Martin Orford August 2009

Not really.  It may be their best selling because its a good album, the band is on a popular upswing, and word of mouth is spreading.  Add in the figures of the stolen downloads to the sold CDs and the sales figures could be even better than they are.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

Windhawk - I should say I'm only a bit of a lurker on the IQ forum, to my shame haven't posted there for ages. I've followed them for ages but never seen any concrete info on sales, on the forum or elsewhere.  The statement seems pretty unequivocal though...

Link to the topic on the IQ forum: http://www.iq-forum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2233&start=30

I hate to say this, but typical hype, it hasn't.

Teaflax, I already know you like to instigate sh*t, and I know how this business works, and I can pull sales records at retail, so I know what the numbers are, so that's pretty much that.  Feel free to open yourself a soundscan account and pull them for yourself.

O.K., for those who believe that sanctions will work, please take some time to read the RIAA's successes and the increase in CD sales in the past decade.
Then, imagine how many more CDs IQ would have sold if only blah blah blah. Are you certain that the other entertainment options available to people today does not have an effect ? Are you sure that those legal consumer choices don't actually play a much bigger part in decreasing CD sales ?

 So let's spend another 10 years staking out the moral high ground which is not even the site of any relevant battle nowadays. If all you can do is state the obvious (it's illegal) then join the ranks of the many who have made no progress in truly helping the musicians get paid for their music.

Or if you want an analogy - compare how effective the war on drugs is on drug use. Has the increase in funds been matched by a comparable decrease in drug use ? At what point does it make sense to think about how to make things work in today's world.

again, don't bother banging your head against the wall when there might be a window or door that you can use. And there are. Just not the ones that the industry was used to for the last 30-40 years. Reading up on the average  musician's challenges in the times preceding this so-called golden age might be an eye opener.

digital downloads are one option. they will not be the saviour of the industry. subscription services will be part of it too. but again, they won't be the answer to the entire problem. it will, unfortunately for the artistically entitled artiste, require work, and attention paid to the fan(s) who will pay for the LPs, CDs, Special edition box sets, merchandise, tour tickets, and such. Oh wait, the verb will "is" passed on ... the verb is "does" .
Radio , TV, advertising, record labels and such are no longer arbiters of what people will get to buy or hear. The listener is. And he has many more  choices today. Not counting the other amusing divertissements  that he can spend his hard earned money on. You do know that there are other things now that have taken up the consumer's budget , right ??? unless you can show me that consumers also got a matching pay raise to afford buying as much music as they used to AND pick up that Wii, that HDTV wide screen plus the home theater, and then that paper thin laptop that Little Joe wanted for Xmas, and that Iphone that your wife insisted she needs for her business, as if your blackberry wasn't good enough for her.

But that's harder to figure out than just pointing the finger at easy targets.

what was that guy's name - Dan Quiche eat ...


Edited by debrewguy - September 30 2009 at 21:21

As for IQ sales, until any better numbers may arise. Did a check on amazon's uk department, which should be a useful indicator for sales since they've ben around "forever", and is a sales outlet that shifts a fair few number of copies.

Sales rank Frequency: 21.759
Sales rank Dark Matter: 41.559

For the US department of Amazon:
Frequency: 152.528
Dark Matter: 66.092

For the German department of Amazon:
Frequency: 11.020
Dark Matter: 8,452

Apparently, Dark Matter shifted many more copies in the US and a few more in Germany than IQ's latest did, while in the UK the situation is the totally opposite.

Which makes Shawn's observations pretty accurate for the US market, yet also makes it plausible that IQ have actually sold more copies in total for their latest than for their previous effort.

Thoughts?

The amazon numbers are total sales in a sales list - i.e. on the list of highest selling albums these albums have place such and such.
These are the list placements for the standard editions of those albums - various special editions doesn't count.
For better or worse, these are indicators as to how much more or less the given albums have sold compared to each other. Sadly they don't say anything about the number of copies shifted as such.

Well...that was a depressing, bitter, and sad interview. But it was also sobering and insightful.

Overall, taking everything into account if I could trade no internet downloading--legal, illegal, good, bad--for the old CD/vinyl culture. I think I might just do it. There are positives and negatives we all know.

I would love to be candid about downloading, and I think I could at least give worthy opinions on it, but I think the past has proved to me ProgArchives is not the place for that.


Edited by stonebeard - September 30 2009 at 23:55

I had to quote this:

Finnforest wrote: There are two issues being criss-crossed here for the convenience of the download-is-ok viewpoint.  The first issue is artist adaptibility and that some bands are able to soldier on while Martin is not.  This is a fair point to raise and it's great news.  If some bands can adapt and continue, enjoy the indepence, and prosper in the paradigm that exists in 20 years, that's fantastic, and more power to them .    But that is a completely separate issue from whether one entitles themselves to break existing laws, because they feel they should get to do as they please, and they have the capability.  Because the new breed of artist is able to "make it" doesn't strengthen the case of the thief one bit.  They have still broken the law and it is wrong any way you slice it.    If you think the laws are a joke, and you wish to break them because it's easy to do, that's your decision.  But you can't cleanse the immorality of it by pointing to some musicians who are prospering.  They are reacting to a climate created by the thieves, not the other way around.  That they have been successful is great news but it changes nothing about the "right and wrong" of taking something without paying.  And there has been nothing posted so far that makes taking-without-permission into a clean act.  And there won't be.    Last, I'm buying Martin's cd to thank him for having the courage to tell it like it is.  Hope it's good stuff, I've never heard his work.

Excellent post, FF, excellent

again, the point is missed - the past ten years' solutions to this problem have proven to be ineffective in stopping illegal downloads. CD sales have decreased even further. And illegal downloads are not the major reason why this has happened. That most would deny this means zilch to the real world.

To say that the excuses used by the thieves are self serving is nice, but that accomplishes ???

It is simply time for musicians to look honestly at what is out there and plan accordingly.

Oh, btw, this past year as a household we spent money renting DVDs, buying a video game console and games, getting a cellphone (monthly payments, eh), buying a new DVD player, along with switching to a more expensive satellite TV package. On top of that, I've purchased a dozen local releases, and regularly pick up used CDs & LPs at Spin-It.  New music purchases included about 10 downloads (half of which were Marillion, god bless their value priced offerings). Another 5 were current releases.  As neither my wife or I have gotten major pay raises, can you guess how that might affect what I spend on music ?

And to think that just 5 years ago, I would get at least 20-25 new releases, along with a dozen or so back catalogue items (brand new, not used) a year, along with another 20 from second hand stores. And if a music freak like me has changed their spending habits like that, do you all think it's possible that others have too ?
Again, feel free to live with the easy answers - berating a behaviour that is illegal, yet has shown no signs of being affected by the legal sanctions pursued, disallowing studies that state that criminal actions such as downloads do not impact CD sales as much as is claimed, completely ignoring many media commentators pointing out additional and alternatives entertainment options available to consumers, avoiding any discussion of how an increase of musical acts and the subsequent releases by all these acts just ends up making for smaller pieces of pie for ALL musicians, added to the reality that a perfect storm of cultural & financial  forces made for a commercial golden age that had never been seen in the music industry nor will ever be seen again, and a stubborn resolve to seeing that music is & will be delivered in a different manner that most prefer, compounded by the simple abundance of music so that most now (already) have more than they will ever be able to listen to, all forces that contribute to a market that does not respond to simple declarations of legalities and sympathies.

If another ten years of this merry go round is the choice,  go ahead, you know the results so far ...

There are a number of things that my parents' generation had, have, and will have that I will never enjoy. My bellyaching will not change that. But there are many things that my parents never got, and will not be able to fully enjoy. Neither situation is perfect, and neither changes because either doesn't like it. But you still gotta live, eh ...

And so I expect ye go on for another ten years ... (for those who cannot spotify the new reality nor accept the work now required to get paid for their work )


Edited by debrewguy - October 01 2009 at 06:50