Every wonder why Soundscan wont take numbers from an artists official website? Well read on and you'll get the picture.

Soundscan the highly respected "Science" by so many, which is very flawed in ways that no one wants to realize, has a very disturbing factor that of course no one EVER looks into. Its owned and has payments going into it by labels, and companies such as Amazon and Apple etc...My skeptism began a long time ago, since i had to deal with this system on a daily basis, and trust me if you worked without the system and then worked with it, you will realize the corruption as opposed to fighting it. But an interesting thing happend last year with the EAGLES, here was a band that had no label selling their cd in only one retail outlet, but had soundscan FIGHTING its acceptance of their numbers. WHY? because walmart doesnt pay into soundscan, The Eagles are indie and the numbers were coming directly from them, so soundscan would not accept them, despite its a retail outlet and these are "real" consumers, as opposed to "faceless" digital consumers which has no proof of who is buying what.

This point came up again just last week when i got an Email about a new CD from Rick Springfield called "Venus in Overdrive" out on 7/29, it spoke of, having to do pre-orders through his site, since he's indie, but amazon would be the ones submitting and sending out the record because its the only way "Soundscan" would take his numbers, and of course "soundscan" is getting a cut of the album sales in its bank account, still dont see any corruption?

The argument has always been that "Indie" artists and Websites couldnt submit numbers because they could say anything, but lets be real here, Soundscan wants a cut of sales like any other business and thats why it holds back websites from submitting, of course unless they are on the payroll, like amazon and others.

1) Wal-Mart is still scanned by Soundscan. They don't need to pay into SoundScan, nor does any retail outlet, because the numbers that SoundScan is getting from them are already in their own system. The labels DO pay to SoundScan, because SoundScan is a service that provides them raw numbers that they don't have access to that help them to do business. It's the same system that the TV ratings system use. They are paid by stations and studios to collect the data to report to the stations/studios to help them make decisions. The reason that SoundScan resisted allowing the Eagles sales to be valid is the same thing that goes on in the UK, when certain releases are not eligible for the charts based on availability, ridiculously low discounts, or freebies that come with albums. Do you get upset when all of those Target-only releases aren't allowed to chart because they're specific promotions to get people into one store vs. being available everywhere?

2) Taking numbers from an artist's official website is like a teacher asking a kid to give himself the grade he thinks he deserves on his homework or report card. The numbers from the Wal-Mart are not reported by the artist or the label. They are reported by Wal-Mart.


3) For someone who claims to know so much about this, you seem to know very little, when I think about how often you say that SoundScan numbers are the numbers SHIPPED vs. the numbers SOLD and that SoundScan is owned by the labels. Both of these statements are completely false, and it's clear to me based on everything that you say regarding SoundScan that you don't actually know anything about it. So please hold your moral outrage regarding SoundScan until you've 1) done some research or 2) actually thought any of this through for a minute. My sister happens to work for the company that owns SoundScan. And believe me, just because that is true doesn't mean I have any reason to defend them if they're up to no good. I really couldn't care less, honestly. But it does mean that I have access to the information you only purport to have (which is inaccurate).

Xcalibre said:

Well i worked under BOTh systems for close to 20 years and thats the way it is and was. SOUNDSCAN is owned, check into their boards of directors and shit like that, im not talking about people that take notes. Im talking higher up, the people that matter and are getting paid. You want details and i'll give em, you wanna hear how def-jam called our buyer and told her to purchase another 50,000 of the Jay Z record to get it past another title to debut at number one, in return they would cut a deal on another record and give it to us for half price. Believe what you wanna believe, and think that soundscan is this 100% freaking science. Just the fact that you would take their accounting from something as FACELESS as iTunes which has no more proof of a sale than an artists actual website, shows that youre missing the point. Both systems are totally freaking flawed and corrup and NOT accurate.

And also Shipped to a store and shipped to a warehouse are two different things, so check into that too. Learn things like RIM and on-hand and replenishment ordering and things like that. The numbers that are going to soundscan are not the shipped to warehouse numbers they are shipped to the store and what THEY order and re-order. Case in point if i totally hated say Kanye West and i wanted all my stores to fuck him over i could tell all my cashiers when someone buys Kanye, dont scan his sku, scan the new Jewel sku, and get Jewel to number and kanye to number 100. So if you beleive that a label would in-trust a system to cashiers that they were reporting, than believe that, but its not the way it is.
[Edited 5/26/08 14:58pm]

lastdecember said:

1) Soundscan collects point-of-purchase numbers at the retail outlet.

2) The company that owns Soundscan is a privately held corporation.

lastdecember....if you think SoundScan is corrupt,then what's the solution? How else can record sales be accurately reported? What do you propose?

SoulAlive said:

I was just about to ask this myself. Why it so complicated to track a trivial thing like record sales?