November 30, 2004
Exciting U2 news today... How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is expecting to enter the album charts at #1, making it their sixth #1 album. Furthermore, various sources are reporting sales totals in the neighborhood of 750,000 albums. This will be a record for U2 since the beginning of the SoundScan era, topping ATYCLB's 430,000 albums sold in the first week. In fact, HITS Daily Double is already showing sales of 495,252 albums with only 51.73% of outlets reporting. (That sounded like an election-night line, didn't it?)
Leave it to someone to frame these unprecedented sales figures in a negative light, though. An article on FoxNews has the headline U2 Hits No. 1, but Misses the Million Mark. So what? The only recent albums to sell a million copies in their first week are pop and rap, stuff like N*SYNC and Eminem. For any rock band to even approach that mark is impressive, let alone a rock band that's 25 years into the game.
Posted by JohnH at November 30, 2004 12:03 PM | TrackBackMore than that though, almost no one sells a million albums anymore, even pop and rap. The best-selling album of this year will be lucky to break a million, as opposed to the mega-platinum titles of the late nineties.
Posted by: ryan at November 30, 2004 01:14 PMI'm not a big U2 fan, but I think it's great that they are selling alot of albums...it goes to show that even in the era of mp3s a good album can still sell.
Posted by: chris at November 30, 2004 01:50 PMWould you care to write a review of the new U2 ÇD for The Pulse?
Posted by: Bill at November 30, 2004 02:16 PMThe final results according to HITS Daily Double is 838,871.
So far there are three albums that have topped a million in sales their first week, so U2 is up there in the top five I believe.
Posted by: John at December 1, 2004 11:33 AMThis is totally random, but I work for an attorney who went to ASMS and I knew people from Covenant way back. Crazy.
Posted by: Matt at December 13, 2004 05:53 PM