[AdamCalifornia]

This might interest you.

Quote:

This is a list that no artist would want to be on. These are the worst-selling #1 albums between May 1991, when Nielsen/SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard, and the end of 2006.

Taken from here.

Is this list surprising to you?

Happy

Turkey!

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamCalifornia /img/forum/go_quote.gif This might interest you. Taken from here. Is this list surprising to you? Happy Turkey!

Most of it doesn't surprise me. Many of these "artists" were manufactured by the record companies; It's still possible for the industry to jam a CD part way down the public's throat, but it the disc doesn't have legs, it ain't going very far. The Rod Stewart surprised me a little, given the incredible sales of his very mediocre standards collections.

The one that truly surprises me is the Howard Stern movie soundtrack. I would have expected his legions of underemployed, 30-something male fans to leave their mama's basements in droves to buy their copies. I thought this guy could record himself spitting on a kleenex and sell millions. I guess not.

 

[Nick 214]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBenway /img/forum/go_quote.gif Most of it doesn't surprise me. Many of these "artists" were manufactured by the record companies; It's still possible for the industry to jam a CD part way down the public's throat, but it the disc doesn't have legs, it ain't going very far. The Rod Stewart surprised me a little, given the incredible sales of his very mediocre standards collections. The one that truly surprises me is the Howard Stern movie soundtrack. I would have expected his legions of underemployed, 30-something male fans to leave their mama's basements in droves to buy their copies. I thought this guy could record himself spitting on a kleenex and sell millions. I guess not.

"How The West Was Won" surprised me a bit.

 

[krmathis]

Nah, no surprised.
Lost of artists in there I have never heard of before, and the few I have heard I am not fan of anyway.

 

[Uncle Erik]

I'm surprised that Johnny Cash's American V made the list. I bought it and still enjoy it - very good on vinyl, as well.

 

[SundayDuffer]

William Hung didnt make the list?????

 

[Wmcmanus]

I quite like India Aire although Testimony Vol. #1: Love and Relationship is certainly not her best work.

 

[n3rdling]

American V is excellent

 

[Wmcmanus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by n3rdling /img/forum/go_quote.gif American V is excellent

Ya, no kidding! All 5 of the American Recordings series are excellent.

 

[japc]

+1 on why is Johny Cash's "American V" on the list.

 

[milkweg]

Most of them are rap artists so I like this list.

Marilyn Manson is too dark and weird for the masses so that is understandable. I like quite a lot of his music though.

 

[BradJudy]

For the most part, they are albums that people expected to be good, the early people rushed out and bought them, found out they weren't good and word spread quickly.

+1 on Johnny Cash, although the situation was different in this case. Here, his excellent American series was never big in the charts, but his death brought enough of a publicity bump to put it into #1 for a brief moment (but not enough to have a ton of sales).

There's also a general caveat that reaching #1 with low sales means it was released at a time where there weren't any really big releases to compete with, which was likely part of a marketing strategy for many of the labels.

 

[zotjen]

For the established artists on this list (which is more than half), it shows that their die hard fans went out and bought the album as soon as it came out but it didn't appeal to the masses to achieve lasting commercial success.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by japc /img/forum/go_quote.gif +1 on why is Johny Cash's "American V" on the list.

I think it's more amazing, frankly, that he had that wonderful revival in sales at the very end of his career. Before he began working with Rick Rubin, he had become pretty irrelevant commercially. I don't have the exact figures, but I am reasonably certain that it had been many years since he had much of a presence at all on the charts. Older country artists were abandoned wholesale by both the pop and country machines in the 80s and 90s. Some of them faded away, while others, notably Dolly Parton, refocused their music on the burgeoning Americana and alt-country markets, and regained a measure of commercial success.

Rubin offered Cash the oppportunity to record exactly the music he wanted to; the results were artistically superb. Perhaps equally important is that Rubin is an industry insider. He guaranteed that Cash would get the kind of exposure in the marketplace normally unavailable to older performers whose music is rooted in traditional American country, folk, blues and rockabilly.

So if the sales of American V were relatively disappointing, it is nevertheless true that Cash's final run of albums greatly revived his commercial profile, and added a final, resounding coda to the sui generis genius of his life's work.

May he rest in peace.