Fantastic news, can't wait for the usual suspects to pick holes in this. Lets ALL be happy for him.

Nice to see Prince getting some love again. Nice to see ads on TV for the album. Nice to have a new Prince album that I could actually buy in a regular record store. I'm all for it!

javed said:

any haters want to make themselves look like idiots and comment then?
You've got the "its all down to promotion by sony" line I guess , weak as it is ....

Cool news but someone has to explain to me how Mario Winans came out of nowhere to debut at number 2 on the strengh of an Enya sample when his last album sold only 15,000 and was released 7 years ago!

VinnyM27 said:

That's an easy one: Bad Boy Entertainment/P. Diddy.

javed said:

LOL... Looks like they are not logged on, yet.... its been a few minutes

From the article:


Giving the cd away at the concerts was his smartest move ever.
[This message was edited Wed Apr 28 8:46:52 2004 by VinaBlue]

Thats pretty impressive seeing as when D and P was released he was more in the public eye.

Hey why is it that they only counted the CD's from one concert. I read an article on eonline that said his total with the concerts alone would be 400,000. Any idea why they did not count the ones from Staples etc.?
Peace

chiltonmusic said:

Wasn't there a statement that Billboard would count only Cd's given away after the offical release of the album? That could explain it.

chiltonmusic said:

I think they meant over the course of the tour. They could only start counting the concert cds given out since the street date - 04/20/04.

That is really quite excellent that Musicology opened at #3. And, according to the hitsdailydouble site, it beat out the next album, NOW 15 (one of those "hits of the last week" compilations), by a lot, roughly 70,000.

Mario Winan's album beat out Musicology by about 60,000 for the #2 spot, and Usher's was another 20,000 above that. The interesting question here is, do you think Musicology could have sold enough to move up to #2 (or even #1), had Prince not given out CDs at the shows? I honestly don't know how many people who attended concerts would have gone out to the record store after the show and bought the new CD. Many people may still have not realized the new disc was out even after seeing the show. But, with 14 shows before the South Carolina show that counted for sales, that would be a very rough estimate of 140,000-200,000 people who might be itching for the new Prince CD...

Of course, the upside to having CDs from the shows count for sales is that it will help bolster Musicology on the charts for the duration of the tour, and hopefully keep it near the top for the next few weeks at least.

The fact the only counted one show is a GREAT thing. That means the number for next week will be impressive. It should be a total of 4 to 5 concerts, with attendance between 75,000 and 100,000. Add that to the typical drop in retail sales, and he should have a second week around 120,000 or more in sales (depending on the actual attendance figures). That means he'll stay in the top five, and possibly surpass Mario Winans album to stay at number 3 (behind D12 and Usher).

With all the press I am not surprised. But remember, albums die fast on the charts these days. Just ask Pink or Michael Jackass.

He needs a killer second single to keep the sales booming. But he usually fucks up with how he picks singles.

OdysseyMiles said:

Basically.

Wow, thats impressive he put up better 1st week numbers than D&P. I didn't realize how low Rave sold it's first week, such an improvement!

2freaky4church1 said:

I think call my name could be a huge single. at least on the r and b charts.

SquarePeg said:

I agree with you on that one. Just for the "Love Jones" fans as well, this should get more people to the wrecka stow who was not feeling the first single.

maybe he'll release the silence at the end of reflection as the next single


way to go Prince.....Yaaaay!!

It's funny how release dates can make such a big difference in chart numbers. Rave sold 84,000 copies when it came out in November of '99 (right in the middle of the Christmas sales flood) and debuted (and peaked) at no.18. Prince was gunning for a big hit and it barely made the top 20, which looked awful. But if Rave had sold 84,000 this week it would have opened at no.5 and been hailed as a big top 10 comeback. Weird...

billysparxxx said:

Ain't that On the Couch?

okaypimpn said:

Yep and it's the same reason someone like Ashanit goes #1. It's bought and paid for folks!

#3, big fuckin whoop. Good promotion, low competition, and CD's sold with concert tickets don't make for a good album. When other artists like Marilyn Manson hit #1 (as he did last year), I bet some of you same people think that means absolutely nothing. But now Musicology is #3, WHOA, LOOK OUT, PRINCE IS BACK.....gimmie a fuckin break.

kisscamille said:

You've gotta be right. I know I'm old and I don't buy many records, but for about 12 years now, I almost NEVER hear a song from ANY of the "#1" CDs on the Houston pop station (Mix 96.5). Maybe they play that stuff on the hip-hop station (104 KRBE), but 96.5 kills 104 in the ratings.

I find that hard to believe, and can only agree that this ratings crap is still the old payola system at work.

EvilWhiteMale said:

Hi Bart, how's your day going?

meltwithu said:

I think I'd wait for the third single for that one....

RodeoSchro said:

I know it's hard to believe, but there's more than one person with similar opinions. Alert the press.

EvilWhiteMale said:

LOL, I read some of your posts. You are much more well-thought-out than Bart.

FYI invincible debuted with 366k at #1
But sony spend $30 million to make the album

and millions to market it so it was a big loser!!


ARE the downloads included in the 174k sales??