US sales projections for SFBM Options

[livefan1999]

they're still a really good band on record and a really good band live and have achieved much. Not to mention their career has been following an interesting trajectory as well, which keeps me motivated to keep checking em out!

Depressing stuff here but I'm more into liking this quote above. I think I am going to try to be a little more optimistic than a lot of what I'm reading. While they might not have huge sales, I'm hoping that they have steady enough sales that they keep on putting out new music and definitely that they keep touring. Maybe the promotion was just not enough and when they get back to the US, possibly go on television shows, tour, etc., sales will be maybe not great, but acceptable.

These guys are one of the best live performing bands I've seen and I'm hoping they'll be out there touring for many years to come!

This post has been edited by livefan1999: Jun 14 2006, 12:03 am

[aLIVEinNORWAY]

Here are som numbers from Norway.
TSFTBM:
6 weeks on top 40.
#20-#4-#10-#13-#21-#29. No air play. This was befor the doubble concert, but has not reentret the chart after the concerts.
AWAKE.
Startet at # 27, was out of Topp 40 after only one week. 24 weeks later a tv comercial runs on one of the smaller tv staions. Awake reenter the chart as #6, goes up to #2 and stay on the charts for amasing 13 weeks.
Bird Of Pray.
6 weeks on topp 40. #5 as highest.
S.S.
9 weeks on topp 40. #5 as highest.
TDTH.
6 weeks on topp 40. #2 as highest
V.
5 weeks on topp 40. Straight to #1, it lasted only for 1 week, then #3.
T.C.
13 weeks on topp 40. #24 as highest.

Live has no air play in Norway. I think I heard Heaven a coupple of time when BOP was new, and Selling the Drama.

[DrumSolo]

a question for Drumsolo:

Do you listen to triple M? If so, have you noticed that they have seemed to be playing less LIVE in recent years?

Triple M are a major radio station in Australia who have always loved and supported LIVE. But it seems to me that they haven't been that keen on LIVE for a while now. Though when Ed did his promotional tour here they were the first to get Ed on their station. Have no idea what's going on there

Yeah you're right! Actually MMM was where I first got interested in LIVE...I've stopped listening as much in recent times though.

I've noticed less Live on their playlists since about mid-2005 but I think they also reconfigured their playlist to suit a slightly older audience- there's a lot more 80's. They used to flog songs like 'I Alone' and 'Lightning Crashes' and 'Selling the Drama'. All the singles got a play, really, barring anything from MJ.

Still, they do pay enough attention to Live to have promo-ed the Ed acoustic session. I'm sure that's partly because of the long relationship with the band that MMM have presenting their shows here.
I think Live's gigs will always do well here, they're that popular. But I don't think the new material is going to last long on radio if they keep up this current sound, it's too inwardly and contentedly-orientated to really grasp either the rock or teenage audience here, imho and they seem to have lost the edge of street cred that bands like Pearl Jam have still retained.

I'm more a Triple J fan now but out of interest, I was going through their Hottest 100 archives and sure enough, back in the TC/SS days, Live was high up in there, but of course JJJ wouldn't play them now, fair enough too I suppose.

But besides that, radio in Australia is severely limited in terms of variety, it's shocking compared to the USA.

[SJN1279]

How much money can a label pump into advertisement however? They have to see returns,BOP was solid in sales,but not a huge hit. No point spending shitloads if you are only going to break even.
I can't blame Epic for this time. Half of the fans either don't like this album,or think it's ok. I am one of them,I think it's good,but no where near there previous attempts. So the casual fans aren't going to be blown away by it,and that has shown in sales world wide.

I can't speak for Australia, but in the US this album got very positive reviews. However, if you weren't a Live fan already, you didn't even know the album was coming out. They delayed it to the point that it was a nonentity. Birds of Pray didn't get tons of promotion in the US, but at least it had a steady release date and a timely released single. It was enough to get 40,000 units sold on week 1.

Also I am hearing that the Live-Chris Daughtry version of Mystery isn't even an official single. So a song that would be definite hit for the band, probably will never see the light of day. Epic has done shit for Live. The band's biggest mistake in the US was even signing with that pathetic excuse for a label.

This post has been edited by SJN1279: Jun 14 2006, 7:56 am

[sandkind]

Epic has done shit for Live. The band's biggest mistake in the US was even signing with pathetic excuse for a label.

a-men

[FishOutaWater]

I have just a bunch of questions and confusion over Live's marketability. I think there is a convergeance of many factors impacting album sales. My random thoughts are:

Why was the album delayed so many times? (I wonder if we will ever know the true answer to that one)

How many records is Live committed to with Sony under this contract?

If it wasn't for the fact that Chris Daughtry is a Live fan, the album would not even be released today and NO ONE outside of the hard core fans on these Live message boards would even know that they had a new studio recording. Chris Daughtry is the reason that the album was released on June 6, they were seen by 30 million people and the album and single went into the top 100 on iTunes. But somehow that still didn't translate into satisfactory album sales!

The fact that the album was released overseas months before it was released in the U.S., and the fact that Ed did a mega promotion tour in Australia and Europe but the band never really did such a tour in the U.S., and the release date was changed so many times until it was finally rushed out in a half assed fashion, killed this album.


And finally -- and this may piss some people off -- but only if you take it the wrong way -- I think that the reason that BoP and SFBM sound the way they sound (as many have complained about), and that Ed writes happy and content songs that lack the power and emotion of everything from TDTH and before, is because of the two guys that Ed thanked specifically in the liner notes to SFBM -- Ken Wilber and Genpo Roshi. Now I don't mean that in a bad way from my perspective because I personally like Ken Wilber's work and I am into Integral Spirituality and Big Mind and zen. I find that aspect of the music incredibly satisfying and I love SFBM. But that doesn't translate into mass market appeal, album sales and commercial success. If you are not hearing that aspect of Ed's perspective come through the music, you may not like the album (as many have expressed). I think that Ed first met Ken Wilber after TDTH was released. From that point forward, I think that Ed has been pretty involved with Ken. According to the interview on the podcast that I have linked below, Ed is now writing music that he feels he is channelling as a conduit from Big Mind, at the edge of the universal consciousness. I think that Ed may be coming from a place of happiness and peace by having realized Integral Spirituality and spending a lot of time with Ken Wilber and all of the faculty and featured guests at the Inegral Institute, and that has really shaped his creative process and the product that we all see on the albums. I think that as long as Ed is writing music that is a reflection of a Big Mind practice and Integral Spirituality, the music and melodies are going to sound like The River. Ed has said that SFBM comes from Ed realizing his feminine spiritual aspect and reflecting on the sacred feminine spirit as the artistic muse. I think he is trying to do much more with the music on a personal level than write rocking songs like White Discussion. Like I said, I like the new material, and I like White Discussion too. But I don't think that it necessarily translates to the album purchasing public and that may have something to do with the sales figures of everything after TDTH.

The podcast that I mentioned is the 1/21/06 podcast here:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore...43441&i=1780305

[Soxwsc]

Very interesting post, FishOutaWater. For more into on Ken Wilber, check out Wikipedia.

[Jeff]

I just wanted to mention Stuart Davis in this thread. I discovered him because of Live, and I really enjoy his music and song lyrics. He's big into Ken Wilber and Genpo Roshi like Ed, but still puts out ominous sounding music that isn't just 'new hippie' stuff. For example on his blog he talks about one song on his latest album, "Easter", and how it relates to the Big Mind practice. To compare the two songwriters, I feel like Stuart is a guy looking for answers and questioning everything, vs. Ed seems to have found what's he's looking for. This is of course a generalization, hope people found this interesting. Thanks, Jeff

[sandkind]

big mind=less than stellar music

[Another Mary]

Very interesting post, FishOutaWater. It seems like most artists do their best work when they're not at their happiest.