Grammy Sales Bump Numbers

The sales bump figures for the Grammy awards winners are now available and they're truly startling in how modest they are.

First of all, total sales were up 16% over last week, according to Billboard Magazine, but that's tempered by the fact that the number is still down 12% from sales of the same week last year.

Multiple Grammy winners (including Album of the Year) Robert Plant and Alison Krauss moved from #69 to #2 on Billboard's Album sales chart, but that meant sales of only 77,000 copies!!

Coldplay jumped from #31 to #8 with sales of only 62,000, and Best New Artist Adele moved from #27 to #10 after selling a mere 57,000.

And this is an increase of 16%?

CD sales have truly fallen off a cliff.  Once upon a time, the above sales figures would all have another zero on the end.  One can only wonder, would the sales be much better if there were more retail music stores?  It's hard to buy something if you can't find it, especially on impulse.

Grammy Winners See Sales Spike

In a surprise ratings coup, this year's Grammy Awards program was up more than 2 million viewers over last year's 19 million (must have been a slow TV night). As usual, the winners saw their sales spike the following week, with Album of the Year, Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss leaping 15 spots up the iTunes album chart to #1, according to industry analysts BigChampagne. Best New Artist Adele saw her 19 album jump three spots on iTunes, from #5 to #2.

But perhaps the most telling aspect of "the joy of the Grammy appearance" was Radiohead, who's In Rainbows sat at #57 on iTunes before their Grammy appearance, then moved up forty-three spots all the way to #14 after their rousing performance with the USC marching band (Radiohead is a good band but the USC marching band is really, really good - an inspired combination). It would be interesting to see what the actual cost to use them on the show was (it must've cost a fortune).

Actual sales figures are not yet available, but should prove interesting.