My take on Eclipse's debut sales

[Jana]

I could honestly care less how many copies this album sales,
Where it places on the charts, or how much money it generates.
I don't benefit from any of that.

I got my copy, and I am THRILLED with the outcome,
So being the selfish person I am, I'm happy

I agree from own perspective,too. But what happens with older bands, if their last album sells poorly, then they don't get a deal to put out another album.

It's been six years since Tears for Fears put out a new album, and I'm sure it's because it debuted so low 27 thousand and probably never sold huge; though may have over time done well with them doing limited touring.. Fans keep asking them for new music and Curt recently said it's not worth it with them both living in different countries and no true label makiing it worthwhile for Roland to uproot his family and move to California for a year and write on the album where all the band members are. It's sad because I love their music and I love getting new music from my favorites, not having to live just on just past music.

[Jana]

No major record label has really been interested in Journey post Perry. Sony was involved with Arrival, but the fact that it was Augeri and not Perry and being leaked didn't help anything there. I also believe the WalMart deal was in the works pre-Arnel, and the GH disc is what they really wanted, and certainly they had that in the can with Augeri and probably Soto, and had they held it to 4 new tracks, I am sure that Augeri, even with his vocal troubles and the help of some studio magic, could pulled off the requested tracks for Walmart. No offense to Arnel, but I don't think him being the frontman made any difference with that deal or makes the band anymore relative than they ever have been post-Perry. Certainly, he has helped attract a certain demographic that they didn't have before, and may have helped open the door to more overseas touring, but that is hard to quantify. At least at the end of Augeri/Soto time frame, efforts were being made to tour more extensively worldwide. Like it or not, I am still of the opinion that it was a PR/media phenomenon with DSB being in Glee and the ending of the Sorpranos that sparked people's interest. It just so happened that at that time Arnel was brand new to the band, and add to that his story, and it was media gold. That has long since worn off, and what likely will result is pretty much the same result they saw with Arrival and Generations.... minimal to no promotion = low sales, and they will end up making all their money touring.

I think the Arnel story helped as much as anything else. He's definitely the goose that laid the golden egg in that band. They made him a full member. If I were Castronovo, I'd go on strike. He's got the perfect backing vocals and is a great drummer for that band.

I think Deen is a full member. They all are, from what I remember.

[Archetype]

No major record label has really been interested in Journey post Perry. Sony was involved with Arrival, but the fact that it was Augeri and not Perry and being leaked didn't help anything there. I also believe the WalMart deal was in the works pre-Arnel, and the GH disc is what they really wanted, and certainly they had that in the can with Augeri and probably Soto, and had they held it to 4 new tracks, I am sure that Augeri, even with his vocal troubles and the help of some studio magic, could pulled off the requested tracks for Walmart. No offense to Arnel, but I don't think him being the frontman made any difference with that deal or makes the band anymore relative than they ever have been post-Perry. Certainly, he has helped attract a certain demographic that they didn't have before, and may have helped open the door to more overseas touring, but that is hard to quantify. At least at the end of Augeri/Soto time frame, efforts were being made to tour more extensively worldwide. Like it or not, I am still of the opinion that it was a PR/media phenomenon with DSB being in Glee and the ending of the Sorpranos that sparked people's interest. It just so happened that at that time Arnel was brand new to the band, and add to that his story, and it was media gold. That has long since worn off, and what likely will result is pretty much the same result they saw with Arrival and Generations.... minimal to no promotion = low sales, and they will end up making all their money touring.

I think the Arnel story helped as much as anything else. He's definitely the goose that laid the golden egg in that band. They made him a full member. If I were Castronovo, I'd go on strike. He's got the perfect backing vocals and is a great drummer for that band.

I think Deen is a full member. They all are, from what I remember.

I'm curious about Deen's salary. Well, all of them, actually. But Deen in particular for some reason

[Rick]

No major record label has really been interested in Journey post Perry. Sony was involved with Arrival, but the fact that it was Augeri and not Perry and being leaked didn't help anything there. I also believe the WalMart deal was in the works pre-Arnel, and the GH disc is what they really wanted, and certainly they had that in the can with Augeri and probably Soto, and had they held it to 4 new tracks, I am sure that Augeri, even with his vocal troubles and the help of some studio magic, could pulled off the requested tracks for Walmart. No offense to Arnel, but I don't think him being the frontman made any difference with that deal or makes the band anymore relative than they ever have been post-Perry. Certainly, he has helped attract a certain demographic that they didn't have before, and may have helped open the door to more overseas touring, but that is hard to quantify. At least at the end of Augeri/Soto time frame, efforts were being made to tour more extensively worldwide. Like it or not, I am still of the opinion that it was a PR/media phenomenon with DSB being in Glee and the ending of the Sorpranos that sparked people's interest. It just so happened that at that time Arnel was brand new to the band, and add to that his story, and it was media gold. That has long since worn off, and what likely will result is pretty much the same result they saw with Arrival and Generations.... minimal to no promotion = low sales, and they will end up making all their money touring.

I think the Arnel story helped as much as anything else. He's definitely the goose that laid the golden egg in that band. They made him a full member. If I were Castronovo, I'd go on strike. He's got the perfect backing vocals and is a great drummer for that band.

I think Deen is a full member. They all are, from what I remember.

Good deal. He should be.

[Archetype]

There's really only one thing to take away from the possibility of a poor showing on the billboard top 200: A complete failure in the marketing department. Utterly pathetic...whoever was in charge of marketing for this album should be summoned and executed. Seriously; no commercials, no radio promotion, no Walmart advertisements, just two shitty youtube EPKs and word of mouth. That's it! Journey's official facebook didn't even do anything for it, and that would have cost them nothing.

[S2M]

There's really only one thing to take away from the possibility of a poor showing on the billboard top 200: A complete failure in the marketing department. Utterly pathetic...whoever was in charge of marketing for this album should be summoned and executed. Seriously; no commercials, no radio promotion, no Walmart advertisements, just two shitty youtube EPKs and word of mouth. That's it! Journey's official facebook didn't even do anything for it, and that would have cost them nothing.

Anybody who would have had Journey as a FB 'like' was already planning on buying the album. No loss there.

[Archetype]

There's really only one thing to take away from the possibility of a poor showing on the billboard top 200: A complete failure in the marketing department. Utterly pathetic...whoever was in charge of marketing for this album should be summoned and executed. Seriously; no commercials, no radio promotion, no Walmart advertisements, just two shitty youtube EPKs and word of mouth. That's it! Journey's official facebook didn't even do anything for it, and that would have cost them nothing.

Anybody who would have had Journey as a FB 'like' was already planning on buying the album. No loss there.

Oh, really? Then Lady Gaga should be left in the dust with Journey's 2,296,283 FB likes.

Edit: Just refreshed it and it's up to 2,296,287. Four likes in the matter of about ten seconds.

[S2M]

There's really only one thing to take away from the possibility of a poor showing on the billboard top 200: A complete failure in the marketing department. Utterly pathetic...whoever was in charge of marketing for this album should be summoned and executed. Seriously; no commercials, no radio promotion, no Walmart advertisements, just two shitty youtube EPKs and word of mouth. That's it! Journey's official facebook didn't even do anything for it, and that would have cost them nothing.

Anybody who would have had Journey as a FB 'like' was already planning on buying the album. No loss there.

Oh, really? Then Lady Gaga should be left in the dust with Journey's 2,296,283 FB likes.

Edit: Just refreshed it and it's up to 2,296,287. Four likes in the matter of about ten seconds.

Let me modify that, due to your literal treatment of my statement...Kinda like the logical statement: All dogs are animals. But the reverse isn't true: All animals are dogs.

What I meant was not every Journey FB friend would be buying it, but the ones who WOULD tend to buy it, already knew about it.

[Archetype]

There's really only one thing to take away from the possibility of a poor showing on the billboard top 200: A complete failure in the marketing department. Utterly pathetic...whoever was in charge of marketing for this album should be summoned and executed. Seriously; no commercials, no radio promotion, no Walmart advertisements, just two shitty youtube EPKs and word of mouth. That's it! Journey's official facebook didn't even do anything for it, and that would have cost them nothing.

Anybody who would have had Journey as a FB 'like' was already planning on buying the album. No loss there.

Oh, really? Then Lady Gaga should be left in the dust with Journey's 2,296,283 FB likes.

Edit: Just refreshed it and it's up to 2,296,287. Four likes in the matter of about ten seconds.

Let me modify that, due to your literal treatment of my statement...Kinda like the logical statement: All dogs are animals. But the reverse isn't true: All animals are dogs.

What I meant was not every Journey FB friend would be buying it, but the ones who WOULD tend to buy it, already knew about it.

I'm quite convinced that an effective facebook campaign would have added 15k-20k in sales easily. Instead they just kept promoting the stupid VIP package that was already selling out anyway. Then on the 24th they FINALLY made a mention of Eclipse. They should have been releasing samples on there, asking people their favorite tracks, etc. Should have created hype. Fuck, if Barack Obama can use facebook to win the presidency, Journey can use facebook to sell at least 50k albums in a week.

[Don]

That 'official' facebook page for Journey still had a Perry era profile photo on it until about 8 months ago.

[Rick]

Adding to my confusion as to why they didn't promote it is that Walmart gives these artists much more per unit sold than any label ever did. They made about 6 or 7 bucks a unit sold on Revelation. I have to think it's upwards of 5 or 6 on this disk.

[DracIsBack]

They made about 6 or 7 bucks a unit sold on Revelation. I have to think it's upwards of 5 or 6 on this disk.

That seems really, REALLY high, given how cheap REVELATION was as a package and that Walmart themselves is known to take big margins on some items. Suppose it could have been a loss-leader to get people in the stores, but $2-3 unit seems more likely to me. IIRC, that's what the Eagles got (plus a commitment for a certain number of units at that rate). I paid $10.99 for Revelation at Walmart ... $7 bucks + cost of goods sold + advertising at that rate would mean likely money lost.

Sad to say, is anyone really surprised by the sales of ECLIPSE? I was cheering for that one too, but without the "we'll throw in a 'greatest hits' and a live dvd of 'greatest hits' for $10.99" strategy, how on earth was ECLIPSE supposed to rival Revelation's sales?