***Official "Dark Side of The Moon SACD" Review Thread*** (1 Viewer)

[Steve Meskell]

No. 19

http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/popcat.jsp

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Steve,

Thanks for the chart - 19 is pretty good for this environment, maybe it will remain there as word gets out.

 

[Marc Colella]

No. 19

http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/popcat.jsp

That's alot of unused SACD layers.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

That's alot of unused SACD layers.

That's a lot of assumption.

Marc,

Do you work at Soundscan or Sony and have proprietary insight into the redbook versus SACD breakdown?

No. Nobody does. Not even Sony does if Soundscan does not track it. Maybe a market research firm could do a survey and provides some estimates at best...

 

[Ed St. Clair]

That's alot of unused Red Book layers.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Hey, I listened to the Red Book Layer!

Once.

For a few seconds anyway...

 

[Marc Colella]

That's a lot of assumption.

Marc,

Do you work at Soundscan or Sony and have proprietary insight into the redbook versus SACD breakdown?

No. Nobody does. Not even Sony does if Soundscan does not track it. Maybe a market research firm could do a survey and provides some estimates at best...

First off, lighten up.

Secondly, I don't need inside information or a survey to know that the vast majority of sales for this disc is for the CD layer. The audiophile market is pretty damn small; we've known that for years.

 

[LanceJ]

And if the number of discs still sitting there at my Best Buy are any indication (about 25), few people are listening to ANY layer of this album. I've been keeping track since I only live 7 minutes from there (and there's a Starbucks next door!); and one of the employees told me yesterday that except for the first two days of its release, no one else has asked about it.

I predict this particular DSOTM disc section will require regular dustings............

LJ

 

[Mike Broadman]

Here's an extremely simple and quite late review, as I finally got to listen to the surround track yesterday.

It's good. Really good. I mean, really, really good.

I now return you all to your regularly scheduled bickering.

 

[Brian L]

And if the number of discs still sitting there at my Best Buy are any indication (about 25), few people are listening to ANY layer of this album. I've been keeping track since I only live 7 minutes from there (and there's a Starbucks next door!); and one of the employees told me yesterday that except for the first two days of its release, no one else has asked about it.

Well, I see that as somewhat self-fulfilling given the lack of promotion at Best Buy, Circuit City etc.

I noted one microscopic mention in the Best Buy ad the Sunday before release, and a somewhat larger mention the following weekend.

Those first two days of sales were from folks like us that follow this stuff and ran down there at lunch time. In fact, when I walked in and found that my local BB had moved the SACD's, the clerk asked if I was looking for DSOTM when I asked where the hell the SACD's were.

Anyhow, there was no great effort that I could detect to push this to the non-audiofile.

If they had put a bit of promotion into the release, they could easily have sold what they had. I mean cripes, its frickin' Dark Side of the Moon! How many people over a certain did NOT grow up listening to this? How many years did this ride on the top of the album charts?

This should have been a no-brainer to sell, and like with the Stones releases, once people got the disc, they might be curious about hearing the SACD version (MC or Stereo) and buy a SACD player.

Or not.

BGL

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Anyhow, there was no great effort that I could detect to push this to the non-audiofile.

I think it is dangerous to extrapolate from local stores to the whole nation's presence. In my local Best Buys, there are prominent "end caps" displaying dozens of copies of the Pink Floyd album.

Please see my other thread on the marketing push - Sony has committed significant promotion dollars to the release with all Clear Channel rock stations aggressively promoting the album, a kick-off party in New York, etc.

We know that it hit #19 on the Billboard chart and that's not bad for a catalog title that had been remastered five years ago!

 

[Al B. C]

What other titles was it up against?

I think you have to compare it to the first 18 as well.

 

[Rich Malloy]

I guess I've never seen one of these Billboard charts, but my god man, Bob Marley's "Legend" is still in the top 20?

And Bob Seger's Greatest Hits? Was that a recent remaster or something? James Taylor's Greatest Hits? And the rest is like all Celine Dion and Dixie Chicks and something called "Shout to the Lord"? Weird. Very weird.

My finger is evidently not on the pulse of America.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

What other titles was it up against?

Al,

I would argue it does not matter, since the label's will be focusing on unit sales and incremental revenue. Moreover, they are probably thinking about an entire slate of catalog releases and the potential revenue they could bring.

Any strong sales numbers will be good for Super Audio and hirez in general.

 

[James Zubb]

Don't get too excited, that is the catalog chart, for albums 2+ years old and reissues which don't make the Billboard 200.

 

[KeithH]

Lee said:

Any strong sales numbers will be good for Super Audio and hirez in general.

Strong sales numbers would be good for the CD too.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Strong sales numbers would be good for the CD too.

Well yes, since Marc has seen the sales numbers and apparently all the SACD buyers stayed home on this minor title.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Well Brian Moura has the latest sales figures and DSOTM debuted at #1 after one week of sales in the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart. Also some interesting stuff here about three Stones albums selling above 200,000.

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/ne...umber=11569324

 

[LanceJ]

Do sacd's have that little card inside like Warner dvd-audios do that ask why, where, etc. you bought it for?

LJ

 

[Dan Joy]

Do sacd's have that little card inside like Warner dvd-audios do that ask why, where, etc. you bought it for?

None of the ones I have bought.