For reasons not entirely clear even to me, I was looking over Rolling Stone‘s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, which gives a little précis of each record and also reports its total sales. I don’t think I need to fear revocation of my libertarian decoder ring if I make the trite observation that the best albums are seldom the most commercially successful—partly because a really innovative work is, by definition, doing something a little weird or uncomfortable, something that doesn’t fit cleanly into people’s existing tastes. Still, I’d expect that over time, albums that are universally hailed as classics will pick up sales steam because word gets out, people want to have certain seminal albums, and so on.
I’m not utterly unrealistic here: I don’t expect Slanted and Enchanted to ever come within light years of Thriller‘s sales. They’re different kinds of music with different kinds of appeal, and that’s fine. But I had expected some kind of rough correlation between sales and perceived importance at least within broad genres, especially when the hoary, laurel-laden albums have a couple decades head start on more recent stuff. So I was a bit shocked to see that the first Weezer album has sold more than eight times as many copies as The Velvet Underground and Nico. Portishead’s Dummy laps it almost 3 times. I had been under the (obviously deluded) impression that this was just one of those albums everyone had—that if you listen to rock, even if you’re not a huge Velvets fan, you’ve picked up either that one or Loaded at some point. Coltrane’s A Love Supreme clocks in at under 500,000 (or .2 Weezers). Am I just laughably out of touch here, or are they counting sales in some weird way? Excluding reissues or something? I’m thinking that must be the case, because there are other Web sources claiming ALS has moved at least a million copies. Any RS employees who happen to read this, feel free to enlighten me in the comments.
9 responses so far ↓
1 sangfroid826 // Jun 12, 2007 at 2:17 am
Pearls before swine. De gustibus non est disputandum. And all that jazz.
2 Laure // Jun 12, 2007 at 7:55 am
Truismistically, in music what may be important in a cultural context is not necessarily reflected in sales, particularly because music is generally consumed as a lifestyle accessory rather than as a aesthetic product. If you had been looking at the “500 Most Insulting to Your Intelligence Records of All Time” just imagine the sales comparisons to be made with the VU. And no comment on what Rolling Stone thinks are great.
3 Dave W. // Jun 12, 2007 at 8:37 am
Am I just laughably out of touch here, or are they counting sales in some weird way?
There has historically been a free market in record store shelf space, promotional radio play and sales counting equipment. Which means that there has not been a free market in music itself. Because there is not a free market in music itself, there is not much correlation between quality and sales. The cream only rises to the top in a free market.
4 Minipundit // Jun 12, 2007 at 9:35 am
Dave W’s right: there’s no correlation, positive or negative, between popularity and quality. For every The Velvet Underground and Nico there’s a Kid A, and for every ridiculously high-selling, crappy American Idol album there’s an album of similar quality that hasn’t sold any copies. Note that Wincing the Night Away and Neon Bible both debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 this year.
Part of this is that the market’s irrational. The Velvets’ self-titled album is very accesible pop and yet it’s probably their worst-selling release. And Kid A is probably the most experimental album by a mainstream artist since Talk Talk released Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, and yet it debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200.
5 steveintheknow // Jun 12, 2007 at 9:59 am
First thing that came to my head was differential equations: initial conditions matter (i.e. size of initial indie rock audience at time T1, for one possible variable). This is assuming we have the correct order for comparison, otherwise none of it matters and it’s all arbitrary.
Second thing that comes to mind is that there should be a difference between sales while the band is still relevant, call them “relevant sales” I guess, and the sales over time, call them “legacy sales”.
The reason why it might be important to make a distinction kind of like that would be to judge sales according to an inflationary model. Where one could posit something along the lines of “VU’s relevant sales were the same as, or greater than, Weezer’s adjusted for inflation”. I am willing to guess that over time the same pattern would hold for legacy sales as well.
BTW I know inflation is totally the wrong word to use but its all I’ve got.
One other note, the legacy sales of prior bands will boost the sales of future bands in like categories. In other words, if the proper comparison puts Weezer and the VU in the same category, then a marginal increase in the sales of the VU will increase the over all sales of Weezer.
I feel kind of like a dumb ass for even posting this because it sounds somewhat retarded.
6 Kevin B. O'Reilly // Jun 12, 2007 at 10:10 am
With older acts, it’s possible people buy greatest hits or compilations instead of the individual albums. Actually, I bet that for most established artists their biggest sellers are the greatest hits albums.
7 Scott Galupo // Jun 12, 2007 at 10:39 am
Not 100% sure, but I recall that those oddly low sales figures — “Exile on Main Street” has sold only 1 million?! — have to do with the RIAA recertification process….
8 Greg Newburn // Jun 13, 2007 at 2:17 pm
That first Weezer record kind of rules. Pinkerton, too.
9 D.A. Ridgely // Jun 15, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Happily, I have no idea who or what Weezer is. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if ALS has sold less than a million copies. all releases combined, let alone the banana album. Both are acquired tastes. Nothing wrong with that, but the later Coltrane stuff was never acquired by many jazz fans, myself included. As for the VU, I owned a peelable copy once upon a time, no doubt thought it was great stuff when stoned and pretending or wishing I was part of the NY underground scene in the late 60s, but I doubt I’ve played it or listened to VU intentionally in well over 20 years and I was almost certainly atypical in my cohort for owning or playing it back then. The point is that I am a jazz fan still and I certainly was a fan of alternative rock back then but the latter was always very much a niche market and, not counting big band music or Kind of Blue, what jazz albums have sold over a million copies. Some, I suppose, but damned few.