As I flipped through the March 20 issue of Entertainment Weekly, there were two U2-related items mentioned. The first was in their “News and Notes” section where Clark Collis reported that “Sales of U2′s latest can’t live up to the hype.” In the article, he questions why after U2 spent all this time promoting their album through five nights on The Late Show with David Letterman, three nights on radio, a morning television performance, Grammy award performance, etc., that they only sold 484,000 copies in the United States of No Line on the Horizon in the first week. He questioned why the sales were close to 300,000 copies less than Coldplay’s Viva La Viva. He concluded that it wasn’t because the album was sold on Amazon for $3.99 – it was because “Get On Your Boots” really wasn’t the best starting single for the album. He even got confirmation of this from Boston’s WBMX-FM program director, Jay Beau Jones, “They didn’t have a clear radio hit. When I first heard ‘Boots’ I thought it’s a good song. But when I first heard [Coldplay's] ‘Viva La Vida,’ I thought WOW!”
Collis also got a quote from Craig Pape, an executive at Amazon.com, who thought “Magnificent” is a far better single: “I was anxious for them to get that on the roster as a single. That stands out. I think the record will have long legs as people get exposed to more and more of the tracks.”
Speaking of exposure, the EW also labeled U2 as being overexposed in their bullseye on the last page of the magazine. While I feel that you couldn’t escape U2 in the media last week, the media themselves were tripping over each other to score some U2-related story. I feel the only thing that was overexposed was Larry’s chest – good golly, button up that shirt a little more…no wonder why he was fighting a cold last week.
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That’s funny because Coldplay’s first single was actually the forgettable “Violet Hill,” which clearly didn’t do as well as their subsequent single, hence the omission from the article. As has been posted on various forums, U2 don’t often choose the best songs as first singles. Think of the odd-sounding “The Fly” and “Discotheque.”
All of these “sales don’t live up to the hype” arguments are really getting annoying and are basically unfounded. For one thing, releasing an album during March (beware the Ides of March!) is probably the worst time. There are no major holidays and most sales are probably going to recent Grammy winners. Coldplay’s album was released during the end of the summer, a much more lucrative time period. Secondly, look at the times in which we’re living. The economy of the U.S. and even the world at large, is shot to all hell. That, on top of the fact that no one’s buying physical records anymore, contributes to the “low” sales. However, you can’t really argue that nearly half a million sales in the first week in such trying times, doesn’t live up to the hype.
Had the album been released on schedule (November) and hadn’t been leaked online (reportedly 400,000+ were downloaded), we could very well have seen 1 million+ in the first week. Who knows what that number would have been if the economy was relatively stable.
Enough with the sales figures. Enjoy the music for what it is, which is a greatly innovative collection.
P.S. Remember, U2 are a live band first and foremost. When they begin touring, expect sales to skyrocket.
All these sales stories neglect to mention that How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was an anomaly because it had the massive iTunes marketing behind it with commercials everywere (As did, notably, Coldplay’s Viva La Vida). The first week sales for No Line are in the same ballpark as most of U2′s previous releases.
I’ve always felt that both first singles from Coldplay’s album were the weakest songs on there; I’m still underwhelmed by Viva La Vida (the song, not the album). That said, U2 have never been a “singles” band and while I don’t listen to radio and don’t care about charts, I feel that the album sales are always helped hugely by their tours. It will be like this in summer as well, once the tour starts. Sale figures are pretty much ok, and IMO singles are over rated in times like these. I don’t care about chart positions much, the only thing I really care about is U2 as a live band.
Us female U2 fans like Larry’s new shirted look…. ;-P… (drooling…)