jrny84 wrote:Thanks gunbot. Didnt realize most of their record sales outside the United States were Asian based. I just never knew that whitesnake was so popular worldwide, because in the United States many people have not even heard of them. Journey actually did sell a million units with their new album Revelation I believe.
If one million people bought Revelation, it would be double platinum. Remember each package counts as two. Walmart took a 5 dollar loss per package to get people into the store. All they care about is how many individuals came into the store to try and buy it. I doubt they'll do another package deal with Journey. Revelation was a loss leader like the other exclusive releases Walmart does. It loses money but gets people in the door to hopefully buy other products to make up for it. Walmart has only done one package for each artist, and Reo Speedwagon along with Journey probably sold the least While the Eagles, Garth Brooks, and AC/DC did a lot better. The problem with this kind of promotion is it's a one and done deal. Walmart doesn't have to keep the record in stock after the initial run because the customers have been already introduced to the store now.
They are not like Sony or Warner who will keep printing your record making it go multi-platinum. Once Walmart has the initial launch out of the way, your record is toast, and Walmart moves on to the next artist. Only two percent of Walmarts business is centered around music. They have hinted before about stopping the sales of music all together in their stores, it's not a big deal to them.
Journey needs to find a way to get their next release on Itunes or Amazon. Being Walmart exclusive hurt them when people were looking for their music after the SuperBowl Performance. Sony benefited more by having their Journey catalog easily accessable on itunes and the original version of DSB climbed back up the charts a little because of it.
As far as WhiteSnake goes, I don't know where you were in the Eighties but WhiteSnake was a huge act and all over MTV. They, along with Bon Jovi, Poison, and other hairbands were the ones that knocked Journey out of the game after 1986.