why is music sales looked at like Box Office movies, if a movie flops it is done, and time for home entertainemnt sales, but if an LP doesn't sell it's first week it is serane for that LP's shelf life

So true!! I have been stressing this too people, but still some SWEAR by soundscan which is not an accurate account of what people are buying and the availabilty of what people are buying. Soundscan is an account of what a Record chain orders, also the record chain has to be one that deals with soundscan some dont, Soundscan is not what people are buying at the counter. I worked for Music Retail for a long time and its all done by ordering, if a chain purchases alot and reorders alot expect a high debut regardless of purchases. I think something that is interesting about Movie Box office tracking, is that if U look at the $$ a film makes per screen you will see that the only reason a movie makes millions and millions is because its playing everywhere, heres a quick fact a few weeks ago Al Gores Movie brought in about 5 million, but it was only playing on about 200 screens, wheras the movie that was number one that week was playing on about 2000 screens and of course it made more money, but when u broke down the $$'s made per screen Gores movie was number one by far.

It would be interesting if something like that was tried with Music Sales, but since there really is no accurate way of tracking, just the mere fact that Soundscan doesnt track certain chains and stores, in my mind, makes it useless.