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Things I Did While I Was In Debt

• Matthew:
• out of curiosity, how is No Age doing
• maura:
• 8,365
• total
• Matthew:
• I guess that's relatively healthy in context
• maura:
• dude i think i read that many words about them just from your blog post and the responses to it alone
• Chris:
• god, the music industry is totally fucked
• Matthew:
• seriously.
• at least yr not on THAT sinking ship
• Chris:
• What was list price on that album?
• Matthew:
• probably 12.99?
• something in that zone?
• Chris:
• I'm trying to figure out which book we publish is a bigger deal than No Age
• So what's wholesale? 40% of that?
• Matthew:
• No Age's packaging is REALLY nice and expensive
• Sub Pop might have to sell a good number just to recoup on the costs of that
• Chris:
• $43,464.54 in proceeds at wholesale cost.
• (If wholesale is 40% of list.)
• So maybe they've shipped about 11,000 copies of that record.
• Also worth noting - Robyn also outsold that record.
• In her first week.
• Matthew:
• well, jeez
• let's hope so!
• given the push on that
• and the relative accessibility
• I'd hope that she'd be able to outsell a glorified local punk band
• Chris:
• I might be misremembering but I think Robyn did a little over 9k first-week
• well, a glorified local punk band with the entire weight of the hipster music press behind them
• so i guess we see how much that "weighs"
• Matthew:
• it's not much weight
• it's waif weight
• I mean
• I'm sure it's doing great on torrents
• what's the point of even being a hit to an audience who refuses to spend money?
• Chris:
• sigh
• it blows my mind that people simply cannot accept the principle that it takes money to make things happen
• and it always has
• Matthew:
• "they'll make money on the tour"
• sure they will, those dudes sell tickets for $15 tops at small venues....
• great math!
• Chris:
• And half the people who download the record wouldn't go see them anyway! While still spouting that as an excuse.
• Matthew:
• yeah.
• IF ONLY EVERYTHING I WANTED WAS FREE
• I'm sure the No Age free show at South Street Seaport will be packed
• Chris:
• more people at one NYC show than bought the record across the country
• Matthew:
• yup
• Chris:
• that must be depressing to think about
• Matthew:
• I don't know if those dudes care
• as long as they have their vegan snack shop in LA to perform at, they're good
• Chris:
• "Wow, guys, we're really humbled that you like us enough to not do anything at all that might benefit us in any way"
• That'd be a nice line for somebody to deliver from stage sometime
• "Thanks for not buying our record, and not paying to come to our show, we really appreciate it"
• Addendum -
• maura:
• the robyn album
• sold 7100 in its first week
• and then plopped off the chart
• and as a benchmark
• the lowest-selling album on this week's soundscan 200 sold 3,000 copies (iron man soundtrack)
• so yeah
• i would think that maybe it's somewhere in the 15k range as of now