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Why singles lose sales now the week of album release


Guest Bad Robot

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Guest Bad Robot

From this week's Chart Beat Chat:

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"When a consumer completes an album, the original tracks that were bought individually get processed as returns. That means that as albums are completed, charting songs will have some sales subtracted from the title's sales in the weeks such returns are processed. However, the original sale continues to count in the week the song purchase was made."

In other words, we don't go back and and refigure the charts, as what's done is done. But when the "singles" are processed as "returns," the total sales numbers for a given song would be subtracted from that sales week's total.

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This would mean that if you bought "4 Minutes" as a single, then later bought the album when it came out and used the "Complete My Album" function, anyone buying the album would count as -1 sale of the single.

So if the single sold 200,000 copies the week the album comes out, and 25,000 people buy the album digitally who had already bought the single, the actual single sales total for the week will show as 175,000.

Since "Complete My Album" didn't exist until fairly recently (within the past year?) that may explain why we used to see sales increases for singles the week of album releases and now instead see sales drops.

Also, it's worth noting that this then means that your original purchase of the single is basically subtracted from the single's total sales and no longer counts. Hmmm...

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that is the shittiest thing i've ever heard. why doesn't it just count as an album sale and not subtract anything from the present sales.

they need to iron that out soon

why don't you just get two copies of the song as if its physical single and physical cd sales. we didn't return our maxis when we bought albums back then

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Ok, this isn't the shittiest thing you've ever heard (I hope?) and an entire industry isn't failing becuase of this (but then again, what do i know?).

BUT

They really should figure this out. It all seems a mess. But thank you as always, BR, for clarifying.

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If you only have 4 Minutes and than use this "complete my album" option, do you get the money for the single back or do you pay 99 ct less for the album? Does anyone know?

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haha...no it isn't the shittiest thing i've ever heard haha wiseass...it's just a figure of speech

i mean who is running these record companies? chimpanzees? republicans?

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If you only have 4 Minutes and than use this "complete my album" option, do you get the money for the single back or do you pay 99 ct less for the album? Does anyone know?

You pay less for the album

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Guest bluejean

It makes sense to me.

Because... in the old days, when you bought the album, did that album count towards singles sales/singles charts? No.

So actually, the single ends up better off because think of all the people that are buying the song twice. What about when you have an album version and a single version? So in that case if you buy the album as well after buying the single it DOES count. Which was NOT the case with physical sales.

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It makes sense to me.

Because... in the old days, when you bought the album, did that album count towards singles sales/singles charts? No.

So actually, the single ends up better off because think of all the people that are buying the song twice. What about when you have an album version and a single version? So in that case if you buy the album as well after buying the single it DOES count. Which was NOT the case with physical sales.

But they didn't deduct the sale of a single from the charts if say, you bought the album and a single from it at the same time.

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what those thieves need to sort out at itunes is the DRM. If I purchase a track, I expect to own a high quality version that I can play on any player I please and burn as many times as I like. Until those idiots at apple fix that, I won't even consider buying from them.

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