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Perhaps there's a method to Coldplay's madness, after all. According to early, three-day sales figures from the UK-based Official Charts Company (OCC), a healthy 40 percent of purchases of Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto are coming from downloads. And, those are largely iTunes Store downloads, where Coldplay has been focusing a lot of its promotional (and licensing) energy.
Not only that, it looks like Xylo Myloto is on pace to become one
of the best-selling albums of the year - on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, with three-day, UK-specific sales of 122,000, this is likely to coast to a number one chart ranking in the UK (more on the US later).
Of course, none of this action is happening on Spotify, which Coldplay viewed as a money-loser in this situation. And, quite possibly, a cannibalizing influence on very strong iTunes and disc sales. Spotify is now headquarted in London, and the UK is one of its strongest markets.
And, there's another possible benefit: residual catalog sales. According to the OCC, four different Coldplay titles are displaying huge gains, specifically Parachutes, Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends, X&Y, and A Rush Of Blood To The Head. Oftentimes, corresponding back-catalog bumps are the result of impulse buys, and smart marketing and positioning.
We'll have more stats as they trickle in. Stay tuned.
Comments Closed
CliffBaldwin Friday, October 28, 2011
guess coldplay missed the boat ... all that hooplah about mixing specifically for itunes, and all they put up was more 256K aac files for sale. now that apple promotes alac more (officially open sourced it yesterday!) i bet were going to have to buy the album all over again to get the good quality stuff. so apple, just so apple
http://alac.macosforge.org/
just noticed that the iphone 4s supports lossless (ALAC) too
somethings brewing clearly
gotta get me one of them iPhone4s-es!
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html
Fistful of Dave Tuesday, November 01, 2011
IOS has been able to play ALAC files for a long time. This is not new with the 4S.
NathanJE Friday, October 28, 2011
It's patently obvious now why Coldplay made the move they did w/r/t Spotify. Spotify was either going to add zero or subtract from the total you see here.
Easy decision.
Craig Huizenga Friday, October 28, 2011
Will be interesting to see if they eventually release the album to Spotify. I can see bands using a similar strategy as many of the film studios are doing for DVD releases - release the DVD for sale, and then release to Netflix/Redbox a month or two later. That doesn't seem like a bad strategy to me, and not a bad compromise for the fan (said as someone that actually pays for Spotify...).
bob Friday, October 28, 2011
Ask Adele. She is crushing sales without much streaming.
This is not rocket science. Streaming is lame.
Jason Feinberg Friday, October 28, 2011
One stat that will be interesting to watch is bittorrent and similar traffic. If the belief is that streaming availability reduces piracy, curious to what extent the opposite is true - lack of streaming availability increases piracy. An artist and release this big should show some interesting trends.
radiowaves Friday, October 28, 2011
"According to the OCC, four different Coldplay titles are displaying huge gains, specifically Parachutes, Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends, X&Y, and A Rush Of Blood To The Head."
It's probably worth noting that all of these catalog titles are available on Spotify in the US.
Mr. X Friday, October 28, 2011
Besides a highly talented artist, Brian Eno is also a publishing guru. And being the nice guy that he is, whenever he takes on a production gig for a band, he always gives some tips on this field to the artists.
(not my intention to underestimate the Coldplay legal/business team, of course!)
CSM Friday, October 28, 2011
Interesting. So is Eno's recent "Drums between the Bells" LP on Spotify? Why no, no it isn't.
thank you, Coldplay! Sunday, October 30, 2011
Coldplay is doing an indirect service to the whole music industry, because now Spotify will have to avoid such a big name in their PR operations.
Allow me to remind that Spotify tried to ridicule the smaller labels and artists that publicly refused to work with this streaming platform. Lots and lots of blogs were used in this. Even some that try to present themselves as "music industry blogs", yet only catering to the needs of the IT industry (how ironic).
It would be suicide for the Spotify PR department to attack Coldplay directly. So they will have to act as if nothing happened. And then do it again, when another high profile artist or band follows Coldplay.
The message is now very clear: "Spotify hurts your (iTunes) sales, it is not a music discovery platform".
Ignacio Sunday, October 30, 2011
Actually the album's also #1 on Amazon right now.
CTYankee Sunday, October 30, 2011
Simple case of maximizing cash, but smaller bands don't do this at home ;)=)
Boo Coldplay Sunday, October 30, 2011
Seems like almost every huge band is going to get the same memo here. Am I reading this right that lots of huge bands will be folllowing suit?
newm Monday, October 31, 2011
What purpose does Spotify serve to a band already as globally established as Coldplay?
You could argue that Spotify is a discovery platform for less known bands, but with the amount of money being thrown at Spotify this is never going to be enough to satisfy the investors and without the big name artists it's unlikely the platform would be able to attract many subscribers.
Kristin Thomson Monday, October 31, 2011
We shouldn't forget that Coldplay and their label have made a concerted and very visible effort to promote this record. It's been featured on NPR, they've got some sort of Clear Channel deal going on for commercial radio, it's gotten writeups in Billboard and other places. It's even on the racks at my local Starbucks! All of this marketing and conversation has got to be paying off, and iTunes and Amazon are the defacto/easy places for folks to legally purchase music, especially with the recent closing of Borders chain in the US (another place I expect it would have done well).
steveh Monday, October 31, 2011
The message is now very clear: "Spotify hurts your (iTunes) sales, it is not a music discovery platform".
Artists will now be delaying by 8 or 12 weeks before putting new
releases on Spotify, if at all. This is the obvious wise course of
action.
This is not what Spotify's investors put up $1bn for. Spotify will crumble as a business.
And serve them right. The wanted to be "iTunes killers" - they live by the sword they will die by the sword.
Oh Yes! Monday, October 31, 2011
Spotify has a lot in common with Goldman Sachs.
alden Monday, October 31, 2011
I hate to say this, it's tough for me to even write this.
But Coldplay made the right move.
ANd the reason? If you're a huge band, your decisions are going to be different. Budweiser doesn't make the same decisions as Schenectady Ale, but their both beers. WAY different calculations though.,
@di_tuolomee Monday, October 31, 2011
Diana W.
guess it is paying off!
Technology Has No Morals Monday, October 31, 2011
In regards to your headline "40% of Coldplay's Early Album Sales Are Coming from Downloads", I assume the bigger headline may be "60% of Coldplay #1 Album Sales Still CD!" 12-years after Napster, 10-years after iTunes, the myth of tech was that people did want albums or CDs, yet statistics such as these consistently show otherwise. It is iIllegal downloading that remains the destructive difference in reducing the musician's industry by 50%. Support HR3261 and stop the EFF from continuing to eradicate our Constitutional Right to control copy. Thank you
Technology Has No Morals Monday, October 31, 2011
Line in post above should read: 12-years after Napster, 10-years after iTunes, the myth of tech was that people did -not- want albums or CDs, yet statistics such as these consistently show otherwise.
Sofya Gladysheva Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Regardless of what a big name group like Coldplay is doing wtih Spotify it's just a fact that streaming is where the consumer is going. It saw its revenues increase to £63.17m in 2010, up from £11.32m in 2009, the first year of its rollout.It may be lower quality, and we may be unsure of how the money will play out in the long run, but for lesser known bands it's definitely a platform worth accessing and exploiting. It's word of mouth materialized on the Internet. I trust my friends' music taste more than random music blogs, and the social media aspect is key in Spotify's strategy. Thing is, most people already know about Coldplay..
For more Spotify stats and logistics: http://g00dl00ks.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/when-streaming-with-spotify-mog-or-rdio-who-gets-paid-and-how-much/
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