The Music Business Will Probably Not Stop Believing In Oprah Anytime Soon

noah | October 14, 2009 1:30 pm

This week’s album charts are topped by Canadian crooner Michael Bublé, who rode Friday appearance on Oprah that was keenly titled to the release of his new album, Crazy Love, to the No. 1 spot. Bublé’s album sold 132,000 copies despite only being available for three days of the sales week, which we can probably attribute to the power of Harpo Productions’ founder. But further down the chart, another act showed that Oprah’s audience is fairly, shall we say, faithful to the music recommendations she gives! At No. 63, vaulting back into the charts on a 680.7% week-to-week increase: Journey’s Wal-Mart-only album Revelation, which sold just under 10,000 copies; the band’s greatest-hits collection, which is available all over the place, saw a 52.9 increase in sales, moving more than 8,000 units and jumping from No. 116 to No. 81 on the Comprehensive chart, which includes “catalog” titles. (Digital tracks chart perennial “Don’t Stop Believin” also saw a 17.3% upsurge in sales, moving 23,000 copies last week.) As it turns out, the band appeared on the Oct. 5 installment of Oprah’s show, which was titled “Don’t Stop Believing!” and which featured a big feature on the rock stalwarts’ path to new lead singer Arnel Pineda. Here’s their performance of “Faithfully” from that program:

OK, first of all: Maybe they’d have sold more copies if not for those muffed lyrics (seriously, wtf). Second of all: I’m a little sad that the Arnel Pineda movie O mentions is a documentary and not a thinly disguised biopic, because whoever would have had to play Steve Perry would have been kind of awesome. (Especially if his ex-bandmates had final say on the casting!) Anyway, given this data—not to mention that a slew of artists currently in the top 20, like Jay-Z and Whitney Houston and even the sagging-on-week-two Mariah Carey, have also had some facetime with Winfrey—I wouldn’t be surprised if music publicists start to even lobby her spinoffs like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz for an appearance. Don’t Stop Believing! [Oprah] Journey – Oprah – Faithfully [YouTube]