Neilstein Soundscam: Clutch Dominate, Ghost Buzz Their Way Up the Charts
New-new format this week. Even more emphasis on numbers with less prose. Let’s see how this goes.
As a reminder, you can get a more complete picture of sales figures at Metal Insider this week and every week.
1. ↑ Clutch / Peak: 1 / Last Week: 4 / Weeks On: 4
Albums sold: 21,775 (Earth Rocker, debut)
Facebook: 192,303 likes • 11,880 talking about this (6.1%)
YouTube: 96,000 (“Earth Rocker” lyric video)
#1 on the Hard Music Chart, #3 on the Independent Album Chart and #15 overall. Huge week for Clutch! Band is on tour right now and will be for the forseeable future.
2. ↑ Ghost / Peak: 2 / Last Week: 5 / Weeks On: 3
Albums sold: 0 (Infestissumam, April 16)
Facebook: 95,934 likes · 4,106 talking about this (4.2%)
YouTube: 450,000 (“Secular Haze” official video); 47,500 (“Year Zero,” official video)
Social network buzz continues to elude Ghost, but they’re not touring here at the moment and the album still isn’t out. The YouTube numbers are doing the talking right now.
3. ↑ Intronaut / Peak: 3 / Last Week: 10 / Weeks On: 2
Albums sold: 2,435 (Habitual Levitations, debut)
Facebook: 25284 likes · 3044 talking about this (12%)
YouTube: 34,000 views (“Milk Leg” official video)
12% is an excellent number for “talking about this” on Facebook, showing that those who do like this band really care about them. That is a great sales figure for this band, too.
4. ↓ Kvelertak / Peak: 3 / Last Week: 3 / Weeks On: 8
Albums sold: 0 (Meir, April 26)
Facebook: 60800 likes · 5713 talking about this (9.4%)
YouTube: 50,000 (“Manelyst” official video)
Solid social network buzz in the new album’s release week. New music video is doing well on YouTube. Care to make any first-week sales projections? I’m gonna guess around 3k-5k.
5. ↓ Soilwork / Peak: 1 / Last Week: 1 / Weeks On: 3
Albums sold: 1,790 (Living Infinite, week three)
Facebook: 278854 likes · 8277 talking about this (3%)
YouTube: 236,000 (“Rise Above the Sentiment” official video)
Buzz around the new album is fading. The band is on a massive tour right now, but if the tour were doing gangbusters I’d expect the social engagement to be higher than 3%; we’ll see what happens.
6. ↑ The Ocean / Peak: 6 / Last Week: 7 / Weeks On: 2
Albums sold: 0 (Pelagial, out April 30)
Facebook: 22,433 likes · 2,629 talking about this (11%)
YouTube: 21,809 (“Bathyalpelagic II” official video)
This album is garnering a stronger buzz than I can ever remember for an Ocean album. If even Pitchfork is covering your band in addition to the regular suspects, you know you’re in business.
7. Anthrax / Peak: 7 / Last Week: n/a / Weeks On: 1
Albums sold: 8,300 (Anthems, debut)
Facebook: 1124876 likes · 62082 talking about this (5.5%)
YouTube: 80,000 (“Anthem,” Rush cover)
Just not really feeling the heat on this band right now… but Anthems is a covers EP, so I wouldn’t expect anyone but the superfans to purchase it. Anthrax should build some buzz with the upcoming Metal Alliance tour, though.
8. ↓ Within the Ruins / Peak: 2 / Last Week: 2 / Weeks On: 4
Albums sold: 650 (Elite, fourth week)
Facebook: 85236 likes · 6290 talking about this (7.3%)
YouTube: 150,000 (“Feeding Frenzy” official video)
Only 5k new views on that video. The buzz is definitely slowing down. But the band has a bright album cycle ahead.
9. Sevendust / Peak: 9 / Last Week: n/a / Weeks On: 1
Albums sold: 0 (Black Out the Sun, out March 26)
Facebook: 520422 likes · 15951 (3%)
YouTube: 14,000 (“Decay” official video)
14,000 views of the new video in less than 24 hours. Facebook engagement is low, but the band’s audience skews a bit older. Tour with Lacuna Coil coming up should help them out, and I expect a huge first week from that album.
10. Killswitch Engage / Peak: 10 / Last Week: n/a / Weeks On: 1
Albums sold: 0 (Disarm the Descent, out April 2)
Facebook: 2003864 likes · 37138 talking about this (1.8%)
Soundcloud: ~30,000 (Full album stream)
Things were quiet on the Killswitch front for a while, but with the album about to drop next week they’re starting to heat up.
