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Audio post reblogged from
i had an acoustic guitar in 2004 and this happened. things were different then.
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Finally downloaded the Tree of Life music that my husband told me about. Listening to it at work. It is beautiful. It is haunting. It is perfect for this morning. You can message me if you want the link.
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A Brief History of Outlandish, First Week Album Sales…
Lady Gaga’s million-plus, first-week debut is a freak exception in today’s music industry. And, it took a 99-cent bonanza to make it happen. But once upon a time, this sort of outlandish sales performance was more commonplace - and all part of a recording bubble that peaked during the early 2000s.
Anyway, here’s a list of every album that managed to sell more than one million units in one week - in the US alone. Each received Platinum certification from the RIAA, based on Nielsen Soundscan sales counts.
*January, 1993:
The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album, 1,016,000.
*December, 1998:
Garth Brooks, Live Garth. 1,085,000.
*June, 1999:
Backstreet Boys, Millennium, 1,134,000
*April, 2000:
*NSYNC, No Strings Attached, 2,416,000
*June, 2000:
Britney Spears, Oops!… I Did It Again, 1,319,000
*June 2000:
Eminem, The Marshal Mathers LP, 1,760,000
*November, 2000:
Limp Bizkit, Chocolate Starfish & the Hot Dog Flavored Water, 1,055,000
*December 2000:
Backstreet Boys, Black & Blue, 1,591,000
*January, 2001:
Beatles, 1, 1,259,000
*August, 2001:
*NSYNC, Celebrity, 1,880,000
*June, 2002:
Eminem, The Eminem Show, 1,322,000
*February 2004:
Norah Jones, Feels Like Home, 1,022,000
*April 2004:
Usher, Confessions, 1,096,000
*March, 2005:
50 Cent, The Massacre, 1,141,000
*June 2008:
Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III, 1,006,000
*November, 2010:
Taylor Swift, Speak Now, 1,047,000
*May, 2011:
Lady Gaga, Born This Way, 1,108,000 -
presnikoff Thursday, June 02, 2011
“Record labels today invest an average of $1 million to break a new pop act in a major market. That investment supports a variety of production and promotional pursuits that most individual artists would never be able to afford on their own, including advances, recording time, music video creation, tour support and marketing.”
RIAA statement, March 31st, 2011.
This is how major labels still think. But a million sounds like chump-change when it comes to Lady Gaga, doesn’t it? Maybe this all proves that majors can still “blow stuff up,” as one executive so eloquently put it, but at what cost? And can this seriously be considered part of a successful, modern-day model?
Gaga is incredibly talented; she can seduce on a massive scale. But let’s be honest: this isn’t grassroots magic. There hasn’t been a bigger media blitz for an artist in recent memory; it was almost as if traditional media wanted to prove its potency with a mind-numbing, around-the-clock blanket. But without millions in AmazonMP3 subsidies, Born This Way would never have passed a million, not in one week.
So, not only was Gaga getting blown-up and blitzed by a big label that loves big things, but she also benefited from a perfectly-timed technology war. In the end, someone paid full-fare for this seven-figure success, and it wasn’t the fan.
That’s not to say Gaga isn’t a successful artist - she is. But the question is whether this is an appropriate victory lap for the traditional label system, one still clinging to outrageous executive salaries, control over formats like terrestrial radio, and hugely-expensive successes like Gaga. Stories like these seem to support these ridiculously antiquated notions; they validate bloated executives like Cary Sherman instead of squashing these paychecks for good.
But this goes beyond the label system. It turns out that all of those wild costumes, sets, and extreme fashion statements also come at a ridiculous price, or at least an extreme irreverance for budgets. ”I remember I called everybody and said, ‘Why is everyone saying I have no money? This is ridiculous, I have five number one singles’,” Gaga recently told the Financial Times, discussing her situation after the 2009 Monster Ball Tour. ”Their reply? ‘Well, you’re $3 million in debt.’”
Funny, because according to estimates, the Monster Ball trek grossed about $200 million.
/pr.
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“O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee; I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow, may richer, fuller be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.”George Matheson (Trinity Hymnal)
