“1” on it’s way down the charts
 |
| Week 47 in the global albums chart. |
Last week, the Beatles’ new edition of “1” shifted 175.000 units around the world, which was enough to land them the top spot of the global albums chart. This week, week 48, they have only sold 77.000 more copies, and have fallen down the charts, currently residing at #10.
Meanwhile, new albums by teen idols Justin Bieber (the current #1) and One Direction (the current #2) have sold 863.000 and 764.000 units, respectively – far healthier first week sales than the Beatles. It will be interesting to see if TV advertisements (expected in December) and/or Christmas sales and/or the release of the vinyl edition will boost the performance of “1” on the chart.
In my own country of Norway, the “1” album has failed to show up on the albums chart at all. I believe this may have been because it was perhaps classified as a DVD with a bonus CD in this country, which disqualifies it from the albums chart. In the countries where it has entered the album charts, it has been counted as a CD with a bonus DVD.
Of course, the performance of the album may also have been affected by the fact that it’s only four years since it was re-released in remastered form on CD, and now it’s out again, remixed. The general public is not likely to understand the difference of remastering versus remixing.
Another factor is that the version most Beatle fans will need to get, is the “1+” edition, either on Blu-ray or DVD, because it’s the most complete edition, with 23 more video clips than the regular edition. Reports from various countries suggest that the “1+” editions are still unavailable in many places, so a lot of fans may still be holding out, waiting for the edition they need to have in their collection.
The global album chart is compiled from sales figures as well as national charts from around the world.
Link: Global albums chart
On the US Billboard chart, it re-entered at #6 last week, and this week it falls to #35.
I have seen next to no publicity, advertising, or other mention of the album in public in the US. Maybe there has been some, and I have missed it.
What should we suppose the budget was for Bieber? The only people who seem to know about it are those of us connected to the Beatles.com and to the news related websites.
This version of Beatles 1+ with remixing, remastering, and carefully restored videos deserves way more attention that it is getting.
The trouble is most people will see this as an old album with a bonus DVD. Can't see the majority of people buying it again if they already have it
Well, what do you expect? This cd has sold 31 million copies already. Ok, the remix is excellent, but most people will play this in the background, at a birthday party or so. The difference will go unnoticed. I have the cd/2dvd version and it is great. But at the same time, a lady in the record shop also bought 1, and specifically asked for a version sans dvd. She went out, happy with her year 2011 version (which I also have). The people here are the exception, the majority is happy with the older version or the red and blue 2cd's.
This should have been a stand-alone DVD/Blu-ray release with its own unique title and artwork. The '1' album is too well known by the general public and most will see this packaging as just another remix/remaster rip-off of something they already own. The videos deserved to be marketed much better than this.
George Armstrong, I agree. They could have done better than use the '1' name again… It'd be like ABKCO putting out a 60s Stones DVD called 'Hot Rocks' (to go with the already released 'Hot Rocks' and 'More Hot Rocks'). Pretty stupid, if you think about it….
I think it has a lot to do with Universal and them simply not being arsed about doing a new package. Under Neil Aspinall's watch Apple and Beatles products were slow to surface, but at least they were (mostly) done right.
Also there happens to be two other versions that were released already in the past. I mean how many versions of the same title do people need to buy?
It's like this:
The people who are gonna buy it bought it.
The people who might buy it might buy it.
The people who are supposed to buy it because the Boomer Overlords insist it's their duty are buying whatever the heck they want to. Cue smashed Beatles statistics.
The backlash goes like this.
It's The Beatles 1.
My mum/grandad/older sister has it (delete where applicable)
It's not new, it's old.
So are you.
And so are the videos.
Shut up.
😛