lol I get the david wtf image in my head now and that slapping one eddie uses haha

Just though that we need that image here to laught a little today

Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ve been curious to what happened to DAà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s album sales over this last week on itunes. I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t see him in the top 100 on all music (albums) anymore. Crush seems to be going lower on the chart at itunes also. Thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s why I was hoping to see ALTNOY come out I guess. Are they buying the albums in physical stores more now? Ok, Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ll admit, I think Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m angsting a little bit this week (or handwringing, as MJ would say), lol. Forgive me. I probably need to back away some and allow those more in the know to mull over this stuff! lol

His album was way down in the bottom of the Top 100 this past week when it sold 66K. He’s obviously selling more physical copies of his CD than anything else (as do all artists, but relatively more of his sales are from physical copies than other artists). Yet his sales overall are very good for a pop artist.

iTunes for albums is different than iTunes for singles. With singles, iTunes makes up a tremendous amount of the market. Pretty much whatever you sell on iTunes is how much you sell of your single each week because the competitors are barely there (Amazon, Napster, etc.). With albums, it seems like (and no, I don’t have access to Apple’s numbers, but it seems like), unless an album is in its first week of release, it’s just not going to sell much on iTunes at all (there are exceptions, like Taylor Swift).

For example, look at Lady Gaga’s album–it’s in the 20s on iTunes yet it didn’t make the top 50 in album sales this past week. It gets relatively more of its sales from iTunes than David does, but that’s apparently not that much anyway. iTunes supposedly makes up 17% of the album sales market (behind Walmart and Best Buy, I believe), but that doesn’t mean that it makes up 17% of each album’s sales. Because it’s digital, it has a much wider variety of albums for people to choose from–they don’t have to keep items “in stock” or in boxes out back and continue to reorder. They never sell out. So they’re continually selling their massive inventory. It seems that they only make up 17% of the market because they sell a little each of a lot of albums, not that the top 100 albums are necessarily selling much individually. I would be surprised if any album below the top 10 or even top 5 was selling more than 10K each week–in fact, I think it’s probably a lower threshold than that. A lot of $5 albums make the top 10 on iTunes each week as well, and none of them make the top 50 in overall sales. It’s just not enough.

And, not like it matters much, but David is splitting sales between two versions of his album. It’s not going to add up to tons either way, but if he weren’t, he would probably still be in the top 100 somewhere.

So, yeah, iTunes for albums? Don’t sweat it.

As for Crush–songs have to move down eventually. It’s being pushed down by a lot of Britney album songs and Christmas songs, but fact is that it’s not getting as much airplay anymore. Can’t go on forever. Even “So What” has moved down a lot and that was a massive seller.

Kirsten, maybe they put it out in front in the store because of the almost all red colorà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦.matches their Christmas decor maybe, LOL

LOL. Maybe. Score one for the art department.

Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s not like Jive wonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t be promoting the record in the meantime.

I’ve noticed that I’m seeing lots more google ads on this site for the CD and that it was given a better sales spot in my local record store (couldn’t help but notice it right at the entrance of the store as I walked by on my way to visit Santa today). Could be that Jive thinks those things are more useful at this time of year than concentrating on the second single. Who knows? Maybe they know what they are doing. Maybe not. Maybe the need another slap up-side the head.

Who knows, maybe some more experienced exec saw when they scheduled both Britney and David, slapped some less experienced guy on the head and said, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“WTF?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  and so they changed them.

That is an amazing visual. I kind of hope that’s what happened.

I can kind of see “Circus” having an early release date. I seem to recall that in the past Brit’s singles go up and down the charts very fast. “Womanizer” is being very robust for her. Maybe they just thought it would follow a similar trajectory to her last two singles. When it didn’t, they had to move out the add date for her second single (which may be more evidence as to why they pushed out Archie’s second single).

What behooves a station to play ALTNOY as opposed to one of the other songs simply because Jive says ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s the next single?

Radio stations are lemmings. They all like to have the same hip songs at the same time. If they aren’t playing the hip song that somebody else is playing, they look less hip themselves. So, the labels help out by saying “this is the hip song and you should play it now” (sometimes the radio stations say “I don’t think so”). The label likes all the radio stations to play the single all at the same time because the song can go higher up the chart. If some stations play it for the first three months and then others for the next three months, the song doesn’t climb too far in the charts. If they all play it at once, the song looks more successful (goes higher up the charts) and more lemmings are convinced to play it. Labels encourage radio stations by talking to them and giving them lots of good reasons to play their song (they are kind of like uber-fans with better phone numbers to call) such as music surveys.

Some labels like stations to start playing on the add date. Jive seems to like stations to start playing before the add date (as do a lot of other labels). Then, it looks like the radio stations are SO excited to play it, they can’t wait for the add date. “Look, it’s in the Top 40 already and it is hasn’t even been added yet”. Jive has been very busy this fall.

I don’t think that the problem is the PDs not wanting to play this song. If it was, Jive would have switched the single with the release date. They didn’t. So, it’s probably something else (“Crush” still has legs, new strategy, waiting for video, some kind of tie-in or something).

Plus, ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s not like ALTNOY was going to take off any faster with the add date on Tuesday. It just wasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢tà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’radio is slow right now. I never expected it to do a whole lot in December. So the situation really hasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t changed. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s not like the impact date happens on Tuesday, and all of a sudden tons of stations are playing it a lot. ALTNOY wasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t going to help David sell albums this month. David and the holiday buying season were going to sell albumsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’and Crush, which is not dead. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s still being played over 2000 times a week on Top 40 radio, plus another 1500 times a week on Hot AC (and a couple hundred on poor, pathetic AC). Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s still in the top 5 on Radio Disney. Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s fine. And there will be no real gap.

I am so appreciative of all the information shared here…you’ve just explained all the things that had me scratching my head about the idea of “anybody” releasing a second cut from their album close to Christmas…it’s neither wise nor necessary, and it wouldn’t impact the album sales in time to make any difference….and this is what I was thinking, but didn’t “know”.

Like not knowing that two weeks before Christmas there was a freeze…or the ins and outs of Impact dates…and how a track can have significant ‘lead’ time that isn’t counted…it’s all very interesting.

And the image of a record company exec thwacking a junior member upside the head? That’s priceless!

Z100 is just very bipolar; they’ll kill a song only to resurrect it. They’ve got a different top 10 nearly every two weeks–it’s insane. They do whatever they want because they’re Z100. But I have every confidence they’ll add ALTNOY pretty soon. First off, ALTNOY is totally up Z100’s alley–they’re much more pop, pop-R&B oriented. Rock songs will make their playlist, but they aren’t Z100’s bread and butter. Plus, Z100 has a “special” relationship with Zomba Label Group. It’s why a lot of Zomba songs get premiered on Z100 (including Pink’s “So What” and “Sober,” Britney’s “Womanizer” and “Circus,” Jordin’s “Tattoo” and DA’s “Crush”).

Crush is not even on z100à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s on line request page even though many much older and lower ranked songs are on that request list.

Z100 is being really weird lately. I listen to them a lot since my office keeps it on and also on my commute so I have a good idea what they’re playing a lot of (Kanye and Rihanna overkill pretty much). There’s lots of songs I use to hear like 5 times a day and suddenly, poof they just stopped. It makes no sense to suddenly just pull a song that is so popular, especially in Crush’s case there where it seemed like up until two weeks ago they played it all the time. Now that you mentioned the online request form I looked and they also pulled No Air and Tattoo. No Air they use to play to the point I was sick of it.. I can understand slowing down spins to make room for a new single but to altogether just stop playing? Is there something behind this?

I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t understand this statement. I thought the whole point of an Add date was to encourage more stations to add the song to their playlist on that date, and therefore, cause the song to take off faster after that date. Granted some add before and some after. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s a ramping up, but the biggest spurt should be after the Add date. So, on Tuesday, and after, it would have started to get more Adds from stations, and therefore, take off sooner. Now it seems like it will ramp up at a slower pace until it gets to January, where it will then hit the Add date and then start taking off. Is that not how it works?

What I meant is that ALTNOY *probably* wasn’t going to take off fast even with a December 9th add date. Radio is slow in December and there was very little lead time between choosing ALTNOY as the single and the impact date. That means that less stations were going to add the song on the impact date or earlier than they would with a longer lead-time. They wouldn’t have done many (or any) test spins, they wouldn’t have decided what songs to push down in rotation to fit ALTNOY in, etc. A longer lead-time gives stations the chance to get ready for a song–maybe add it early, maybe chose an add date in the future. Having the add date this coming Tuesday might not have been very effective. While an add date is really just a marker, it is kind of a wake-up call to stations–”here’s the single!” If the stations aren’t ready then the wake-up call may just got unnoticed by a lot. Move the add date back, they get ready for a song, and the add date has more meaning.

Maybe ALTNOY would have been picked up okay–I’m not attempting to make definitive predictions. It just makes sense that they would want more lead-time. Especially in a slow month.

Plus, ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s not like ALTNOY was going to take off any faster with the add date on Tuesday.

I don’t understand this statement. I thought the whole point of an Add date was to encourage more stations to add the song to their playlist on that date, and therefore, cause the song to take off faster after that date. Granted some add before and some after. It’s a ramping up, but the biggest spurt should be after the Add date. So, on Tuesday, and after, it would have started to get more Adds from stations, and therefore, take off sooner. Now it seems like it will ramp up at a slower pace until it gets to January, where it will then hit the Add date and then start taking off. Is that not how it works?

Is there any possibility that since Light On is being pushed so very, very aggressively, that Jive had to back off to RCA. Are they not both Sony?

Jive doesn’t care what RCA does, nor would they take a back seat to RCA with one of their artists.

Is there any possibility that since Light On is being pushed so very, very aggressively, that Jive had to back off to RCA?

No. One has nothing to do with the other.

If there’s a time where an album can sell without a huge single, it’s during the holidays. David’s album is doing great. I think because we’re on a website that is also concentrating on other contestants’ album sales we forget that different former contestants are in different genres that sell differently. The way David is selling albums right now is excellent for his genre. Don’t let anybody tell you differently.

Plus, it’s not like ALTNOY was going to take off any faster with the add date on Tuesday. It just wasn’t–radio is slow right now. I never expected it to do a whole lot in December. So the situation really hasn’t changed. It’s not like the impact date happens on Tuesday, and all of a sudden tons of stations are playing it a lot. ALTNOY wasn’t going to help David sell albums this month. David and the holiday buying season were going to sell albums–and Crush, which is not dead. It’s still being played over 2000 times a week on Top 40 radio, plus another 1500 times a week on Hot AC (and a couple hundred on poor, pathetic AC). It’s still in the top 5 on Radio Disney. He’s fine. And there will be no real gap.

Crush is not even on z100’s on line request page even though many much older and lower ranked songs are on that request list.

Is there any possibility that since Light On is being pushed so very, very aggressively, that Jive had to back off to RCA. Are they not both Sony?