How many units did wzrd sell

At the risk of repeating myself it's possible that, say, only 15k physical copies sold and the rest were digital. In this case you're correct, digital sales were where it's at for this title and people wanting the album would have little problem in either format. However if, say, 35k of the sales were CDs, then many locations would have been out of stock.

This would directly impact sales, and potentially lowered sale quite considerably in many locations. This would make your assumption about his label being right and him being wrong totally incorrect, and may have screwed him out of thousands of sales - in which case it appear that he's planning to make it as difficult as possible for the label to benefit from his next album.

The only thing we can say with certainty is that an artist is feeling totally ignored by his label, yet still managed to debut at 3. At best, they've done a poor job of keeping their artist happy despite making the best business decision. At worst, they've screwed both them and him out of sales. The jury's out as to where the facts lie, but I tend toward the latter right now. Additional facts are welcome, but pulling assumptions about fanbase, demographics and so forth out of your ass isn't really an argument.

Ok I was pulling assumptions out of my ass. It was completely off base for me to assume that a young hip hop artist would have a young "digitally aware" fanbase that follows him on Twitter. It was off base for me to assume that just because digital sales are increasing over the sales of CDs, that such a trend would be mirrored in CuDi's sales. Completely out of my ass, though by out of my ass, I mean an educated guess based on available data. The fact that digital sales of his album far out paced physical sales was just some bizarre coincidence that no one could have foreseen.

At least I gave the opposing POV the benefit of a doubt before trying to attack anyone which, you may notice, I haven't - at least not either the artist or label. Machin Shin profile , 8 Mar am. You happen to notice watching your trends that vinyl is actually making a bit of a come back? It would seem the hip "digitally aware" kids have found that the sound from a record is better than a download. Point is that some people prefer digital and some prefer physical. If someone walked into a store and could not get a cd or whatever then that is a lost sale.

It is very hard to see those loses in the final numbers because you cannot say for sure how many wanted it but could not find it. Josef Anvil profile , 9 Mar am.

I'm not saying that vinyl is not making a bit of comeback, but that's definitely a niche market and you won't find the labels routinely shipping tens of thousands of vinyl copies. It could be a lost sale, maybe, but again here I go with a baseless assumption I'm thinking, and this has no data backed basis, that just maybe a consumer that wants a product will go on the web and find it and either go to the store that has it or just order it online.

Just throwing that out there. In fact, PaulT argues that it does matter where the physicals are distributed, but when replying to my sarcasm about waiting for a vinyl copy, he sent me a link imagine that , to where I could find a vinyl copy. Let's look at that, in defense of the position that it DOES matter where the physicals are distributed, he sends a link. That is human nature, to use the tools at our disposal to meet our needs. I can't imagine that its statistically significant, but would be interested to see otherwise.

PaulT profile , 9 Mar am. But, there's many other factors involved for others, mostly involving casual buyers who are not specifically looking for that album, but may end up buying anyway if they see it on a shelf.

You repeatedly dismiss this demographic, even to the point of mocking me, but it's there. You even admit this. So why are you still arguing? I don't deny that. You, however ignore the point. Is that demographic significant? Not sure why you return to that point over and over other than to say it exists. Show some data that proves relevance.

People that can't find the physical good tend to look online and find it and then get it if they want it. If you are, then I agree. He is free to believe what he wants. If you are saying that the reality is that shipping rates that were lower than the artist expected, "significantly" affected sales , then you are definitely pulling that out of your ass. I'm asking you to show the relevance of your stance, not just that a small demographic exists. Any data provided would be appreciated.

Anonymous Coward , 8 Mar am. Actually the argument does carry a lot of weight for both of you, or at least the core of it does. Unless you know the distribution of sales across different forms of media and the average for such a product it's a bit pointless to speculate whether or not more CDs, or more promotion online, would have helped or the lack of hindered sales. The core to the previous argument is that more data is needed.

Leigh Beadon profile , 8 Mar am. They shipped 55k physicals and he sold 66k. It's kind of hard to say. Typically I don't think they want the album to completely disappear from shelves in its first week - or be hard to find. That's just going to reduce sales. Add that to the lack of promotion, and it definitely seems like this could have been an even bigger launch. I guess what I'm saying is, I think the 66k sales were held back by the 55k physicals - rather than the former being an accurate prediction of the latter.

WZRD was the only debut in the Top 10 that week, which means it probably could have been 1 with a bit of hype. His last 2 albums sold over K copies in the first 2 weeks of release.

But like the guys I above I have no hard facts to back that up. This has actually been an interesting discussion. We all have strong opinions of how the market works and what we think is happening. As far as the album disappearing from shelves in its first week or being hard to find.

I don't think that's an issue. So if PaulT still thinks that CuDi has a better feel for how his fans are getting their music and they prefer CDs, well the sales data says otherwise. So much for trends, eh? While I agree with everyone who says that promotion is a huge factor in sales, I'm not sure that I can agree that the number of physicals released held back the overall sales.

Lastly, when I say that the labels seemed to be accurate in their forecast, I am assuming that physicals are what they think of when they think sales forecast. I was simply noting that the number of physicals was very close to the actual sales, which is a far cry from declaring labels as supreme authorities on marketing.

So if he has more than 1 person who tried to buy it per 68 square miles they went home empty handed. Obviously they do not disribute albums evenly accross the country, but it just shows how hard it would be to find this album.

Especially if you do not live in a major urban area. I don't think you can say; Most of the sales were digital so they didn't need physical albums. I think the lack physical copies drove up the digital sales because people were unable to buy a physical album.

Again this is all an argument in hypothetical without knowing the metrics of his last albums. But I think saying "look, most of the sales are digital" is kind of useless when its near impossible to find a physical copy. Those figures may be very different if the album was more widely available. Hey, would you look at that..

Well done. That doesn't change the fact that you first assumptions were baseless as you admitted , nor the fact that you couldn't take any opposing point of view based on the same lack of data, but well done for finding an article that supports your initial view, I suppose. This doesn't actually prove anything without knowing more granular information e. Were the physical units sold mainly to Amazon or to Wal Mart or smaller stores?

Did the smaller locations sell out, or did certain areas of the country sell enough to make finding a copy a problem? Josef Anvil profile , 8 Mar pm.

I guess I'm still confused, PaulT. What you consider an attack was merely an observation. Talking to a young audience on Twitter and apologizing for a lack of availability of his physical album seemed odd to me. You have considered that an attack from the beginning.

Stating over and over that such a simple observation is an attack is odd to me as well. For some reason you seem to believe that saying baseless assumption empowers your own words. My admission of my "baseless assumption" was sarcasm. Using educated guesses about demographics and trends is hardly baseless.

You seem to be missing the point of the initial baseless assumption. Where the physicals were sold is pretty much irrelevant. The younger audience "trends" toward the digital market, which is why I found that tweet a bit odd.

You can try to explain the reality of the sales by looking for more granular info if you want or just accept the natural trend. Feel free to post some data of your own. I'm again imagining that group of consumers who just couldn't find a copy and just gave up in disgust.

More lost sales who never once thought to buy it online because they just had to have the CD in hand. In other words, you criticise him for not knowing his own audience, which is what I would consider an attack. A gentle one, perhaps, but still an attack on both his business knowledge and his communication with his own audience.

For example, I like Cudi's music, although I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a fan. I would consider myself a fan both of hip-hop and the more dance-oriented genres that made Cudi's name here in Europe.

I'm 36 years old, and have been known to make impulse buys on CDs I spot while shopping for other things. Where the album was sold is indeed relevant. If all of the physical stock went to independent stores and online retailers, that would have a different effect than if they went mainly to Wal Mart. There doesn't seem to have been enough stock to cover all bases, hence the questions. If Wal Mart, or Kansas, or whatever was under-represented where people may have bought CDs if they were available, then losses were made due to this decision.

One could easily argue that his twitter fit over his label screwing him on promotion probably pushed that digital figure much higher than it would have been normally. The real test is going to be if he can sustain that level of interest. I think the more telling statistic in all this is that 45k of 66k. If the physicals sold out or came close to it then are we really supposed to congratulate the label, is that what they are supposed to do; just ship enough physicals for a week's worth of sales?

I've been looking for a breakdown myself of how digital compared to physical sales and was similarly surprised that physicals should matter at all now. I imagine that digital sales go more towards selections of tracks than albums but it does seem that it is really important to know the split in digital vs physical sales to make much sense of this disagreement.

Ok you asked how I could say the labels were in the ballpark? I'm just going by the number of physicals vs the number of sales. I have no idea what the split is between physicals and digital, but I would guess that the number of digital sales outweighs the physical sales.

Personally I don't think the labels forecast digital sales. I think they are still focused on the physical sale and that is where they forecast. Should they just ship enough for a weeks worth? I don't know the answer to that.

I can't say that I really understand how the labels think from a business standpoint. For the purpose of this discussion, the only info given is that 55k in physicals were shipped and that the first weeks sales were 66k. So we know that at the very least 11k was digital sales. But what we don't know is if the 55K was in the ballpark.

If they shipped 55k and all were bought, how many people had to walk away empty-handed because they were sold out? Regardless of how many physicals sold, how many people had to walk away empty-handed because their store either didn't receive any or were sold out?

If 44k were digital sales, does that mean the label over-estimated by 33k physicals, or does it mean that only 22k fans were able to find a physical to buy?

Contrary to your back-of-the-envelope guessing, we can't really say whether or not they were anywhere near the ballpark. Ok, let me try this one more time. I said the label was in the ballpark because they shipped 55k and they sold 66k.

Those are the numbers. I fully admit that I have no idea how the label forecasts digital sales. I can only assume that if they ship 55k in physicals then they are hoping for at least 30k in digital sales. That is a complete assumption based on current buying trends in the market. I'm trying to picture these consumers who are so motivated that they go to the store to buy a CD and can't find what they want and then they just give up in disgust. The point being that it no longer matters if the CDs are not available, since the purchase can be made digitally.

I want a CD for whatever reason. Properly marketed the album could have easily been 1 and sold 6 figures it's first week. It could have done that despite the sad reality the entire album with the exception of one song is absolutely awful. Whether or not you personally like something has no bearing on its business potential. But that's just it, the majority of people don't like it. Music label and Universal Republic. Cudi adds, "We really wanted to make a traditional rock album - no programmed drums, nothing modern.

I was just really worried that it would sound like Kid Cudi shit and people wouldn't be able to tell the difference with the music, but it got to a point where we were so inspired. Dot Da Genius says that he and Cudi are "working on the live show," and plan to tour behind the album later this year.

So now we're trying to find cool ways for people to discover what we're doing. Meanwhile, Cudi confirms that WZRD will release another album before he returns to his Man on the Moon hip-hop series, after promising to stick with the project on Twitter last week. This is not a one-off. This is something that's real for me. Search term. Billboard Pro Subscribe Sign In. Top Artists. Top Charts.

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