Interesting indeed. 'Hits' ''success'' must be through a few years of sporadic sales, augmented by HMV/Online discount sales when you can grab it for a fiver or whatever. That it entered at 71 in the charts was a travesty.

I note the date they give for the release is wrong, and it was awarded Silver and Gold status at the same time. Is it a case of them updating every album once a year or something and they see that a record passed two milestones in that space of time or something?

Also, can you check for actual sales numbers? I'd like to know what has sold more, WLL or Supergrass' Life On Other Planets. The latter charted lower but has a sheet-music book whereas WLL doesn't - that may be down to them having a better relationship with their record label (Parlophone I think, a division of EMI is it?) at the time.

Also, TIH is still between 100,000 - 200,000? Thought it would be higher by now...I reckon it's international sales would be decent enough.

Sorry, I love this sort of stuff. Cheers for posting ArrGee.

I think a lot of people are tired of the insipid Cowellism that has dominated the charts for the last 10 years and are finding solice in the great music of the past.

If the leap happened in 2007 wouldn't that kind of coincide with Jarvis's first solo album? Maybe people have liked what they hear and decided to investigate Pulp?

Eamonn wrote:

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Interesting indeed. 'Hits' ''success'' must be through a few years of sporadic sales, augmented by HMV/Online discount sales when you can grab it for a fiver or whatever. That it entered at 71 in the charts was a travesty.

Is it a case of them updating every album once a year or something and they see that a record passed two milestones in that space of time or something?

Also, can you check for actual sales numbers?

Also, TIH is still between 100,000 - 200,000?

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These are just UK figures from the BPI.  The figures are wholesale rather than retail, as the former is easier to track.  This explains why some acts go Gold/Platinum on release explains why they are going for £3 at the HMV sale (Yes, Kaiser Chiefs we are talking about you ). 

Actual sales are impossible to track, the awards are indicative and I think the date of the award isn't that reliable, it would depend on when the sales were reported.

However with Hits it looks to be a trickle of sales over time and probably at £5 or less.   For an album that was considered to be a flop, sales of over 100,000 are impressive.  And as Fuss Free says going forward Hits is likely to be the first port of call for those who discover Pulp.

I know in the past only sales from the likes of HMV, Virgin/OurPrice and Woolworths counted towards the UK chart. In full knowledge that in order to have a single in the top ten it would have to be stocked by Woolworths they used to say to the record companies that unless you give us the singles for free we won't stock 'em!

Another reason not to pay too much attention to the chart is the whole business of 'chart hyping' which I won't talk about here for it potentially being a libelous accusation - any record industry type would tell you that it doesn't happen but i know a man who used to do it. So it does!

It's a dirty world!

Fuss Free wrote:

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The real surprise to me is that His n' Hers never crossed the platinum threshold.

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That is a ponderer isn't it. I would have thought that the success of Different Class and the Glastonbury appearence would have boosted the sales of His N Hers ten fold

ArrGee wrote:

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Fuss Free wrote:

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The real surprise to me is that His n' Hers never crossed the platinum threshold.

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Surprised it made gold.  A platinum album isn't that easy to get (Elvis Costello only got one).

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It doesn't make sense that HnH never went Platinum. Consider:

• HnH went gold (100,000) just 2 1/2 months after release (Feb. to April '94)
• Different Class went triple platinum (900,000) in less than 6 months after release (Oct. '95 to March '96)
• In between those two albums, from June to July '95, the Common People single went silver (200,000)

If only 1 in 4.5 people who bought Different Class from Oct. to March 95 also picked up HnH, HnH would have surpassed the platinum threshold.

Different Class wasn't even released for another 5 months after the Common People single broke through. You would think the success of Common People would have bolstered sales of HnH since it was the only widely available album at the time. Yet we see no evidence of that.

It seems logical that HnH should have tripled it's first 2 months of sales over the course of the 15 years since then, especially since Pulp's popularity has grown exponentially over the years. Then again, if my math is correct, an album needs to sell 36.5 copies a day to achieve 200,000 sales over the course of 15 years. That does seem like a lot.

To put that into perspective, Different Class averaged 6000 copies sold per day from October '95 to March '96. James Blunt, on the other hand, averaged just 3,570 copies sold per day over 28 months (Oct. '04 to Feb. '07). Pulp wins! (not really)



-- Edited by Fuss Free on Wednesday 14th of October 2009 07:13:05 AM