Songs Of Experience sales in the United States

[Johnny Feathers]

I'm curious as to the nature of this conversation.  Is this to say that SOE is selling poorly?  Is anyone particularly surprised by how it's selling (or not)?  I can't say I follow this stuff or particularly care one way or another, but they're a band that hasn't had a legitimate hit in like 15 years at this point--they'll sell to the die-hards, and the ticket-buyers of their current tour, but not much else.

[laoghaire]

Wons is just tracking out of curiosity, not to make a case for any point of view.

[wons]

I'm curious as to the nature of this conversation.  Is this to say that SOE is selling poorly?  Is anyone particularly surprised by how it's selling (or not)?  I can't say I follow this stuff or particularly care one way or another, but they're a band that hasn't had a legitimate hit in like 15 years at this point--they'll sell to the die-hards, and the ticket-buyers of their current tour, but not much else.

Well thats an interesting question. I'd argue that SOE is selling well or ok if were just talking about album sales(both physical and digital). The problem is that album sales for all artist are rapidly declining. Most of the general public does not purchase recorded music anymore. They obtain it for free through the internet by 1. File Sharing, 2. some form of free download, 3. or they stream it. Streaming is what is really taking over. Some of it is free, some of it is people paying into a service. Streaming is over 60% of what the recording music industry now generates money from.

U2 does poorly when it comes to streaming and also individual digital track downloads. So album sales(physical and digital) are the best way to check on how well the band is doing because that is the format that 90% of the fans of U2 are using.

I think it would be great if U2 could reach 500,000 in sales in the United States. They are 192,000 copies away from that goal. I think its the maximum they could be expected to do in terms of sales, hit or no hit. Having a hit today is not likely to increase album sales that much as it will likely just come from general public and casual fans who have long since switched to streaming all their music.

Since January 1, 2018, these are the top 20 selling albums(DIGITAL and physical combined) in the United States after 21 weeks:

01 - 949,000 - THE GREATEST SHOWMAN - Soundtrack
02 - 395,000 - MAN OF THE WOODS - Justin Timberlake
03 - 266,000 - BEAUTIFUL TRAUMA - P!nk
04 - 251,000 - REARVIEW TOWN - Jason Aldean
05 - 231,000 - ÷ - Ed Sheeran
06 - 224,000 - KOD - J Cole
07 - 210,000 - BEERBONGS & BENTLEYS - Post Malone
08 - 197,000 - BLACK PANTHER: THE ALBUM - Soundtrack
09 - 174,000 - GRAFFITI U - Keith Urban
10 - 163,000 - EVOLVE - Imagine Dragons
11 - 161,000 - INVASION OF PRIVACY - Cardi B
12 - 160,000 - FROM A ROOM: VOLUME 2 - Chris Stapleton
13 - 157,000 - M A N I A - Fall Out Boy
14 - 153,000 - REPUTATION - Taylor Swift
15 - 153,000 - BOARDING HOUSE REACH - Jack White
16 - 138,000 - 24K MAGIC - Bruno Mars
17 - 137,000 - FROM A ROOM: VOLUME 1 - Chris Stapleton
18 - 137,000 - DAMN. - Kendrick Lamar
19 - 131,000 - HAMILTON: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL - Original Cast
20 - 130,000 - THIS HOUSE IS NOT FOR SALE - Bon Jovi

                      Based on current sales, by week 26, the half way point of the year, there will still only be 1 album that has sold more than 500,000 copies(digital and physical).

Song Of Experience sold most of its 307,000 copies back in December 2017, so its obviously not in the top 20 for a chart that just begins with sales starting in January 2018.

[wons]

No soundscan information so far this week. Songs Of Experience is not in the top 100 selling albums again this week. On the top CURRENT album selling chart it dropped from #80 to #85. So I estimated sales this week at 1,700 compared to the estimate of 1,800 last week. Typically, the #100 album sales about 2,000 copies on the top album sales chart and the #200 album sales about 1,250 copies. So without soundscan information, these rough estimates will continue, but their probably not far off the real numbers based on past soundscan information for the various chart positions.


Each week of sales so far, with chart position and sales.

01. (#1) 179,772
02. (#6) 32,307
03. (#19) 21,234
04. (#19) 14,028
05. (#23) 5,717
06. (#23) 4,310
07. (#39) 3,549
08. (#57) 2,894
09. (#51) 3,584
10. (#52) 2,774
11. (#84) 2,119
12. (#114) 1,730
13. (#55) 3,257
14. (#130) 1,657
15. (#35) 4,976
16. (#63) 2,705
17. (#115) 1,882
18. (#170) 1,529
19. (#124) 1,754
20. (#---  ) 1,218
21. (#151) 2,044
22. (#85) 2,137
23. (#67) 2,824
24. (#65) 2,564
25. (#68) 2,800
26. (out of top 100) 1,800 Estimated
27. (#112) 1,851

Total sales after 27 weeks in the United States is 309,016. This includes BOTH physical and digital copies.

[miracle_al]

Wons, thanks for continuing to post this information.  I, for one, have enjoyed reading the updates and understanding the context for the numbers.

[wons]

Wons, thanks for continuing to post this information.  I, for one, have enjoyed reading the updates and understanding the context for the numbers.

Your welcome. I actually enjoy looking it up and posting it as well as having a place to look at this information all together for now and later on. The album has not run out of steam yet. Possible boost in sales could come from sudden unexpected success of a new single, Grammy nominations later this year, grammy wins next year, and a possible 2nd leg of the tour next year in the United States. If the album is able to get to 450,000 in soundscan sales, that will likely be a enough for a GOLD record certification as the streaming and individual track downloads, as well as album shipped but not yet sold could make up the extra 50,000. But still a long way to go and the album will need some type of a boost in sales to get there.

[superdragtn]

Does U2 do poorly in streaming services?  Is there information available to demonstrate how much/often they're accessed on streaming sites?  A quick look at my Spotify shows they have 9,395,512 monthly listeners.  Recalling the SOI incident, I remember one article that said something to the effect that 27 million people accessed at least one song and another millions of people downloaded the whole album.  About that time there was some study performed that showed U2 were one of the top artists streamed.  I tried to google and find these sources but struck out so if my memory if failing me, feel free to comment a correction.

Physical album sales and even digital downloads are such a poor measure for the quality of an album now. Success of an album is even harder to define. The album format itself is suffering from the à la carte option of streaming services.  Freedom looks like too many choices.  There are still people, such as myself, who still prefer the physical album either in CD or vinyl.  I've been surprised at even people my age (early 30's) who have shunned physical copies and gone all digital or streaming.  My surprise is mostly that we grew up in the physical media days and lived through the transition to digital music.  It seems to me that the move to digital music and its instant accessibility has cheapened the product to the consumer.  If something is easy to get, forget and throw away, it won't hold much value.  I remember a time when a music release was an event.  The local independent record store in my hometown used to do midnight release parties up until the early 2000s.  It was always a fun event with people queuing up outside.  The last one I attended was in 2000 for ATYLCB.  In the digital age, there's no such communal activity and the consumer doesn't value the product as much.

There may not be a firm answer to just how much U2's newer material is popular or given attention to.  Some type of data released by the big streaming services on the number of people who have streamed their music may provide some answers.

[wons]

Does U2 do poorly in streaming services?  Is there information available to demonstrate how much/often they're accessed on streaming sites?  A quick look at my Spotify shows they have 9,395,512 monthly listeners.  Recalling the SOI incident, I remember one article that said something to the effect that 27 million people accessed at least one song and another millions of people downloaded the whole album.  About that time there was some study performed that showed U2 were one of the top artists streamed.  I tried to google and find these sources but struck out so if my memory if failing me, feel free to comment a correction.

Physical album sales and even digital downloads are such a poor measure for the quality of an album now. Success of an album is even harder to define. The album format itself is suffering from the à la carte option of streaming services.  Freedom looks like too many choices.  There are still people, such as myself, who still prefer the physical album either in CD or vinyl.  I've been surprised at even people my age (early 30's) who have shunned physical copies and gone all digital or streaming.  My surprise is mostly that we grew up in the physical media days and lived through the transition to digital music.  It seems to me that the move to digital music and its instant accessibility has cheapened the product to the consumer.  If something is easy to get, forget and throw away, it won't hold much value.  I remember a time when a music release was an event.  The local independent record store in my hometown used to do midnight release parties up until the early 2000s.  It was always a fun event with people queuing up outside.  The last one I attended was in 2000 for ATYLCB.  In the digital age, there's no such communal activity and the consumer doesn't value the product as much.

There may not be a firm answer to just how much U2's newer material is popular or given attention to.  Some type of data released by the big streaming services on the number of people who have streamed their music may provide some answers.

Unfortunately, U2 do very poorly when it comes to streaming. We know this because Billboard tracks this and adds it in to its main Billboard 200 chart now. Streaming and individual track downloads account for LESS than 10% of the points they get for the album. Over 90% of their points comes from album sales, both physical and digital. Most popular artist get the majority of their points from streaming and individual track downloads.

In this thread, I'm just tracking the Album sales, both physical and digital and the position on the top album sales ONLY chart, both physical and digital sales. Individual track downloads and streaming are not counted on this chart. Its the old top album sales chart that was used from the 1950s until 2014 when they developed a system to include streaming and individual track downloads for the album in addition to digital and physical album sales.

Another place to look at how well U2 does in streaming is youtube. The top song from the album, You're the Best Thing About Me only has about 12 million streams after 8 months. A popular artist like Imagine Dragons will have about 400 million streams each for the latest singles from their albums.

The place where U2 does well, is still in the album sales category, BOTH physical and digital. Its not great relative to the past or distant past, but it is somewhat good to a degree compared to other artist in 2018. Their streaming and individual track download numbers are so small that they are nearly irrelevant. For example, in the first week of release, the album sold the equivalent of 186,000 units in the United States. 180,000 of that came from actual digital album and physical album purchases. Only 6,000 came from individual track downloads and streaming. 10 individual track downloads = ONE album sale. 1,500 streams = ONE album sale. So as you can see for U2, those numbers are tiny, while for other artist, they form the majority of their totals.

[wons]

Surprise, we finally got soundscan data for this week. Songs Of Experience is at #112 with sales of 1,851 copies. That's physical and digital copies combined.



Each week of sales so far, with chart position and sales.

01. (#1) 179,772
02. (#6) 32,307
03. (#19) 21,234
04. (#19) 14,028
05. (#23) 5,717
06. (#23) 4,310
07. (#39) 3,549
08. (#57) 2,894
09. (#51) 3,584
10. (#52) 2,774
11. (#84) 2,119
12. (#114) 1,730
13. (#55) 3,257
14. (#130) 1,657
15. (#35) 4,976
16. (#63) 2,705
17. (#115) 1,882
18. (#170) 1,529
19. (#124) 1,754
20. (#---  ) 1,218
21. (#151) 2,044
22. (#85) 2,137
23. (#67) 2,824
24. (#65) 2,564
25. (#68) 2,800
26. (out of top 100) 1,800 Estimated
27. (#112) 1,851

Total sales after 27 weeks in the United States is 309,016. This includes BOTH physical and digital copies.

[wons]

Just got soundscan data for week 25 and week 26. The estimates were close, but now the numbers are exact. Total exact sales for digital and physical albums sold combined for Songs Of Experience in the United States is 308,784 copies after 27 weeks on chart. Only thing missing is the chart position in week 20 and week 26, both out of the top 100.


Each week of sales so far, with chart position and sales.

01. (#1) 179,772
02. (#6) 32,307
03. (#19) 21,234
04. (#19) 14,028
05. (#23) 5,717
06. (#23) 4,310
07. (#39) 3,549
08. (#57) 2,894
09. (#51) 3,584
10. (#52) 2,774
11. (#84) 2,119
12. (#114) 1,730
13. (#55) 3,257
14. (#130) 1,657
15. (#35) 4,976
16. (#63) 2,705
17. (#115) 1,882
18. (#170) 1,529
19. (#124) 1,754
20. (#---) 1,218
21. (#151) 2,044
22. (#85) 2,137
23. (#67) 2,824
24. (#65) 2,564
25. (#68) 2,634
26. (#---) 1,734
27. (#112) 1,851

Total sales after 27 weeks in the United States is 308,784. This includes BOTH physical and digital copies.

[wons]

Big move up for Songs Of Experience this week from #112 last week to #54 this week in the United States. Don't have the soundscan results yet though for the actual sales numbers.

[laoghaire]

All right! My four copies went a long way last week!

Sure, I'll take credit, why not?

[wons]

All right! My four copies went a long way last week!

Sure, I'll take credit, why not?

Awesome. I hope we get soundscan number this week so we can see the official total of sales. I'll do a rough estimate if we don't get it.

[miracle_al]

Do you think it's the result of the U2 Channel on Sirius XM, which started on June 1, I believe?

[wons]

Unfortunately not exact soundscan sales for this week. But I got a pretty good estimate and its 3,000 copies about 200 copies higher than I would have estimated. In week 28, the album rebounded from #112 to #54!



Each week of sales so far, with chart position and sales.

01. (#1) 179,772
02. (#6) 32,307
03. (#19) 21,234
04. (#19) 14,028
05. (#23) 5,717
06. (#23) 4,310
07. (#39) 3,549
08. (#57) 2,894
09. (#51) 3,584
10. (#52) 2,774
11. (#84) 2,119
12. (#114) 1,730
13. (#55) 3,257
14. (#130) 1,657
15. (#35) 4,976
16. (#63) 2,705
17. (#115) 1,882
18. (#170) 1,529
19. (#124) 1,754
20. (#---) 1,218
21. (#151) 2,044
22. (#85) 2,137
23. (#67) 2,824
24. (#65) 2,564
25. (#68) 2,634
26. (#---) 1,734
27. (#112) 1,851
28. (#54) 3,000 (Estimated)

Total sales after 28 weeks in the United States is 311,784. This includes BOTH physical and digital copies.