shudder) and pink floyd and SONIC YOUTH

i wonder how many the magik markers sold of feel the crayon...........

all 75 copies!

Yeah, I filled out my Led Zep collection last fall. Those first five albums or so ROCK!!! And Pink Floyd--yeah, was never into in their time. In fact, I used to hate DSOTM with a passion. Now I have DSOTM, Meddle, and some others, and I love them to death.

It's all just music, man. It's all good, brother.

From "What the Sixties Had that the Eighties Don't" by Paul Williams in The Penguin Book of Rock & Roll Writing:

"Rock & roll exists outside of time... . The kids who listen to the Doors' first album or the Beach Boys' Endless Summer as though these records were made this year have got it exactly right...

"...my idea of a timeless model of rock & roll as a whole would be an enormous jukebox with selections arranged in no particular order. Any time you look at it there's old stuff, new stuff, records you love and records you can't stand, current favourites and classics you've forgotten about, and lots and lots of things you've never heard before, some of which are sure to turn out to be wonderful, powerful, written and sung and recorded just for you. ....the music keeps playing regardless of history, in an order determined by serendipity and the whims of your head and heart.

"And if someone tries to sell you a program that tells you which songs are worth listening to and what order to play 'em in, don't buy it. Only the map you draw for yourself can possibly bring you home."

I love that passge. That says it all.

Taht jukebox is my dream. That pretty much dscribes my 7" collection. I ahve a lot of old stuff, newer stuff, stuff from bands I hate but whose song gives me nostalgia, since 7" singles are like $.25 at uised bookstores around here
you know I got all the pet shop boys singles. (ha ha!)

Are they playable? Or are they all scrunched up scratchy and shit?

I do not buy anything if it has a scratch on it. stuff that is scuffed, I take a very careful look at. I keep all my singles in paper sleeves and vinyl sleeves.
Ithe worst feeling in the world is finding a single you have wanted fo years (Rolling Stone's Waiting on a Friend, for example) and seeing it has a deep gouge, or is so scuffed up that you know it will have a repating scratchy scrape. That happened to me 3 times before the 4th time where I found a clean single of that song.

I'd be interested in knowing the Marquee Moon figure because Tom Verlaine said something like everyone namedropped Television but actually nearly no one bought their records.