Road in the charts

[alicefannor]

https://www.offiziellecharts.de/charts/album?rCH=2

#2 in Germany

https://www.sverigetopplistan.se/chart/ ... 23&dspp=35

https://acharts.co/uk_albums_top_75

#8 in the UK

#24 in Sweden

https://topplista.no/charts/albums/

#39 in Norway

http://www.ifpi.fi/lista/albumit/2023/35/

#17 in Finland

[alicefannor]

did it not make the top 200 in the US?

wasn't expecting much in America, but not even in the top 200 is brutal....

[Si]

I could be wrong (it's not that clear) but I think that the Billboard chart that will include 'Road' is published next Tuesday.

There is a four day lag between the sales week ending (11.59 Thursday) and publication of a new chart. At least that is what I take from the explanation on Wikipedia.
Billboard chart dates have always had a weird lag to them. Back in the 70s it was around 10 days I think but it's been faster since 2015.

I think the Tuesday chart should be the one that includes sales between August 25th and September 1st. The current chart has sales from the week before 'Road' was released. So don't panic yet!

[cooperrocks]

Based on the chart numbers in the countries that have already been released, it would appear "Road" is doing fairly well on the charts. In most countries, the numbers are slightly behind that of Detroit Stories. Chart positions are an interesting thing these days especially in the United States but probably elsewhere too. A lot of fans of older artists still like owning a CD or Vinyl but a lot of times the artist doesn't get a lot of action when it comes to streaming numbers, while newer bands get most of their sales from streaming.

[revinkevin]

I don’t know if this makes a difference or not but when I play Spotify or Pandora and hit a random hard rock play list I have been hearing Big Boots, Dead don’t Dance and Magic Bus. I have never heard a new Alice song played on these lists within the first week of its release before.

[revinkevin]

And right now they are playing The Big Goodbye. That’s 4 songs in the first week of release.

[AlongCameASpider27]

Well I know things have changed in the music business and how things chart is different when you take in digital along with physical sales.

That said, regardless of how we felt about Detroit Stories, it was very nice to see this headline after so long...hope Road gets a similar success story

https://www.billboard.com/pro/alice-coo ... les-chart/

[del]

Here is how the UK album charts are compiled. It’s worth highlighting that video streaming has also been included from 2023. Also explains a little why you release more than two tracks as the album comes out.

“The ratio for an album stream in 1000:1. So that’s 1000 streams of a single track counting as a listen to an album. It doesn’t matter if you listened to ‘Thank U, Next’ by Ariana Grande 1000 times or the whole album front to back 100 times, it counts the same. The trick here is that for ‘fairness’ the top 2 songs have their streaming numbers reduced to the average of the next 14 most streamed songs. Of course this means that anything with more than 2 massive hit singles is affected less than that album that has just one song that became huge on Tik-Tok, but you can see why it’s done like this. In the UK only the top 16 songs even count towards the album chart too, which is why often you’ll see artists tag previous singles or collaborations on at the end to bump up the average.”

[Si]

The problem with how charts work now IS streaming. Streams are NOT sales, regardless of how you try and say they are.

A recent example was the last Iron Maiden album. 'Senjutsu'
It entered the charts at #2 behind 'Drake' at #1 despite the fact the Drake album didn't even HAVE a physical release. It's was released digitally and 96% of its' "sales" were from streaming, NOT from people actually buying the album with real money.

'Senjutsu' however sold over 44,800 copies with 88% of their sales from physical CDs/vinyl. That's around 39,400 more ACTUAL SALES then Drake, and yet it came in a #2 on the main chart (it was obviously #1 in the physical sales chart).
[https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-ne ... oy__34009/]

Another problem with including streaming in the official charts (of any country) is what are called 'Stream Farms' - that is the use of computers listening to streams 1000s of times a second automatically to bump the numbers (and profits) for the charts. This uses multiple devices to automatically stream songs endlessly and very quickly to trick the streaming service into thinking it's actual people listing when it isn't. NOT saying this Drake's record company did this, but it is happening a lot, and often probably why an album is high in the midweek chart and suddenly falls by the end of the week, as the record companies or promoters of other artists turn to a Stream Farm to bump their numbers to insure a better position.
[https://businessday.ng/arts-and-life/ar ... -business/]

This, to my mind, makes the Official main chart worthless, and only the physical sales chart is worth looking at.

And while I'm ranting it reminds me of this story:
Most "rock" fans will buy an album by their favourite artists the week it is released. This is why new rock/metal (and presumably some other genre's) albums often fall down the chart very quickly after the initial sales push it high in the chart. With dance/pop they are able to keep a song or album high for much longer, as they don't rely of anyone actually buying copies of the record, but instead on boosted streams and, in the US, airplay (which new rock barely gets).
This has always been a problem with Rock/metal and the UK charts. I remember many many years ago Lemmy blasting the UK charts in Kerrang! because at the time the main chart return shops (HMV, Our Price, Wolworths etc) only bothered stocking and reporting a certain number of new releases each week and didn't even bother stocking many rock/metal albums unless they were already in the charts. This meant that for the first week of sales (the week they sold the most copies) of the then new Motorhead album were not even counted in that weeks chart. So for the second week when these outlets finally stocked the record in quantity (as it had still reached the charts despite this) most fans had already bought it, thus the albums never got as high a placing as their actual sales warranted.

Another example I recall personally was when 'Master Of Puppets' was released in the UK. I was (briefly) working in an Our Price store when it came out and had to ask the girl who did the ordering to order me a copy as the store (a chart return store) wasn't listed to even stock it. During that week we had a lot of people coming in and asking for it but we had only ordered two copies - I bought one of them before it even hit the shelf and the other had sold minutes later!
On the other hand earlier we had been sent literally box loads of "Sade" albums, which we were using to hold doors open as they weren't selling despite it being #1 in the store chart (which wasn't based on sales at all!) for ages.

[Agrophile in Texas]

I get wanting to re-tool the Top 200 to reflect changes in how we buy or listen to music these days, but the streaming stuff, 'album equivalent units', just feels too abstract, and (as mentioned above) too easy to job... which yes, is part of modern, pop music history - from payola, to getting friends and family to call in radio stations to request a song. Do anything and everything to publicize and popularize the act. Still, again, the current way they chart the 200 doesn't feel really grounded to me.

On the other hand, actual purchases (CD, vinyl, digital sales) can be pretty sad. I mean, I like that Detroit Stories was #1, but look at the actual numbers, and 'ouch', this aint Taylor Swift territory by any means. And who was he competing against for that #1 spot, several other old timers (Neil Young, Willie Nelson, George Harrison).

So yeah, the charts aint what they used to be. Regardless, I'll still be checking them out on Tuesday, here in the States, just to see how Road does and how it compares with at least the previous 2 (which were ranked under the current system).

[cooperrocks]

One thing the music industry needs to change as well is the qualifications for a gold and platinum album. Getting sales of 500,000 for gold and 1,000,000 for platinum while not impossible is very very very hard these days.

[Agrophile in Texas]

Just an update on Billboard charts, was curious what time they'd post on Tuesday, and well, looks like it'll be Wednesday this week due to Labor Day. From their site...

"Almost all weekly charts update each Tuesday morning (while, during weeks with Monday holidays, charts update on Wednesdays)."

[Pitta]

160 on the billboard.
Maybe because of his transgender interview?

[Agrophile in Texas]

#11 in top album sales, so better there.

I've not paid much attention to charts over the past decade or so, are first week numbers pretty much where he peaks, or have his releases climbed the charts, as could happen in the past?

[Si]

160 on the billboard.
Maybe because of his transgender interview?

Doubt it made any difference.
Doesn't help that it appears a LOT of US fans who pre-ordered didn't get their copies and were notified of long waits until it was in stock.

[Si]

#11 in top album sales, so better there.

Shows what a waste of time the charts are now. How can you be the 1th best selling album and only be #160 in the main chart. That means 149 records sold LESS copies but are listed higher?!? It's just stoopid.

[del]

Disappointing in the US but with physical sales missing for the orders that weren’t fulfilled even a couple of hundred sales could have pushed him up 40 - 50 places some weeks.

The thing about the charts is that their objective is to measure popularity. How they have done that in the past was simple, measure sales. If over 50% of people don’t buy music any more but stream their favourite artists’ new music dozens of times instead then sales cease to represent popularity and a different approach is needed.

I agree that the current approach is all over the place but sales on their own no longer meets the objective.

Overall though, I’m happy to see a listing in the charts even if it’s just for the record books. I’m also delighted to see Germany where he has actually had a strong following over the last 20 years or so.

[del]

#11 in top album sales, so better there.

I've not paid much attention to charts over the past decade or so, are first week numbers pretty much where he peaks, or have his releases climbed the charts, as could happen in the past?

This is the peak. In the Uk at any rate, it’s probably been that way since the late 70’s.

[concolz]

Countries where Road charted inside the Top 50:

#2 Germany
#3 Austria
#6 Switzerland
#8 UK
#16 France
#17 Finland
#19 Australia
#24 Sweden
#28 Belgium
#39 Norway
#43 Spain
#49 Netherlands

Giddy heights of #160 in USA and hasn't made Canadian chart at all!

I know the charts are something of a joke nowadays, but they still do indicate a certain level of popularity. Those North American positions are utterly absymal.

[Si]

Countries where Road charted inside the Top 50:

Thanks for that. Saved me a lot of work!