During last week’s discussion of Marmite artists–those artists that are so divisive, they force people to take sides, with no one left in the middle–Idolator commenter moomintroll wondered if we shouldn’t try and find more ways to classify popular bands through their analogues to various condiments. Since we figured the safe space in the fridge inhabited by your ketchups, your mustards, and your molding bottles of Hidden Valley Ranch was as good a way to make sense of the current musical landscape as any, we invited her to flesh out her theory for us. It’s after the jump!
Every week, I pore over the digital-album charts–which lists the 50 albums that sold the most virtual copies on sites like iTunes, eMusic, and Amazon MP3–in an effort to figure out what new albums have high percentages of digital sales, and to see what older albums are having odd online sales spikes. Yesterday, I noticed that Amazon MP3’s Twitter is being updated with the store’s daily cheap-album deals, which is a big help for someone who wants to figure out why certain albums that are old in Internet time (like, sometimes even 10 years old!) are popping back on the chart. A few attempts at correlation after the jump.
In “Maybe The Concert Industry Is Just As Screwed As The Recorded-Music Biz” news, the promoter of next week’s Phoenix shows by Jimmy Eat World and Death Cab For Cutie is offering last-minute discounts on tickets, despite both acts selling out the same venues on their last tour stops here. More »
In “Maybe The Concert Industry Is Just As Screwed As The Recorded-Music Biz” news, the promoter of next week’s Phoenix shows by Jimmy Eat World and Death Cab For Cutie is offering last-minute discounts on tickets, despite both acts selling out the same venues on their last tour stops here. More »
The sixteenth volume in the Red Hot series of compilations, which raise funds for AIDS research, is coming in 2009, featuring a very Starbucks-friendly duet between Ben Gibbard and Feist, as well as tracks from David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, and The National (who are also producing the compilation). The fact that there are fifteen volumes in the series blew my mind, especially as the series has done a good job of capturing various trends in music since the first volume hit stores in 1990.
Death Cab For Cutie’s reign at the top of the album charts was fun while it lasted, but Alabama natives and Hinder/Staind touring buddies 3 Doors Down are projected to take the No. 1 spot on Wednesday by a landslide, with around 150,000 projected sales of their new, self-titled album. More »
Last week, Death Cab For Cutie’s Narrow Stairs was the only album to break the six-figures-sold mark, moving 144,000 copies and topping the SoundScan charts for the week. Some 55,000 of those sales came through digital outlets, enough for Stairs to top this week’s digital-albums chart and make it the 16th-highest-selling digital album of the year.
The largely accurate Hits Daily Double Friday chart preview has been posted, and Death Cab for Cutie are projected to hit the top spot on this week’s album chart with sales in the neighborhood of 150,000 copies. More »
From time to time, we like to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. Under consideration today is the new full-length by Death Cab For Cutie, Narrow Stairs, which hits stores tomorrow:
Since many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock, welcome to “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of Billboard‘s rock charts. This time around he looks at the return of nu-metal in the guises of Disturbed and oddly rap-free rap-metal.
