I hope there are a few surprise albums on the horizons, otherwise it is looking pretty dire. Although as you say, if Bey or Frank were to release TIDAL may be a problem.

 

Drake, Meghan and Ariana are the only commercial acts looking like they will do decently. I don't see many big Radio 2 acts having albums on the horizon?

This is bad. If only Pet Shop Boys or Lukas Graham had released this week, they'd be number one with hopefully at least 15k :(

 

Someone big needs to release an album soon, because nobody wants another number one album selling under 10k.

Drake, Meghan and Ariana are the only commercial acts looking like they will do decently. I don't see many big Radio 2 acts having albums on the horizon?

Gregory Porter should do well, both initially and in the long run; I imagine Bob Dylan's new album will have similar opening sales to his last album; Richard Ashcroft, lead of The Verve, also may have good enough opening sales; Michael Kiwanuka and Clare Maguire might still have some relevance left to do okay upon release.

 

Of course, when I say they'll do okay, I mean well over 10k, possibly 20k. :P Gregory Porter I imagine will do decent numbers though.

In fairness the Album Release Schedule has been full of enough big Releases in the first 3 months of the year but several have under-performed and Sales have dropped off faster than expected (eg Rihanna, Zayn, Jack Garratt, Kanye West, Elton John). The trend is a bit concerning especially as there are not enough new Acts breaking through.

well, "the lumineers" just fell to #5 on iTunes album chart while "All Saints" climb to #4... "Adele" stays at #3

hopefully Radiohead will release soon, but not again PJ Harvey, they can wait a week :)

 

so Frank Ocean's also in the Tidal business? (hope not)!!!

 

but maybe if sales are low cos of Spotify/streaming, maybe the occ should re-think how album streams contribute to the charts and increase it... personally I think streams count too much for the single charts and too little for the albums... I think that in other countries like in Scandinavia, you stream an album in full once and thats an album sale (if I'm not mistaken)... which is not the case in the UK

hopefully Radiohead will release soon, but not again PJ Harvey, they can wait a week :)

 

so Frank Ocean's also in the Tidal business? (hope not)!!!

 

but maybe if sales are low cos of Spotify/streaming, maybe the occ should re-think how album streams contribute to the charts and increase it... personally I think streams count too much for the single charts and too little for the albums... I think that in other countries like in Scandinavia, you stream an album in full once and thats an album sale (if I'm not mistaken)... which is not the case in the UK

And what if I only stream 90% of the album (or 10 songs out of the 12?) because that's not a full album stream.

 

How do you measure a full album stream? Is it also valid if I listen to 10 songs out of 12 on Wednesday and the remaining 2 on Thursday. Is that also a full album stream?

I think that in other countries like in Scandinavia, you stream an album in full once and thats an album sale (if I'm not mistaken)... which is not the case in the UK

I don't think that's a good idea at all - listening to an album 10 times in a week shouldn't equate to buying that album 10 times and therefore generating 10 sales of the album :unsure:

I think that if you pass a certain number of tracks it counts as 1 album stream... and also it only counts for albums, not for singles, so avoiding double counting as it happens now in the UK...

I think that if you pass a certain number of tracks it counts as 1 album stream... and also it only counts for albums, not for singles, so avoiding double counting as it happens now in the UK...

So it's not a full album stream anymore if you listen to a certain number (but not all) ;)

 

Although the UK counting of album streams are a tad complicated but it's not as bad as what you make out of it. Double counting is though odd I agree with that.

well, "the lumineers" just fell to #5 on iTunes album chart while "All Saints" climb to #4... "Adele" stays at #3

Adele at number 3 in Amazon Best Sellers as well, The Lumineers down to 8.

In slightly more worrying news, Aled Jones has been number 1 for a few days on Amazon (I doubt he is getting many download Sales on iTunes though as he is languishing down at 61).

The last PJ Harvey album did over 22K on first week, so I'm confident she can claim #1, which would be a great achievement as she's never had a #1 album before... actually most of her albums have charted surprisingly low (classics like To Bring You My love #12 or Is This Desire #17) and she only has 2 top 10s, Rid of Me peaked at #3 and Let England Shake at #8... if she's #1 in the mids NME is gonna make a big big story about it :)

 

Her lowest charting album (aside from her two John Parish collaboration albums), Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is ironically, her best seller, though that's largely down to it winning the Mercury in 2001 I suppose.

 

NME only gave the new album a 6/10, but given that the 10/10 for her last album was awarded by the man who is now the magazine's editor, it wouldn't surprise me if they make a big story about it, like how they did with James last month despite not reviewing it or their last four albums. Also, Let England Shake reached #8 in the same week as the 2011 Brit Awards occured, resulting in many winners/performers from that night overtaking her, which is a disadvantage she had then but won't be having this time around.

 

 

It's been a bit downbeat in this thread this week (due to the downturn in Album Sales) but my mood has just improved with the announcement of a possible future number 1 Album:

 

"Lexicon Of Love 2" - ABC to be released on 27th May, a sequel to one of the greatest 80's Albums!

thats true, Let England Shake would have been top 5 if it wasn't for the Brits

 

surprised NME only gave the new album a 6!!!

thats true, Let England Shake would have been top 5 if it wasn't for the Brits

 

surprised NME only gave the new album a 6!!!

 

I was quite surprised as well. The only other time they've given any of her albums a score lower than 7 was with Uh Huh Her (5) and Is This Desire (6), which I find is ridiculously underrated by most critics.

 

Also, over on the topic of how bare the album releases are, Katy B has been pushed forward from the 29th to the 22nd, according to Amazon anyway...

Also, over on the topic of how bare the album releases are, Katy B has been pushed forward from the 29th to the 22nd, according to Amazon anyway...

Smart move if that is the case.

 

Incidentally not really sure why that Album is not showing up in the Top 100 pre-release Albums on Amazon, I'm sure it will have generated enough interest to get higher than some of those Albums on that list (eg Margo Price :) )

Smart move if that is the case.

 

Incidentally not really sure why that Album is not showing up in the Top 100 pre-release Albums on Amazon, I'm sure it will have generated enough interest to get higher than some of those Albums on that list (eg Margo Price :) )

 

I thought the same, as the only new release album that week to do more than 5k is probably Katherine Jenkins. Katy B might do over 10k though. Her last album opened with just shy of 23k.

Katy B's Album ("Honey") is now showing up in the Hot New Releases Top 100 (on Amazon), admittedly only at number 80, going to have to improve on that to put in a challenge for the Top spot the week after next.

Future hit albums- Drake has a new one at end of the month, Britney is rumoured to be dropping her new album soon, but her last album was a flop so goodness knows how well it will do

Future hit albums- Drake has a new one at end of the month, Britney is rumoured to be dropping her new album soon, but her last album was a flop so goodness knows how well it will do

Britney's album kinda got lost in the Christmas market - it still managed 13k and that was with pretty much zero promo. I don't imagine she'll do spectacularly but, if the lead single is right, I could picture it doing better than her last album at least. There seems to be a lot more hype this time around.