how in the hell did Norah Jones sell 1.2 million copies of her new album in a week?!
 

wow, now that was a suprise. I thought number 1, but not this great.

from ew.com

A lot of artists saw a post-Grammy bounce in sales, but the biggest boost went to Norah Jones, who's still enjoying a bounce from last year's Grammys. The 2003 awards show kicked sales of her debut, ''Come Away With Me,'' into overdrive (it's sold 8 million copies to date), and it created such anticipation for her follow-up CD that when ''Feels Like Home'' was released last week, it sold 1.02 million copies out of the box, according to SoundScan. That's the best first week any album has enjoyed in nearly three years (since 'N Sync's ''Celebrity'' debuted with sales of 1.88 million in 2001) and the second best week ever for a female performer (the champ is Britney Spears, who sold 1.32 million copies of ''Oops... I Did It Again'' when that CD debuted in 2000).

Also enjoying a strong debut this week was rapper Kanye West, whose ''The College Dropout'' moved 440,000 units for a second-place finish. The two newcomers pushed Kenny Chesney's ''When the Sun Goes Down'' from its chart-topping position last week to No. 3 this week, as the album sold another 350,000 discs. Grammy Album of the Year ''Speakerboxxx/The Love Below'' saw OutKast jump two spots on the chart to No. 4 and enjoy a whopping 147 percent sales boost to 275,000 copies. Josh Groban's ''Closer'' also saw a sales jump, up 34 percent to 241,000, but his album slid one slot to No. 5.

Similarly, Harry Connick's ''Only You'' rose in sales but slipped one notch to No. 6. Best New Artist winners Evanescence held at No. 7 with ''Fallen'' but saw sales nearly double. Twista's ''Kamikaze'' dropped five spots to No. 8. Incubus' ''A Crow Left of the Murder'' fell seven places to No. 9. And the ''2004 Grammy Nominees'' compilation nearly doubled sales and rose three spots to No. 10.

(Posted:02/18/04)

The $9.99 price tag at the major retailers (Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.) probably didn't hurt.

No it's gotta be the RIAA suing everyone and their grandmothers

Wow, that's VERY surprising, especially for an artist of her type. I've only seen her video like once on tv.

:up: to Kanye for coming in 2nd, but I thought he'd definitely be #1.

[SINGS] DON'T KNOW WHY... [SINGS]

Actually, I think it's just because people like silent boring singing..

Ana Torroja, much better = )

She crosses many age line in terms of her fanbase. Young hip kids to older lovers of "Standards" all love her stuff. She gets played on MTV a lot and on other types of video channels

She does :confused:

I've only seen the video for "Don't know why" a couple times, and that was on VH1. And I've only seen the video for her latest single once.

There are a lot of Jetta-driving, Starbucks-drinkers out there. ;)

I've seen her on there.

*She makes great music.

*Her last album was great from start to finish, no filler.

*As her sales indicate, many people were more than ready for something different (musically) than what mainstream radio plays constantly (nu-metal/pop/hip-hop) .

:up:

Remember that it is 1.2 million copies sold to retail, not to the record buying public. Just because the record labels says an album has sold 1.2 million copies, it does't necessarily mean 1.2 million people went out and bought it. It means that 1.2 million copies were packaged and shiped to the stores. I'm sure that that album will sell well more than 1.2 million copies easily, so it doesn't suprise me that that many were sent out in the first round.

I am not really a big fan of hers, but Norah is a bright spot in this modern world of crapy music, and deserves the recognition she is getting. I hope the new album pleases her fans even more than the last one.

I'm a Jetta-driving, Caribou Coffee-drinker, thank you. :)

Yeah, but some of us listen to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs instead.

I would like to add that mainstream radio does not play pop music..there is no such thing as pop music on us radio right now..

howw verwy trwue.

now, who's this Norah Jones singer? :hscratch:

"Actually, I think it's just because people like silent boring singing.."

Fortuantely it's due to people actaully having good taste in music. How else would you explain it and the FACT that no other CD in the past 3 years has done so well. Sounds like people are getting back to REAL music that has substance and soul.

melody helps too.

So I guess you consider Nsync to be REAL music with substance and soul?

No, believe me, I could write a music video that has an entire Norah Jones CD, and stock footage of rolling tumbleweed, a office style aquaium, and a man painting a house, and it would make sense.

ANA

TORROJA.

Actually it DID sell 1.02..not shipped...1.02 million people bought the CD..

this is a quote from AOL news..
"last week, it sold 1.02 million copies out of the box, according to SoundScan"

Soundscan doesnt keep track of what ships..it counts what SELLS..
And this doesnt include mom and pop shops..atleast the ones that still exist anyway...

Hmmmmm. interesting, so your saying Soundscan works like Billboard, and estimates sales by the public through certain record/store chains. I must say I havn't researched much about Soundscan. I do know that the RIAA only counts sales to it's retailers, and not the general public. That is where I was coming from. So acording to Soundscan, thier estamates are that it sold at least 1.02 million, but it could be more. That's still not 1.2 million (180,000 shy), but what does that matter, it's still a lot of records to move in one week, wow!!

That means we should see the RIAA anounce that the album has gone platnum here soon. That is an icredible first week for any artist of any genre. Like I said, I'm not a fan of hers, but Kudos to her. That is a hell of an acheavment, it has to rank up there highly in the all time list for a first week of sales . It is nice to see someone like her do well, instead of all those thug acts like 15cent.

If anything expect RIAA to give her double platinum!
I dont like Norah by any means but you still gotta respect numbers like that...
Soundscan isnt an estimate..its more or less exact(with the exception of rounding numbers). Most stores now adays take part in soundscan. Basically what happens is all the sales that got run through the register get sent most likely to the stores home office where they then forward the numbers on to soundscan. If thats not EXACTLY how it works its more or less along those lines...

This is from the Nielsen website

"Nielsen SoundScan is an information system that tracks sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada. Sales data from point-of-sale cash registers is collected weekly from over 14,000 retail, mass merchant and non-traditional (on-line stores, venues, etc.) outlets. Weekly data is compiled and made available every Wednesday. Nielsen SoundScan is the sales source for the Billboard music charts"

:lol:

<a href=http://www.lptrixie.com>Trixie?</a>

Actually this last part is incorrect... sorta.

Here's how Soundscan works:
The potential for all sales at ANY location included internet, B&M chains and small mom&pop/used CD (though only counting new sales) stores is all factored in to the final number. Soundscan only has 14,000 stores that report data to them though, but they weight them based on all potential retailers.

So I walk into Best Buy and purchase the Norah Jones CD. Best Buy reports my sale to Soundscan. Now normally this would count as 1 purchase, but since Soundscan knows I COULD have walked into a non-reporting store and bought it (and that many people do) my sale might count as 1.2 purchases or 1.5 purchase or even 2.0 and up. The weighting per sale is based on A) The Store bought at and b) the location. So it's entirely possible that if I drove to Dallas to buy the CD it might count more than if I bought it here in Austin.

The numbers they report, while exact to a single digit (they're probably reporting 1,021,532 sales or something like that) are still just an estimate, although in 14 years they probably have it down pretty good.

Mordred