Zero Billboard charts so far.

For some reason Metallica has 3 albums on the charts.

PurpleMedley122 said:

LMAO. Go ahead, Prince. Keep selling out to an audience who: A: Barely know who you are due to your war on the Internet B: Fucking hate Tidal and it's "help the poor, starving millionaires" attitude, so it makes sense to you to put your music there C: Would rather listen to artists their own age over a 57 year old embarrassing himself (seriously, "thots"?) ...and continue to alienate your hardcore fanbase (pretty much the only one you have left) and watch your sales dwindle. Soon, the "sell CD's through the mailbox hole at Paisley Park" joke Jay Leno made might be a less a of a joke... [Edited 9/18/15 9:20am] [Edited 9/18/15 9:26am]

And that's exactly the problem... People always cry here, we don't care about sales, blah blah blah... The point is not how much he sells. The point is if he continues to allienate the masses in this ever growing digital age where social media, streaming, youtube prescence maintains not only your relevance but your accessability to your legacy... There will come a time very soon where he sells nothing at all where any major distribution company will say ok your a legend, go tour, but it's not worth investing to release another album if you can't even sell more than 10,000 copies of an album anymore.

feeluupp said:

PurpleMedley122 said:

LMAO. Go ahead, Prince. Keep selling out to an audience who: A: Barely know who you are due to your war on the Internet B: Fucking hate Tidal and it's "help the poor, starving millionaires" attitude, so it makes sense to you to put your music there C: Would rather listen to artists their own age over a 57 year old embarrassing himself (seriously, "thots"?) ...and continue to alienate your hardcore fanbase (pretty much the only one you have left) and watch your sales dwindle. Soon, the "sell CD's through the mailbox hole at Paisley Park" joke Jay Leno made might be a less a of a joke... [Edited 9/18/15 9:20am] [Edited 9/18/15 9:26am]

And that's exactly the problem... People always cry here, we don't care about sales, blah blah blah... The point is not how much he sells. The point is if he continues to allienate the masses in this ever growing digital age where social media, streaming, youtube prescence maintains not only your relevance but your accessability to your legacy... There will come a time very soon where he sells nothing at all where any major distribution company will say ok your a legend, go tour, but it's not worth investing to release another album if you can't even sell more than 10,000 copies of an album anymore.

Exactly. He NEEDS SALES. Its shows to future distributers that he's a good investment, that there's a gain in them giving him advances in exchange for his albums. With his dwindling sales, who gonna want to invest in him anymore?

LondonIrish1970 said:

It is officially a new entry at 50 in UK charts.

That actually isn't too bad. I was expecting it to be in the 70s.

PurpleMedley122 said:

feeluupp said:

And that's exactly the problem... People always cry here, we don't care about sales, blah blah blah... The point is not how much he sells. The point is if he continues to allienate the masses in this ever growing digital age where social media, streaming, youtube prescence maintains not only your relevance but your accessability to your legacy... There will come a time very soon where he sells nothing at all where any major distribution company will say ok your a legend, go tour, but it's not worth investing to release another album if you can't even sell more than 10,000 copies of an album anymore.

Exactly. He NEEDS SALES. Its shows to future distributers that he's a good investment, that there's a gain in them giving him advances in exchange for his albums. With his dwindling sales, who gonna want to invest in him anymore?

No sales means harder time to get his music distributed...

Look what happened with 20Ten, it took 4 years for another PRINCE album to be released.

JudasSmile said:

MattUK said:

JudasSmile said:

That actually isn't too bad. I was expecting it to be in the 70s.

Just goes to show what a bit of promotion can do. AOA and PE made the top 10 (then dank like a stone as usual). This physical release was out of nowhere. All reviews talked about Tidal exclusive. Even I only found out about the physical release on twitter. No wonder its so low. Compare with Duran Duran who have been highly visible and Paper Gods makes number 5 this week, a return to the top 10 of the album chart since the Astronaut album and after AYNIN misses the top 10 four years ago. I think PG stands more chance of still being played in my car in a few months time than HNRP1 I'm afraid to say.

I also notcied this is an NPG release meaning Independent with a co distribution from Jay-Z's record label...

Usually these independent NPG releases are just for the fans rather than the masses if u compare it to AOA that WBR spent at least more time and money to promote...

Believe it or not... Even though Plectrum Electrum was a failure in terms of commercial success...

For the current sales rate of the music industry minus a few exceptions such as Taylor Swift... Not a lot of artists make it to Platinum anymore.

AOA actually sold fairly average, and especially for PRINCE being in the music industry this long, AOA was actually a modest commercial success selling over 200,000 world wide.

Even though there was not a lot of promotion for those two albums, I think the SNL performance and WBR making those lyric videos and allowing them on YouTube did play a little factor in AOA having a modest commercial showing in 2014.

LondonIrish1970 said:

It is officially a new entry at 50 in UK charts.

And I thought Chaos was bad making number 14 in a era when you had to sell a lot more.

I'm not usually bothered about sales, but with the numbers Prince is turning over on this, we are clearly entering a new dilemma - he effectively is going to lose money if he continues to make studio recordings.

He can't even cover the business rates and energy costs for Paisley Park on this, let alone staff, security and studio costs on music sales.

He'll have had a cash bump from an initial tidal payment, but once they see the figures, they aren't going to throw any more down that drain.

Unless P is willing to play the promotion game properly, its going to have to be concert income and royalties from here on in.

It hasn't been out a full week yet so let's see what happens next week.

feeluupp said:

To compare the first week U.S. sales with his other two releases less than a year ago:

ART OFFICIAL AGE: 51,000

PLECTRUM ELECTRUM: 26,000

HitnRun: 10,562

[Edited 9/18/15 8:48am]

[Edited 9/18/15 8:49am]

WIth the monday release, it's only half a week. I suspect most of the music sales for the week come during the weekend. Interesting, though, how much the sales went up since the post said 91% of results are in.

Is it possible HNR's album sales are up against 2 weeks of album sales for others? 4 days vs. longer for others? So maybe this is like a, "look what it's done so far but it will actually be charting next week" kind of deal?

I just do not buy that the fan base has gone down that much. Something is not making sense about this number.

Still Top 10 on Amazon.

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #3 in Music > R&B
  • #10 in Music > Pop

SquirrelMeat said:

LondonIrish1970 said:

It is officially a new entry at 50 in UK charts.

And I thought Chaos was bad making number 14 in a era when you had to sell a lot more.

I'm not usually bothered about sales, but with the numbers Prince is turning over on this, we are clearly entering a new dilemma - he effectively is going to lose money if he continues to make studio recordings.

He can't even cover the business rates and energy costs for Paisley Park on this, let alone staff, security and studio costs on music sales.

He'll have had a cash bump from an initial tidal payment, but once they see the figures, they aren't going to throw any more down that drain.

Unless P is willing to play the promotion game properly, its going to have to be concert income and royalties from here on in.

I would be shocked if Prince doesnt' get more than enough recurring revenues from his back catalog to more than cover the cost of the studio he owns open.

Obviously part of the problem is that there is next-to-no marketing for the CD. That, and people could listen to the album for free the week before release. I pre-ordered the previous two albums via WBR; this time, I will buy the CD when it is around £5 - I have (access to) the music - the physical copy can wait.

I apologize for trying to be intellectually honest. I wish y'all good luck

databank said:

I apologize for trying to be intellectually honest. I wish y'all good luck

U accused me for no reason without seeing my previous post when I got a hold of the album sales which were very low...

Tracking sales of this album is almost totally irrelevant when you consider the amount of mainstream promotion and the distribution strategy. It could be the greatest masterpience since Purple Rain and it wouldnt garner impressive sales in today's market.

FUNKYNESS said:

Tracking sales of this album is almost totally irrelevant when you consider the amount of mainstream promotion and the distribution strategy. It could be the greatest masterpience since Purple Rain and it wouldnt garner impressive sales in today's market.

true.Black Messiah only reached #5 on Billboard chart,then quickly

dropped out.

databank said:

I apologize for trying to be intellectually honest. I wish y'all good luck

the issue eveyone is overlooking is the thread title got changed. It started out as something like "trackign HitNRun sales" and the title was changed after the early sales numbers came out. The conclusions people are making are a bit misleading because they first only had partial numbers and the album itself wasn't out for the full week. There also appears to be some confusion with some retailers not displaying the album until today even though it was supposed to be a monday release.

alandail said:

SquirrelMeat said:

And I thought Chaos was bad making number 14 in a era when you had to sell a lot more.

I'm not usually bothered about sales, but with the numbers Prince is turning over on this, we are clearly entering a new dilemma - he effectively is going to lose money if he continues to make studio recordings.

He can't even cover the business rates and energy costs for Paisley Park on this, let alone staff, security and studio costs on music sales.

He'll have had a cash bump from an initial tidal payment, but once they see the figures, they aren't going to throw any more down that drain.

Unless P is willing to play the promotion game properly, its going to have to be concert income and royalties from here on in.

I would be shocked if Prince doesnt' get more than enough recurring revenues from his back catalog to more than cover the cost of the studio he owns open.

I would hope, but as he doesn't push his old catalogue into modern revenue streams (youtube etc), then he is reliant on radio royalties alone, and he's not a top spinner in that regard.

I fear a Little Richard senario here, where the personality outstrips the sales and the artist is too clouded to see it.

alandail said:

databank said:

I apologize for trying to be intellectually honest. I wish y'all good luck

the issue eveyone is overlooking is the thread title got changed. It started out as something like "trackign HitNRun sales" and the title was changed after the early sales numbers came out. The conclusions people are making are a bit misleading because they first only had partial numbers and the album itself wasn't out for the full week. There also appears to be some confusion with some retailers not displaying the album until today even though it was supposed to be a monday release.

Yes I changed the title when I saw the numbers... Very low numbers.

The numbers were 91% in, so thats not too "partial".

There was no confusion, PRINCE played his games again making a press release how it will be streamed only on TIDAL than by fans demand a "surprise" release with very little time to promote it. So the numbers are what they are, another full week of sales won't change anything, it still will be his lowest debut and probably his lowest selling album of all time. N.E.W.S only sold 40,000 in the U.S. and so far based on the first week's sales it will take a promotion miracle to even come close to the sales of N.E.W.S.

... and for the people complaining about they don't care about sales... Do you want to wait another 4 years for a proper PRINCE album to be released because he is having a hard time distributing for a physical release when his albums can't push any substansial numbers to make a profit for the other side... That's why sales are crucial at this point of his career, because it will dictate if he's able to release the music he wants when he's already a legacy act.

SquirrelMeat said:

alandail said:

I would be shocked if Prince doesnt' get more than enough recurring revenues from his back catalog to more than cover the cost of the studio he owns open.

I would hope, but as he doesn't push his old catalogue into modern revenue streams (youtube etc), then he is reliant on radio royalties alone, and he's not a top spinner in that regard.

I fear a Little Richard senario here, where the personality outstrips the sales and the artist is too clouded to see it.

Sadly it's his own doing.... He caused this amongst himself. He is one of the greatest if not the greatest artist of all time yet he tries so hard to make himself more and more less visiable to the next generations. He's hurt himself so much with pulling all his footage from YouTube, other video sites, social media, making his streaming only available to TIDAL, etc...

Who's PRINCE, he's not on YouTube... Who's PRINCE... Why isn't he on SPOTIFY... Those are exactly the words of the new generation. It's easy for everyone here, they have their albums, vinyls, singles, bootlegs, concert footage... But how can you be visible if your visibility keeps becoming obsolete by your own doing.

feeluupp said:

alandail said:

the issue eveyone is overlooking is the thread title got changed. It started out as something like "trackign HitNRun sales" and the title was changed after the early sales numbers came out. The conclusions people are making are a bit misleading because they first only had partial numbers and the album itself wasn't out for the full week. There also appears to be some confusion with some retailers not displaying the album until today even though it was supposed to be a monday release.

Yes I changed the title when I saw the numbers... Very low numbers.

The numbers were 91% in, so thats not too "partial".

There was no confusion, PRINCE played his games again making a press release how it will be streamed only on TIDAL than by fans demand a "surprise" release with very little time to promote it. So the numbers are what they are, another full week of sales won't change anything, it still will be his lowest debut and probably his lowest selling album of all time. N.E.W.S only sold 40,000 in the U.S. and so far based on the first week's sales it will take a promotion miracle to even come close to the sales of N.E.W.S.

... and for the people complaining about they don't care about sales... Do you want to wait another 4 years for a proper PRINCE album to be released because he is having a hard time distributing for a physical release when his albums can't push any substansial numbers to make a profit for the other side... That's why sales are crucial at this point of his career, because it will dictate if he's able to release the music he wants when he's already a legacy act.

The 91% numbers didn't have even half of the final sales number.

alandail said:

feeluupp said:

Yes I changed the title when I saw the numbers... Very low numbers.

The numbers were 91% in, so thats not too "partial".

There was no confusion, PRINCE played his games again making a press release how it will be streamed only on TIDAL than by fans demand a "surprise" release with very little time to promote it. So the numbers are what they are, another full week of sales won't change anything, it still will be his lowest debut and probably his lowest selling album of all time. N.E.W.S only sold 40,000 in the U.S. and so far based on the first week's sales it will take a promotion miracle to even come close to the sales of N.E.W.S.

... and for the people complaining about they don't care about sales... Do you want to wait another 4 years for a proper PRINCE album to be released because he is having a hard time distributing for a physical release when his albums can't push any substansial numbers to make a profit for the other side... That's why sales are crucial at this point of his career, because it will dictate if he's able to release the music he wants when he's already a legacy act.

The 91% numbers didn't have even half of the final sales number.

FINAL NUMBERS : HitnRun: 10,562

Still LOW.

^

more ppl in my district in CA.

PurpleMedley122 said:

LMAO. Go ahead, Prince. Keep selling out to an audience who: A: Barely know who you are due to your war on the Internet B: Fucking hate Tidal and it's "help the poor, starving millionaires" attitude, so it makes sense to you to put your music there C: Would rather listen to artists their own age over a 57 year old embarrassing himself (seriously, "thots"?) ...and continue to alienate your hardcore fanbase (pretty much the only one you have left) and watch your sales dwindle. Soon, the "sell CD's through the mailbox hole at Paisley Park" joke Jay Leno made might be a less a of a joke... [Edited 9/18/15 9:20am] [Edited 9/18/15 9:26am]

And that's exactly the problem... People always cry here, we don't care about sales, blah blah blah... The point is not how much he sells. The point is if he continues to allienate the masses in this ever growing digital age where social media, streaming, youtube prescence maintains not only your relevance but your accessability to your legacy... There will come a time very soon where he sells nothing at all where any major distribution company will say ok your a legend, go tour, but it's not worth investing to release another album if you can't even sell more than 10,000 copies of an album anymore.

No one expects PRINCE to sell a million copies... No one expected him to sell just 10,000 copies either.

Ofcourse music sales have been at an all time low, it's been like that since the evolution of the internet and social media/streaming for the last 10 years... But artists who promote properly still don't sell as low as 10,000 copies for their debut.

laurarichardson said:

feeluupp said:

PurpleMedley122 said:

LMAO. Go ahead, Prince. Keep selling out to an audience who: A: Barely know who you are due to your war on the Internet B: Fucking hate Tidal and it's "help the poor, starving millionaires" attitude, so it makes sense to you to put your music there C: Would rather listen to artists their own age over a 57 year old embarrassing himself (seriously, "thots"?) ...and continue to alienate your hardcore fanbase (pretty much the only one you have left) and watch your sales dwindle. Soon, the "sell CD's through the mailbox hole at Paisley Park" joke Jay Leno made might be a less a of a joke... [Edited 9/18/15 9:20am] [Edited 9/18/15 9:26am]

And that's exactly the problem... People always cry here, we don't care about sales, blah blah blah... The point is not how much he sells. The point is if he continues to allienate the masses in this ever growing digital age where social media, streaming, youtube prescence maintains not only your relevance but your accessability to your legacy... There will come a time very soon where he sells nothing at all where any major distribution company will say ok your a legend, go tour, but it's not worth investing to release another album if you can't even sell more than 10,000 copies of an album anymore.

[/ If he does not give s fuck about sales why do you? Because if he cared he would be doing more to promote it and he would not have put on it on Tidal in the first place. Sales are down overall for music what in Gods green earth would make you think a 57 year old is going to sell a million copies of anything no matter if it is streaming or on a disc.

If prince wants high sales numbers, he needs to release the remastered Purple Rain album.

alandail said:

databank said:

I apologize for trying to be intellectually honest. I wish y'all good luck

the issue eveyone is overlooking is the thread title got changed. It started out as something like "trackign HitNRun sales" and the title was changed after the early sales numbers came out. The conclusions people are making are a bit misleading because they first only had partial numbers and the album itself wasn't out for the full week. There also appears to be some confusion with some retailers not displaying the album until today even though it was supposed to be a monday release.

.

EXACTLY!, I live in Minneapolis, called Target, Walmart and Bestbuy on Monday and none of them had even HEARD of the CD nor did they have it instock... Taget told me to call back in a few weeks, walmart didn't have it either and bestbuy said only their Mall of America would carry a few copies...

.

I actually ended up finding it at Barnes & Noble (go figure)

.

SO I'm pretty sure if it had actually been available for sale at the time and places where it was supposed to be it would've sold way more...

.

[Edited 9/19/15 0:54am]