Yeah, but the majors own Spotify, so now what.

Adele is not streaming, nor the new Tom Waits. All selling well.

Tha Carter IV is also selling well, having been simultaneously released on Spotify.  In fact its opening week (964k) was almost as good as Tha Carter III (1m).

I'm reading a lot of spin and people seeing what they want to see on this site.

Huh?  I'm not seeing any data proving anything.  Taylor Swift. Lady Gaga.  Kanye West.  These artists sold more than Coldplay their first week, yet were all available on streaming services the same day.  In fact, Adele's 21 was available on all the streaming services at the day of release (Spotify was not in the U.S. yet), and she has obviously sold a heckuva lot of albums.  Sorry, this feels like Netflix all over again.  The content industry is very shortsighted.

Taylor Swift. Lady Gaga.  Kanye West.  These artists sold more than Coldplay their first week, yet were all available on streaming services the same day. 

Right.  And they probably would have sold MORE without streaming services.  

...based on?

I have to agree. This doesn't prove anything at all and is just history repeating itself once again - the same industry making the same mistakes. Pulling out of streaming services is just like taking years to get into digital even though everyone was downloading mp3s - and look what that did to the majors.

People will consume music how they want to. </2p>

This proves nothing. To be useful theyt would have had to have a reference case. MAybe UK streaming US no streaming or something similar. AS research this is useless. Also they got a mile of press out of their spotify snub. That will not happen next time.

To be fair, THIS isn't "industry" doing anything.  THIS is an artist with clout deciding to not have their album on the streaming services and 447k fans paying to own their album. 

What works for Coldplay, however, may have next to zero to do with what will work for the average middle-class indie band/artist which is why the majority of the "industry" is licensed with the streaming services.

Exactly.  Besides, first week sales don't really tell the story.  It takes weeks to know what you really have.  

I don't really understand why it's such a surprise that artists not on streaming services sell more albums than artists that are. It sounds like it should be obvious to me. If it's only available on a single legal outlet, it's no shock to me that the sales would be more than if the sales are distributed among several legal outlets.

Why all this obsession with what the top 10/20/30/40/whatever do? Coldplay don't need blogs like digitalmusicnews.com, they can afford top advisers. Please continue catering to the indie artists who come here to learn something new every day.

Your belief is misguided and baseless. Give me one solid statistic to prove your point.

Let me tell you what is really essential for emerging artists: Royalties.

Exactamente

What did Viva La Vida... do first week out?  How does Mylo... compare to that?  That may be some sort of indication what influence streaming did or did not have on sales.  To compare Coldplay to another artist is ludicrous...different fan-base...different demographics...different music.  Then again, comparing it with Viva... probably isn't the best benchmark either because of the changes in the industry and the entities that either existed or didn't exist at the time. 

Coldplay is Coldplay... they will sell.

They have proven themselves time & time again.

I don't know why this is news.

I am have not been a Coldplay fan since X&Y... I would not buy the album because i don't like Coldplay.

I may stream it if it were available on Spotify but now I won't hear the album till one of the songs get's licensed into a tv show or movie I love.

This article is kind of pointless.

Lil' Wayne sold 800k first week... his target market streams, youtubes, torrents, illegally downloads etc... But it's Wayne. Another proven seller.

I think the point is to be spin against streaming services, Spotify in particular.

Look, we can spin the other way too:

2011 U.S. Album Sales Still Strong After Three Quarters [Billboard.biz -- 6 Oct 2011] "As the year heads into its home stretch, things are looking up for the U.S. music industry - sales are on track to increase over the previous year, something that hasn't happened since 2004."

Let's see, streaming services grew in 2010 (Rdio launched in Oct 2010), providing consumers with virutally unlimited access to new releases and catalog titles and the ability to discover new music like never before.  Then came the first increase in sales in 7 years?  Clearly, this means streaming services are good for the music industry!

I fully agree. Digital Music News has been anti Spotify from the start. That's fine with me, but please come with real data and proof. 

This article is utter nonsense and doesn't prove a thing.

hilarious - yet now you're getting spun by the labels. Units sales are up b/c they're cheaper, revenues are probably down (AGAIN).

This all hides the fact that Coldplays last album sold 720,000 copies in the first week and the new one did about 40% less in the first week...   Even when you concider the argument that albums don't sell as well these days ... it's still a hefty decline.

It's impossible to tell how much of an effect not putting up on Spotify had but it's likely more and more established artists will take this approach.

I don't think anyone can argue that releasing it on Spotify would have increased sales. So it makes no sense for them to do so.

The bigger questions is if this does become commonplace with established major label acts then how much is that going to hurt Spotify? People cancelling subscriptions when the realise they can't get new albums for weeks after release? New sign ups dropping because it's just not as attractive a proposition anymore?

Who cares and what are they comparing these figures to? Other albums that have released across the board have one just as well. If you are a true Coldplay fan, maybe you will buy it regardingly. I'm not, so I'll wait until it is available on Spotify. However, when more users understand how much more convient it is to use a service like Spotify or Rdio, users would eventually be fine with "waiting it out". 

Who cares and what is Coldplay comparing figures to? Other albums that have been released on streaming services have performed just as well. If you are a true Coldplay fan, maybe you will buy it regardingly. I'm not, so I'll wait until it is available on Spotify. However, when more users understand how much more convient it is to use a service like Spotify or Rdio, users would eventually be fine with "waiting it out". 

You know it's funny.  Back in the day there were these weird disc things called records, then it changed to Cassettes, which then became CD's, these were all the evolutionary process that led to MP3's and streaming.  Back in another century we had to buy an entire album to hear the only song we probably liked on the entire record.  

Coldplay and their team are smart.  They know they don't want us to stream the album for free and find out for ourselves it's not that great. Itunes only lets you listen to 30 or so seconds of a song to preview before buying.  So the consumer is forced to buy the entire song, like we used to back in the day. Smart marketing, only the rich get richer.

Stupid labels and artists that complain about Spotify and streaming stores not paying enough money, your anger is directed at the wrong place.

http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2011/11/05/apple-bonus-time-400-million-for-exec-board/

Why doesn't Apple cut the labels / artists in on the device sales? Microsoft did with Zune.

Instead of bitching over pennies per stream, why not get some of the bonus pool $ they pay their execs? Instead of supporting servcies like Spotify, MOG and Rdio which will be the future, you're holding on to a liferaft with a hole in it.