(from Unpopular Opinion Rick Perry)

Whew, what a week. I don’t know where you all are, but here in NYC it’s 5pm and it’s already been completely dark outside for a while. FML. Here’s what happened this week:

• Corey discovered that our “Best of 2011″ lists weren’t as bad as you thought they were with fancy mathematicals to back it up.
• Axl and Vince live-chatted it up with y’all and fielded all your stupid questions… and a few good ones.
• We interviewed Giant Squid’s Aaron Gregory, Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, and Nikki Sixx.
• We premiered new music by Lamb of God, Whores, Abysmal Dawn, and Nothnegal.
• We laughed at the BBC’s distorted view of metal culture not once but twice.
• We announced that we’re retiring some of our older t-shirt designs and that we’re having a fire-sale to get rid of them; get ‘em while you still can!
• Vince pondered a new ranking system that could supercede Soundscan.
• We cracked jokes about another laughable Rolling Stone Top 100 lists of guitarists.
• We introduced Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick as our new NFL columnist; please direct your hatred of the Packers his way.

Vince out.

-VN

Not that this should be surprising, but the numbers are in for the calendar year 2010 and album sales are still continuing their woeful decline.

Album sales peaked in the year 2000 when 942.5 million CDs flew off the shelves in a pre-digital marketplace. According to Metal Insider [via Billboard], album sales in 2010 — including all physical and digital formats — dropped to 326.2 million, a 12.8% drop from 2009 and a 65% drop from 2000. Sales of the CD format of albums fell by nearly 20% for the fourth year in a row. Wow!

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I used to do these Soundscan chart recaps regularly, if not quite weekly, but I’ve kind of been slacking lately. There are three reasons for this: 1) I no longer have access to Soundscan. If any MS readers who happen to be employed by major labels wouldn’t mind sending me the report when it comes out each week I would be much obliged, 2) I don’t believe that album sales are necessarily a bellwether of a band’s popularity anymore. One element, sure, but just a piece of the overall pie. 3) Metal Insider‘s Zach Shaw has got that shit on lockdown. Let’s see how various hard rock and metal releases performed this past week, with a special nod to Mr. Shaw for doing the research.

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April 20th was circled in my calendar well in advance, and not just because it’s holiday we at the MS Mansion take very seriously — April 20th marked the biggest release date of the year thus far for metal releases with new offerings from Periphery, Ratt, Sevendust, another greatest hits repacking from AC/DC, Circa Survive, Airbourne and more. Let’s see how those releases fared in their first week out, as well as how other metal and hard rock records are performing after the jump.

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Says Metal Insider’s Bram Teitelman in his weekly Soundscan roundup, “There are only a few things that are certain: death, taxes, and a TSO album every other Christmas or so.” And so, as the holiday season fast approaches, last week saw strong sales from TSO’s latest amongst a bunch of greatest hits collections,  boxsets and various other re-packagings… de rigeur for this time of year.

Not a lot of metal made this week’s charts, but the latest releases from Alice in Chains, Slayer, Dethklok and others continued to sell well. Don’t expect much in the way of big metal releases between now and the end of year (except, of course, for The Binary Code’s Suspension of Disbelief which is going to obliterate every sales record in the history of EVER), so this column may go dormant for a little while.

Check out last week’s complete sales run-down at Metal Insider.

-VN

When I glanced at this week’s Soundscan charts, one thing jumped out at me: Whitechapel’s debut This Is Exile debuted at #117, tied with the new Maroon 5 live album (!), scanning 5,907 units.

Now, call me crazy, but this just makes no sense to me; a relatively unknown band moving such a respectable number of units seems a tad fishy to me. In fact, when I searched Google Images with “whitechapel this is exile” to find the album cover to post above, said cover was the SEVENTH result on the page. Uhhh… what??

So… What exactly is the story here? New MS writer Sammy O’Hagar gave the record a decent review — personally I haven’t listened to it — but certainly didn’t seem to think it was that special. Are Whitechapel getting a big push on MTV2? Radio? Are their live shows completely captivating, setting moshpits across the nation on fire? Are the first week numbers inflated due to a special pre-order bundle or inclusion in another package?

Beats me. Maybe I oughtta go listen to this record to see what the hype is about.

-VN

Album sales in the United States have taken a big dip so far in 2008; according to Nielsen Soundscan [via Digital Music News], aggregated physical and digital album sales dropped 11% from the same period in 2007.

Though digital album sales are up 34% from a year ago and comprise 15% of the overall album market, the jump is not nearly enough to make up for lagging physical sales. Making matters worse (for the record industry, anyway), single digital track downloads moved up 30% to 524.7 million units. While this may seem encouraging on the surface, the record industry is losing money on the lower profit margins that digital singles offer compared to full albums.

What this means: no one wants to pay for music!! I can’t remember where I read this, but I recently saw that something like 40% of ISP bandwidth is used by illegal downloaders. But make it easy and affordable, and the people will come.

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Maybe the CD isn’t a dying format after all. Actually, fuck that, the CD is definitely in its death throes. But at least for one week the inevitable has been delayed, and some rock records actually moved serious tonnage. Motley Crue and Shinedown both debuted in the Top 10, Disturbed continued their inevitable march towards gold (and then platinum) at #9, and Kid Rock continued his rampage back up the charts to reach #12. Some abbreviated Soundscan numbers and positions after the jump:

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So I am officially boycotting Linkin Park and Nickelback when it comes to these Soundscan reports, until the day those two records drop off the charts. That will be a momentous day indeed.

ANYWAY, debuts from 10 Years and Filter had pretty good first weeks (by today’s standards), as did Iron Maiden’s latest Best-Of compilation. Dokken’s new record also inched into the Top 200 (!) and Emmure’s Victory Records debut performed respectably as well.

Also, new this week, I’m including notable metal releases from the Top New Artists chart, including Arsis, Warrel Dane, Russian Circles and more.

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It was 2001 all over again this past week as the two highest charting metal / hard rock acts (and I use those terms loosely) were Kid Rock and Linkin Park. Sigh. And the highest charting metal debut was Whitesnake. Yes, Whitesnake, who sold a whopping 8,000 copies of their new album, good enough for a #70 chart position.

After the jump, the chart positions and sales numbers of hard rock / metal releases in the Top 200. This week I didn’t include everything because, well, I didn’t feel like it (i.e. Nickelback for the 10 millionth time… hint: it’s about to break 7 million records)… but everything that’s important is there.

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The week ending Tuesday, April 15th had some pretty impressive debuts from P.O.D. (I’m just as surprised as you are), the physical version of Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts and the first record from Billy Howerdel’s Ashes Divide — but the bigger theme this week were the precipitous drops suffered by last week’s debuts, namely Theory of a Deadman, In Flames, Sevendust, Muse and Joe Satriani who eached dropped between 50 and 100 spots down the charts. Oomph.

The Sword managed to hang on, dropping a mere 43 spots, while Black Tide and Five Finger Death Punch appear poised to drop out of the Top 200 completely next week.

Soundscan chart positions and sales figures, with our snarky commentary, after the jump.

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Strong debuts from Sevendust, Theory of a Deadman, In Flames, Muse and Joe Satriani– all of whom charted in the Top 100 — rounded out a big week for record sales in metal and hard rock (for the week ending April 8th, 2008). The Sword just missed the Top 100 coming in at #102, an impressive debut nonetheless, and Dream Theater’s greatest hit compilation made it in at #122. Business as usual in the Nickleback / Linkin Park / Buckcherry / Three Days Grace camps, while the most notable drop was Black Tide’s Light From Above, which, at #171 and 21,000 copies sold in only its third week on the chart seems poised to drop out of the Top 200 next week. Chart position and sales figures after the jump.

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The brothers Sepultura had a great debut last week with The Cavalera Conspiracy album Inflikted, landing at #72 on the Soundscan charts with 9,000 copies scanned. Black Tide dropped out of the Top 100, while Atreyu creeped back into the Top 200 thanks to some attention at radio. The remarkable ride for Buckcherry continues; they had the highest charting album of interest to anyone who reads this site (not that I mind reporting that). Chart positions and sales figures after the jump.

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The highest charting rock / metal this week was the Black Crowes’ Warpaint, which slipped down to #34 in its second week. Meshuggah’s nrew release obZen clocked in at #59 with over 11,000 copies sold in its debut week, ahead of any other metal release. This past week’s Soundscan positions and sales figures for those and other hard rock / metal releases after the jump.

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It’s been a tough week for metal sales. While makes-me-wanna-puke Christmas music and Best Of collections dominated several of the top spots, the good news is that they pushed Nickelback and Linkin Park down the charts. Led Zep’s collection Mothership continues to sell well, while Mudvayne’s recent “fan chosen” release (cough bullshit cough!) was a real dud and is certain to drop out of the Top 200 next week (oh well!). Chart numbers and sales figures after the jump.

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As always we’ve got this past week’s big rock and metal sellers listed for you after the jump — but the big story is actually that of the Eagles, whose new album Long Road Out of Eden was, until last night, excluded from the charts because it is being sold only at Wal-Mart. Apparently the folks at Billboard and Nielsen decided that a rule change was necessary to restore order to a world that would otherwise have had to deal with everyone’s favorite trainwreck Britney Spears taking the top spot.

That aside, Avenged Sevenfold made a killer debut this week (please discuss!), and Maynard James Keenan of Tool’s Puscifer side project had a solid debut as well. Foo Fighters are still going strong with their latest, while Coheed & Cambria’s No World for Tomorrow dropped quite a bit. Thursday also apparently has a new album out (who knew?) and it debuted in the Top 200. Chart positions and sales numbers after the jump.

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Thanks to the MetalSucks reader who tipped us off to the fact that both Exodus and Helloween made this week’s “New Artists” Soundscan chart, for their respective releases The Atrocity Exhibition and Gambling with the Devil. Since both of these bands have been doing their thing for more than two decades now, one has to wonder how the fuck this happened. Is there really no checks and balances system over there to make sure they don’t come across as total ree-ree downey babies?

In other news, A7X will debut at #1 on Soundscan’s hip hop charts this week. Mazel tov, dudes.

-AR

Kid Rock maintained strong sales this week, despite dropping one slot to #2. Jimmy Eat World and Santana (albeit a Greatest Hits) had Top 10 debuts, while the first two parts of Thrice’s ambitious Alchemy Index suite had a solid debut as well. In other notables, Finger Eleven managed to move up the chart again after it finally seemed to be losing steam, and Hinder jumped 64 spots to #102, giving us ojita.

Chart positions and sales numbers after the jump.

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