McCartney and Starbucks: it's a done deal

Right. In the UK they'd also name Mull of Kintyre. Not sure about Jet, but probably Band on the Run becuase it was also an album title. They might even remember Uncle Albert because it was so striking and weird for top 40, but that's a smaller chance, as is Live and Let Die, IMO.

People might also remember Wonderful Christmastime because every year they hear "that awful Christmas song McCartney did."

 

Neil Young's "Live At Massey Hall" is available in an exclusive edition at Starbucks now. Includes extra photos and web access...

Tom Waits last cd (prior to the box set) was also sold at Starbucks. Apparently after you left the company.

 

Part of selling more records is writing, recording, and releasing more records. Even before John took a five year sabbatical from music, and then died, and George took a smilar five-year sabbatical, released one hit album, and then retired again, Paul outworked them. He had been outworking John since 1966. The only way you can try to spin the sales in John's and George's favor is to do what you have done, ignore actual record sales and try to calculate some kind of sales per album average.

 

From my perspective, Capitol is also only masquerading as a record company at present.

 

From Marry a Carrot's statistics, it is evident that a big chunk of Lennon's sales have been from compilations and greatest hits, in many cases released posthumously. When you look at the RIAA stats for John's 70s solo albums, he has one U.S. platinum studio album (Imagine) prior to Double Fantasy, which, I'm guessing, sold two to three times what it otherwise would have because of John's tragic and untimely death. By contrast, Paul had seven separate U.S. platinum studio albums during the 70s, and four separate U.S. platinum studio albums during the 1970 - 75 period when John was still roughly as active as Paul as a solo artist. Again, part of selling more records is releasing more records, and Paul kept on working from 1975 - 80, while John basically retired from music. Yoko has done an admirable job of keeping John's legacy alive since 1980, and The John Lennon Collection, Lennon Legend, and Working Class Hero have all successfully repackaged his material for new generations of fans, but, during the 70s, when the two men were going head to head with new albums, it's pretty clear that Paul outsold John, both in the lp and singles markets. I'm not saying that this makes Paul better or more important as a solo artist than John, merely more commercially succesful.

 

The horror, the horror.

 

Yep. That's what I've done, but I don't consider it "spin".

I personally don't care who's more popular, but I consider it a more accurate measure of the music buying public's typical or average reaction to a solo album release by an ex-Beatle. I'm not ignoring actual sales at all, in fact I used them for my calculation. It's a different perspective than considering the cumulative impact of a whole career, or total sales for all albums added up. I'm surprised that you would dismiss per-album sales. Lots of things are done this way to get a different view of statistical information in the business world or sports or whatever. It's not so obscure or twisted as you seem to imply ("the only way you can spin the sales...") It's really a common way of making a case with percentages instead of raw totals in many areas of information. You are right about the facts you state, but I find the perspective I've worked out to be an interesting and worthwhile view nevertheless. My own opinion: quantity isn't quality.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bellwether View Post
Capitol is a record company at least and one with a long history.Starbucks is a coffee company masquerading as a record company. I used to work for Hear Music and the way that Starbucks ruined the Hear Music concept by dumbing down musically to appeal to people who pay 3 bucks for a cup of coffee was sad to watch. Perhaps it Paul's last chance to sell a new release in the current music market but this whole thing reeks of sellout and desperation in my eyes. Thank god for Neil Young and Tom Waits who would never stoop this low to make a buck.

"Neil Young's "Live At Massey Hall" is available in an exclusive edition at Starbucks now. Includes extra photos and web access...

Tom Waits last cd (prior to the box set) was also sold at Starbucks. Apparently after you left the company."

Well, they can sell anything without the artist's consent but exclusive releases and interviews are what I'm talking about. Hear interviewed Waits back in 1999 but he wouldn't allow a compilation or exclusive CD to be released. I wasn't aware of the Neil Young exclusive, I just lost a little respect for Neil. I guess he won't sing for Miller or Bud but coffee is okay?


Like I said the end is near.
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Boy oh Boy! Why all the parsing this way and that way? Just do the arithmetic instead of all these different permutations and combinations of albums sets within different ranges of years. Tell you what, I'll do it. I'm going to do the stats for all the original new-material releases and leave out the compilations. Paul has his fair share of comps as well. Then we'll put the argument to bed, and everyone can sleep peacefully. Later, man.

 

Boo. I like the idea of 'idea-song', 1 maybe 2 minute ideas, and then splicing them together, ala the "Red Rose" medley. He should call it "The Short Attention Span Suite"

 

What's also fascinating to me is how low the solo albums sales are for both John and Paul. In the R.E.M. album-by-album thread, we have been discussing their sales a little bit - Out of Time, Automatic for the People, and Monster are all certified quadruple platinum in the U.S. By contrast, Paul's best-selling 70s solo album, Band on the Run, sold "only" three million, and his typical 70s solo album sold around one million copies. I'm a big R.E.M. fan, but I'm not going to argue that they are as culturally important as John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Clearly, despite the record industry's claims that it is going to hell in a handbasket, it got a lot better at selling a lot more records to a lot more people in the 80s and 90s than it did in the 60s and 70s. I don't think all of the difference can be attributed to population growth, either.

Also, I think there was a tremendous amount of chicanery and trickery in sales reporting back in the 60s and 70s, both downwards (because record companies didn't want to pay royalties) and upwards (because in the pre-Soundscan era, stores could be bribed or otherwise influenced to report sales higher in order to "fix" chart positions). How many records John and Paul and all other artists sold in the first half of the 70s may never be truly known.

 

It's no different than your "per capita" theory. I would think that the fairest contest of all would be to throw out compilations and greatest hits and look at sales of the original studio albums by both men from 1970 - 75, a period when they each put out more or less one new album per year. Obviously, post-1975, Paul is going to win by default.

 

Looking forward to hearing what he's whipped up

 

Maybe if they are over 30. Younger than that, I'm not so sure.

 

Paul is the greatest writer of silly love songs that there ever has been.

 

The RIAA Sales Certifications for John and Paul's Solo Albums especially during the 1970s and 1980s were so old and most were never re-certified after their inital certifications. The Catalogs were in dire need of new certs. See my post #409 for Macca's corresponding album certification years.

 

Why wouldn't Capitol/EMI and/or Paul and Yoko want the sales of the solo albums recertified? (Other than the old not-wanting-to-pay-royalties theory, which I guess is harder to pull off in this day of Soundscan).

 

Rolling Stone says that there will be a 15 minute suite on the new album much like the suite of songs on Abbey Road.

From RS

McCartney takes a look back at his life on his new album, which he worked on with Strokes producer David Kahne and which will be the first album released on Starbucks' new Hear Music label. McCartney played most of the instruments on this collage-style disc, which includes a fifteen-minute Abbey Road-style suite. "It's him being reflective," says Glen Barros, CEO of Starbucks partner Concord Music Group. "You can hear real elements of the Wings and Beatles eras."

 

Probably because they would have to use their own money to prove how many albums EMI sold for them. Recertification ain't free. Yet another stupid aspect of an inane industry...

 

I don't think it's a stretch... Starbucks has been selling CD's for a while, why not start up a label. I remember two years ago Starbucks was going to sell a Springsteen CD, but there was a naughty tune on it.

 

www.maccareport.com
April 8, 2007-- Macca Report Exclusive!!!

Macca's new album called "Memory Almost Full"

Release date (USA) June 5th!

The album is listed already on AOL and VH1.

Those in the UK can pre-order the album from Amazon.UK CLICK

 

McCartney and Bruce releases on the same day!

 

And then 7 days later Traveling Wilburys, when was the release date for the new Ringo album?

 

Methinks that Paul & Starbucks want to time the release around the "40 years ago today" hype which is sure to pop up around June 1.