HITS DAILY DOUBLE: GAGA FLIRTS WITH A MILLION

 

Huge Digital Blow-Out, Non-Trad Retail Leads to First-Week Sales of 900-950k

 

May 25, 2011

 

She was “Born” to sell downloads. With a massive rollout orchestrated by Interscope’s Steve Berman and manager Troy Carter, Lady GaGa’s Born This Way will debut at #1 next week with the year’s biggest sales total, between 900-950k. That would be the largest debut since Taylor Swift’s Speak Now scored 1.04 million last October.

 

In a watershed moment for the business, as much as 500k of that total will be digital, thanks in large part to Amazon’s price-busting 99 cent sale on Monday. Estimates are that GaGa’s album broke Coldplay’s previous one-week digital record of 288k on the first day, with an estimated 400k being sold across all digital formats in the first 24 hours. It’s clear the strategy of saturating non-traditional retail worked wonders.

 

Arista Nashville superstar Brad Paisley’s This Is Country Music, the 10th album since bursting onto the scene in 1999, is on target for an opening week of 145-155k.

 

Columbia’s Glee Cast Volume 6 will debut with between 80-85k, while Maybach/ Warner Bros.’ Maybach Music Group Presents: Self Made, Vol. 1, the Rick Ross-founded label previously with Def Jam, will do in the 50-55k range.

 

Columbia/Jive/Legacy’s NKOTBSB, the joining of New Kids and Backstreet Boys, should do 35-40k on the heels of their blockbuster tour.

 

Finally, Startime Intl./Columbia’s Foster the People, SoCal’s answer to MGMT, debut with Torches, which is in the 25-30k range, fueled by the alternative hit, “Pumped Up Kicks.”

 

http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/newsPa...gi?news08553m01

 

 

 

BILLBOARD: LADY GAGA'S 'BORN THIS WAY' PROJECTED TO SELL AT LEAST 800K COPIES

 

May 25, 2011 12:33 EDT

 

Promotions around Lady GaGa's "Born This Way" - including Amazon's controversial decision to sell digital copies of the album for just 99 cents on Monday and Best Buy's giveaway of the album with a smart phone -- have both pumped sales expectations and caused gripes in the retail sector about how the album sales will be tallied for the Billboard 200.

 

With shipments reaching 2.1 million units and strong digital sales expected - boosted by the Amazon promotion, despite its technological challenges -- sources say Universal Music Group is officially projecting first-week sales in the range of 800-850,000 units, and less-official projections are even higher.

 

But brick-and-mortar retailers who try to operate on tight profit margins for music are up in arms about the promotions, with some arguing that both Amazon's 99-cent sales and the Best Buy giveaway counts should be excluded from the numbers that are tallied for the Billboard 200.

 

In fact, Billboard's chart executives are excluding Gaga's Best Buy giveaway numbers from the Billboard 200, as both the data service and publication have a longstanding policy of not counting albums that are given away by retailers to consumers at no cost -- either as a stand-alone promotion or as part of a bundle with another item -- for charting purposes. But sales resulting from the Amazon 99-cents promotion will be factored into the Billboard 200, as those sales indicate consumer intent. (Currently no price minimums for charting inclusion have been established by Billboard for the sale of stand-alone albums, as a pricing policy is difficult to police with only sales volume -- and not consumer cost -- being tracked by SoundScan's data collection system.)

 

http://www.billboard.com/news#/news/lady-g...005203192.story

 

 

Universal Music now has the last four million selling debuts as Lady Gaga joins Taylor Swift, Lil Wayne and 50 Cent in a very rare category these days. Here's how it looks headed into the weekend:

 

*Lady Gaga (Interscope) 1m+

*Brad Paisley (Arista Nashville) 145-155k

Adele (XL/Columbia) 125-135k

*Glee Cast Vol. 6 (Columbia) 75-80k

Now 38 (Capitol/EMI) 45-50k

*Maybach Music Group Presents: Self Made, Vol. 1 (Maybach/WB) 45-50k

*NKOTBSB (Columbia/Jive/Legacy) 35-40k

*Journey (Nomota) 25-30k (Wal-Mart exclusive)

*Foster The People (Startime/Columbia) 25-30k

Mumford & Sons (Glassnote) 24-27k

Seether (Wind-up) 21-24k

Beastie Boys (Capitol/EMI) 18-21k

Lady Gaga The Fame (Interscope) 18-21k

Lemonade Mouth (Walt Disney) 18-21k

Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop) 18-21k

 

*Debuts (5/26p)

Billboard increase their prediction to 1.15million:

 

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/re...005205482.story