| Thursday 30 November 1995 |
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Gift sales, hot and tepid
With Christmas approaching, some of pop's biggest stars have been releasing new albums, hoping to cash in on the gift-giving spirit. Sales figures put out yesterday by Soundscan, a company in Hartsdale, N.Y., that monitors retail stores, show who's selling and who's not.
Last week, three of the season's most anticipated albums were released on the same day: the two-CD "The Beatles Anthology, Vol. 1"; "The Ghost of Tom Joad", by Bruce Springsteen, and "Fresh Horses", by Garth Brooks. All sold slightly fewer albums than music-industry executives expected.
Capitol, which released the Beatles anthology, was hoping to set a record for the strongest first-week sales of an album. Pearl Jam holds the record, with 950,000 copies of its 1993 record "Vs." sold in its first week. The Beatles sold a respectable 855,000, which will put them solidly at No. 1 in next week's Billboard pop charts. Mr. Brooks came in at No. 2 with 480,000 albums sold, but Mr. Springsteen is experiencing the results of the low-key approach he took to promoting his low-key acoustic new record. "The Ghost of Tom Joad" is one of his most disappointing chart debuts in two decades, at No. 11 with 107,000 albums sold. (Melissa Etheridge's new album sold better in its first week.)
In the meantime, four of pop's top divas - Madonna, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey - have also been battling for record sales. Ms. Carey seems to be the most popular diva of the moment. Her "Daydream" album sold 224,000 copies the week it was released. By comparison, "Waiting to Exhale", a film soundtrack with Ms. Houston's first new songs since "The Bodyguard" soundtrack, sold 177,284 copies in its first week. Ms. Jackson's "Design of a Decade 1986/1996" and Madonna's "Something to Remember" were at a slight disadvantage because they are mostly previously released songs: they sold 129,000 and 112,600, respectively, in their initial week on sale. (excerpt from The New York Times)
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