http://www.billboard.com/...1000506450

May 15, 2004
BY GEOFF MAYFIELD

The inclusion of CDs distributed at Prince's April 21 show in Columbia, S.C., in last issue's sales tallies did not really impact the chart fate of his new "Musicology." Even without those units, that album was destined to start at No. 3 on The Billboard 200.

Here, in the second chart week, is where the concept of bundling concert tickets to an album purchase gets tricky. With some 70,000 copies distributed at five shows during the tracking week—an average of 14,000 per night—Prince only sees a decline of 10% and holds at No. 3 (172,000 copies).

Without such sweetener, the album that debuted ahead of "Musicology," Mario Winans' "Hurt No More," sees a more natural 44% erosion (No. 5, 124,500 copies).

Subtract the concert copies from both weeks, and Prince's retail erosion in week two is almost 57%.

On Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, which is determined solely by a core-store panel, a 40% decline moves Winans down two spots to No. 3, while a 48% dip drops Prince down one slot to No. 4.

© 2004 VNU eMedia Inc.

Prince is sinking like a rock.

2freaky4church1 said:

... all the way to the bank!

I was unconnected for two weeks due to moving, so if this has been posted, just let me know:

Why did Billboard decide to count the concert cd's as "Sales"?

All promotion for the concerts stated the cd's were to be given away at the show. The concerts were not billed as "Musicology concert and CD".
Plus, these aren't even the retail cd's..they are promos.
It says so right on the cover.
In capital letters.
"PROMOTIONAL COPY NOT 4 SALE"
Hello?
Anyone at Billboard awake?
These are giveaways, plain & simple...a far more accurate method would be if P had sold the cd's at the merch stands, and those counted towards sales.
With this system, P stays in the top 10 album chart straight thorugh September..except when he takes a couple of weeks off from touring, and then his ranking suddenly plummets.
How silly.

I think the chart is irrelevant. While the "accounting of the occurence" reveals prince to be at number 3 in the chart, his buisness sense has ensured that he is Number 1 all the way to the bank in regard to the share of artists profits he will reap in comparission to artists of the higher charting albums.

Who here thinks it was an accident that Prince scheduled 5 concerts for Week 2 of Musicology's album sales? Not me. The man is a genius. In terms of album sales, I thought was giving away a copy was the dumbest move ever, but it seems he's one step ahead of us yet again. In fact, I bet he's a bit peeeved all those CDs he gave away before the official April 20th release date didn't count for his week 1 sales. They would have been through the roof!

People who think "Prince is sinking like a rock" should not forgot all the downloads sold of this album before it even hit the stores. There are plently of people out there like me who have yet to buy the retail copy. Taking that into consideration, the album seems to be doing pretty damn well.

JoeZeo said:

Which makes the idea of counting the concert promos as sales look even more ridiculous.
If the cd's are truly "sales", what difference does the retail date make? They were being "sold" as of March 27, in a little town called Reno.
It doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
Sony leaned on Billboard, or maybe Soundscan, or both, and they caved for whatever reason.

At this point, the Billboard figures are a gross underestimation of the number of copies out there. Downloads and retail copies alone would make Musicology a top three record, if not not easily Number one. You also have to expect that many of the concertgoers would have bought the cd anyway. Even if just 30 % of concertgoers would have purchased the album anyway, Musicology would still be in the top 5 Heck, it is in the top 5 on retail sales alone, all of this after distributing thousands of uncounted copies for weeks before the album was even in store. In fact, the notion that Prince was cannibalizing his own charting chances was all the rage at the Org a few weeks ago. Now that Prince's gamble is paying off, some people are greatly concerned by the concert copies.

Prince took a huge but calculated risk, one that has decreased his retail sales Retail sales are only part of the story for the industry in general and more specifically in Prince's case. They are very old economy. More than ever, the music industry has to adapt and find new ways of marketing and distributing their product. Prince's idea could not come at a better time. In all fairness, perhaps people should be given the chance to "opt in" for the CD when they bought their tickets, but it's also true ticket prices are not significantly higher than those of other comparable acts.

I'm for the "opt-in" formula in the long term, but I don't think counting the concert cds is a terrible thing to do in the case of Musicology, considedring all of the above. In any case, you have to admit Prince took a risk and won.

Aerogram said:

First, Billboard does count internet downloads, though it is unclear if they are including NPG music club figures (I would guess they have to):
http://www.billboard.com/...ternet.jsp

Second, I started a thread a while back in which I praised Prince's move: many more fans will get to hear the cd than would have if he did not give away the promos.
That was a smart, bold move to get his music back in wide circulation.
But you said it yourself: It's "distributing product", which is different than actually selling it.

Third, it's not about the "number of copies" out there. Heck, we could go back to the days of recording vinyl on to a tape (yes, that far ) if we wanted to talk "copies".
This is strictly about sales.
And since Billboard is all we have to go with for now, counting cd's that have "promotional" written on them, that are clearly given away at a concert, as "sales", is dubious at best.
Your arguments are good, but they could be true of almost any artist and their sales figures these days..,we are talking only about the concert promos.

eugnj420 said:

Only the first few shows had the "promotional" tag on them. They were switched to not include that line and a bar code was included instead. I'm sure that move was done to insure that they were counted.

manci said:

Which would indicate they changed course in mid-stream when they figured they could get Billboard to count those cd's as sales.
The barcode in itself is meaningless. They are not scanned. The "sales" are equal to the ticket sales.
No one recieved a receipt for their cd.
No one was told they were literally being forced into buying a cd along with their ticket.
And if that is what we are saying has happened, I object to them being counted on the grounds that people had no choice but to buy them.
As I stated earlier, none of this holds up to scrutiny.
They are simply promos, and to figure them as sales defies logic.

eugnj420 said:

"Top Internet Album Sales reflects physical albums ordered through Internet merchants"

The INternet chart appears to count physical albums ordered over the internet, not downloads. I'm not a chart wiz, but I doubt the NPGMC downloads were counted as "album sales".
[This message was edited Sat May 8 15:02:38 2004 by Aerogram]

[b]HOW MANY CDS HAVE ANY OF U SOLD OF UR OWN MUSIC ?

CAN ANY OF U SING OR PLAY MUSIC ?


MY GUESS IS NO CUZ EYE NEVER HEARD OF U !

HOW U GONNA B ON THE ORG

& HATE ON PRINCE ?

HOW MUCH OF UR LIFE SUCKS THAT U NEED SOMEONE ELSES LIFE 2 FILL IN 2 MAKE U FEEL
BETTER ABOUT UR LONLY LIVES?


YALL DONT EVEN MATTER 2 HIM !!!

HOW MANY OF U WORK 4 BILLBOARD ?

HOW MANY OF U EVEN HAVE JOBS ?


EYE DONT EVER POST EYE HAVENT SINCE 2001
BEEN AT THE ORG SINCE 98

BUT THIS THREAD IS THE SADDEST EYE HAVE EVER SEEN !

eugnj420 said:

Here's your logic if you need it. You pay $$ to see Prince in concert. In exchange for that money you are entitled to 2 things.

1. A seat at the concert.
2. The musicology CD.

The CD is bundled as part of the concert package that you are entitled to in exchange for your $$, whether or not you even know you're entitled to it. You paid for the show and the cd, you got the show and the cd. Even if all you really wanted was the show.

To the extent that Billboard tracks cds sold, these are cds that are sold as part of a package. Just because something is sold as part of a package doesn't mean it wasn't really sold. That's the dillema faced by Billboard. People who paid money got a cd. That's what Billboard tracks.

As far as choice goes, retailers don't always offer consumers choices. If a cd is released with a dvd performace attached to it, you can't break open the package and only pay for the cd if you have no use for the dvd. If that's the only way the retailer sells it then your your choice is simple. Buy it or don't.

.
[This message was edited Sat May 8 15:50:33 2004 by Universaluv]

JoVonAngel said:

And your post perhaps the saddest I have seen.
As such a silent veteran who has finally, shall we say, been inspired to express an opinion, if one can call it that, you should know that everything you have listed is irrelevant to anything that goes on here.
I was expressing my thoughts on this topic clearly, as do many orgers on many topics they feel moved to comment on...which is more than I can say for you.
You're first post in 3 years, and that's it, huh?
All capital letters and exclamation points?
Silly ranting about people not having jobs?
Sure had a lot of fun stuff pent up in there, huh?
I'm going to ignore the fact that you contradicted yourself when you said that you "never" post, then say you posted in'01..actually, I guess I'm not ignoring it, am I?

Okay, you're tired. Take another three years off, think really hard, and come on back with the Caps Lock turned off. I've got faith in you, even if everyone else rading your post most certainly does not.

JoVonAngel said:

Fantastic post.... all u need is the red curly hair, the oversized multi coloured costume and the plastic car with the wheels that fall off.....
I'd like to go on some sort out rant about how Prince fans are a bunch of sheep-like ass-kissers but this post is fantastic....
JoVonAngel U R A GENIUS.... where da caps lock go?

2freaky4church1 said:

yeah, a number three record and countless amounts press coverage along with several high profile covers and great reviews for the new cd is just fucking awful.

SassyBritches said:

He is certainly a genius.... Musicology has sold inxs of 500,000 world wide since its release and is his greatest album since the last mediocre piece of pap he released on npgmc.... who cares about decent music .... he's popular so all the prince nutters can feel vindicated for the last few years of having to listen to N.E.W.S and the trax like Golden Parachute and Vavoom!....
Ever wonder why sheep hang out together?

Cmon JoVonAngel
plz post more

Aerogram said:

U are soo right. People have 2 understand that most artist won't b able 2 accomplish this feat of having a successful sellout tour! Look at at the rap acts and most new fast food/Hits act. They mostly tour with 3 or 4 acts billed 2gether like the 1 with Beyonce,Alicia, and Missy. All of them blowup the charts and have multiple Grammy's but can't sellout a big arena tour alone as of yet. The record company's won't use this strategy with them bcuz they have the radio play and the MTV's of the world in their hip pocket. What if they printup more cd's than concert tix and lose out bcuz the new cd don't blowup like the last 1 did. Example: Eryka Badu's latest or Macy Gray's. See Prince is a risk taker and these artists labels will not take that riskwith them. They will stay with the formula that they know best! That's y it's so controversial bcuz only a few can pull that off and not the majority of these fast food acts who's big Record company's payola keeps them high on the radio playlist and charts! "Bowdown MF's" the NPG has just taken control!!!!!

Universaluv said:

U are 100% correct!

And remember that Prince is also promoting the NPGMC and it's download store which did about 200,000 the first couple of weeks of opening. So while we are focused on Musicology the other cd's seem 2 b getting heard which adds 2 Prince's aura of the Vault and it's material and 2 his prolific output. So the more hands that get the cd by either store purchases or by downloads or by concert tix sales the NPGMC gets more exposure. Brilliant move by Prince bcuz after the Musicology cd runs it's course the club may pickup 100 thousand or more worldwide supporters!

all you fuckers are ridiculous....What's the debate? Prince is clearly doing well. He's not selling like Usher, or D12, cuz he's not appealing to the huge percentage of the population that is stupid, well i guess Usher isn't that bad.....but Prince is doing quite well....time will tell if the album does great, but it's already done very well....and the tour is a huge success.....I can't believe people are endlessly arguing about this, some people are so passionate that Prince isa failure. C'mon, please...I mean C'mon.....C'mon

ELBOOGY said:

Yeah, I just wished they would add more music to that store. When will Prince release more of his backlog?!

Persian said:

i don't know about you but i didn't have to listen to news. i didn't even know what golden parachute was until about 1 month ago, lol, and vavoom i only by title. i heard that one for the first time when the downloads were made available. i didn't like rave or newpowersoul...don't know what that means. the one true sign of prince's career being in good standing is my mom calling me to tell me about prince in the media. if she is hearing about him then his popularity is certainly on the upswing.

short of selling one million records in a week, i'm not exactly sure what people consider a success these days.

Aerogram said:

When your album sales drop dramatically rather than holding steady or increasing, you make less money than you would otherwise.

RupertZ said:

That's true. Unless, of course, you are getting 85% of the take instead of the normal 15 to 20 percent.

Whoa looks like eye hit a nerve...

here is another post 4 ya ....

eye dont kiss prince ass ... & eye also dont feel eye am a music review person
like most of u ppl do here...
that was my point so u can now kiss my ass beeeoottticchh !


dont let me catch u in a chat !

JoVonAngel said:

Uh-huh.
Well, if you've even been bothering to read my posts on this thread, or anyone else's, you'd realize that this post had to do with cd sales.
If, in your crude way, you are attempting to imply that simply by posting here, we are kissing Prince's ass, then why do you bother to read the posts? Surely you must find them dull.
I'm not surprised that your reading comprehension appears less than stellar.
You chose to insert a silly, off-topic rant onto this thread...I simply called you on it.
Anyway, to stay on topic, here's a post I made earlier.

http://www.prince.org/msg/7/93507