Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on TwitterBe a Facebook FanTumble us!

01 Jun 2011 14:50

tags

Music: Lady Gaga gets assist from Amazon in million-selling week

  • 1,108,000 number of copies of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” sold in its first week, the tenth-largest week of sales in SoundScan history
  • 1,140,000 number of copies 50 Cent’s “The Massacre” sold in its first week back in 2005; Gaga’s album is the largest sales week since then source
  • » Lady Gaga’s album set a record for digital sales, but Lady Gaga can’t get all the credit. Amazon was selling the album for 99 cents on its first day (even though it kind of backfired), contributing about 440,000 copies in the first week. Not surprisingly, Amazon’s deal upset some retail outlets, namely music stores who lost sales because of the insanely low price Amazon sold the album for. (Best Buy also had a similar deal, where they gave an album away with a cell phone. And it also sold at some kinda weird outlets, like CVS and Whole Foods.)

03 Nov 2010 10:52

tags

Music: Taylor Swift: A million-seller in her first week. And so sweet, too!

  • 1,047,000 in sales for Swift
  • 1,006,000 the number of copies Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” sold way back in 2008 – the last time any artist had a million-plus week
  • 1,141,000 the number of copies 50 Cent sold of “The Massacre” back in 2005 – the last time anyone sold as many copies as Taylor Swift source

25 Jul 2010 10:59

tags

Music: Taylor Swift: Can she sell a million copies in her first week?

  • It feels like if anybody can do it now, she could be the one. She has the sales base and heat from the last few albums. And with all the amazing things she has going on, she is as likely as anybody to reach a million units, especially with the efforts of Big Machine and Universal behind her.
  • Red Light Management and ATO Records president and CEO Will Botwin • Regarding the chances Taylor Swift can actually manage to sell a million copies of her upcoming “Speak Now” in its first week. While Eminem got close recently, thanks to his 741,000-strong debut of “Recovery” back in June, Swift could really pull it off. The things that might hold her back, though? Well, her digital sales have been traditionally weak, her label might charge the full sticker price for her album, her style of music limits how many formats would be willing to play her songs, and it’s possible she may have peaked already. At age 20. source

14 Sep 2009 12:59

tags

Music: A really old lady held back the kinda-old Beatles from the U.K. No. 1

  • 92 age of WWII-era entertainer (and chart-topper) Vera Lynn source

02 Jan 2009 00:07

tags

Music: The top-selling album of 2008

Lil’ Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” sold 2.87 million copies. source

01 Jan 2009 23:52

tags

Music: The music industry’s downtempo 2008 album sales

  • 8.5% decline in album sales in 2008, from 500 million to 428 million source