It was supposed to arrive by Easter so that His fans could effectively scandalize our family members/pious neighbors, but in classic Morrissey fashion, it was like a month late. I had forgotten I even ordered it, and maybe a week or two after Easter, I remembered outta nowhere. I just assumed He'd pocketed my money and never got around to printing the shirts, and I was like, I'm not gonna bug the guy for a refund, it's fucking MORRISSEY. I should probably be tithing him like a hundred bucks a month on principle. Anyway, long story short, the shirt arrived and it's beautiful and as my wife said to me, "There's always Christmas."
Sorry, I misspoke here - I clarified with Nielsen, and the bundled album counts as a SINGLE SALE not two sales. However, a purchase of 10 individual tracks ALSO counts as an album sale, just as 1,500 on-demand track streams also counts as an album sale. (Again this is Nielsen's methodology, which is distinct from the RIAA's in that Nielsen doesn't count YouTube streams toward its sales chart.) I sincerely apologize for the error!
It's ludicrously complicated, but technically no, because hard-copy sales will only count once, and retail will be single-album price.
But yeah it functions similarly to the way double albums did in the pre-Internet era, in that you buy one copy of Melon Collie and it counts as two albums sold. And because they've bundled it like this, every person who buys the album (at $13.99 I believe) will technically have bought two copies of the album (for the price of one!) for accounting purposes.
The only way Drake ACTUALLY sold 600,000 copies of Views in one day on iTunes is if Apple paid for at least half of those and gave them away à la Samsung and ANTI.
Look at this (via MBW)
[T]rusted market monitor BuzzAngle ... estimates that Views sold 582,289 album equivalents on Friday.
574,604 sales within this number were ‘pure’ album downloads on iTunes, while an additional 48,188 song sales and 4.3m streams have been factored in.
(BuzzAngle uses a formula of 1,500 streams – or ten track purchases – to one album equivalent.)
OK so here's the thing: Views is a 20-track album, so if you want to get a clear picture of demand, that 574,604 can be split in half -- meaning Views ACTUALLY sold 287,302 copies on iTunes its first day.
Drake/Republic made the wise call of bundling Views as a solid package, so you can't download individual tracks (beyond the singles). Everyone HAS TO buy all 20 songs. Every person who bought Views accounted for two "album equivalent" sales of Views.
Like you said, he's still selling a ton of albums -- 287k in one day is no joke! All I'm saying is, the numbers they're feeding you are bullshit.
Nah, we just go for fun. I can't imagine having to sit there at a table hawking my shit while a few dozen one-time-only bands are playing 100 feet away on the other side of a tent. It seems like torture.
Yeah, when I saw that lineup announced, my first thought was, everyone involved in this thing is fucking crazy to have High On Fire playing before Abbath. Who the hell would voluntarily play after High On Fire? It's suicide.
Nah I skipped it, but only because I don't have time to see every great show that comes through town so I gotta prioritize. I've seen Tribulation, High On Fire, and Skeletonwitch multiple times apiece, and I saw Immortal when they played in 2009 or something, so I felt like I could get away with not seeing Abbath (especially because my dude King Ov Hell isn't touring with them). But I have no doubt it was fucking amazing. That lineup is ridiculous.
Me too. I'm obsessed with that album. These rankings are intended to reflect the collective tastes of the entire team assembling this column, which is why Astronoid is in the middle of the pack (I've got more of an ear for the shoegaze-y stuff than the rest of these guys), but that's almost definitely my personal favorite song here, and one of my favorite albums of 2016.
Yeah I know, I did the same thing when Bruni sent me that flyer. Trust me, it'll be worth the wait, whenever it happens. Their MDF2014 set is seared into my memory like almost no other show I've seen in the last 10 years.
I just love parsing that whole section: "Well, I texted her the song from my phone and I never really clarified whom I'd written it with, so you can understand why she thought I wrote it by myself. Funnily enough, she never thought to ask and I never thought to tell her! Yada yada, here we are, all one big misunderstanding."
Thanks man! Look, I'm not gonna lie: I skip "1985" maybe 9 out of every 10 times I play the album. I don't even hate it, I just don't get it. But the run from track 3 till the end is something pretty special IMO ("Berserkr" sounds pretty goddamn sweet sandwiched between "Ondskapens Galakse" and "Heksebrann," which are the two big epics). Again, you might disagree, I'd just hate to see you make any judgments based on what they've chosen to share thus far. It's definitely an album-album, more so than either of the first two I think. I'm really not trying to make a hard sell. I'm just saying, I personally sorta expected it to be a letdown after "1985," and instead, I love it. Anyway, when you get the thing, give it some spins, and come back here to discuss.
Honestly, there's no way two songs could illustrate the scope of the album, especially the two songs they've chosen as singles (I wouldn't have been too upset if "1985" hadn't made the LP at all, fwiw), but I sincerely feel it's their best, and I think there are at least five songs here even better than "Berserkr," starting with the four I mentioned above. Let's revisit when you've heard the album in full. I can't say you'll love it as much as I do, but I've been a big Kvelertak fan since LP1, and I promise I wouldn't have dedicated all this time and energy to writing up something I wasn't genuinely passionate about.
Oh not at all. But I'd say there's a much greater variety in sound between, say, prog metal, second-wave black metal, power metal, and atmospheric black metal, for example, than there is between the bands you mentioned. And those aren't even metal's most extreme poles. It's far more diverse than that still.
Huh their Bandcamp says Alexandria, VA...which is still not Richmond. I'll delete the mention, and we can agree to never speak of my error again. Thanks Sanskar!
I'm not sure I could even overstate how amazing Maiden were last night. It was absolutely as good as any show I've ever seen in my life (and I've seen A LOT of GREAT shows) but it almost seems unfair to hold any other show to that standard -- it would be like comparing Fury Road to Master Of None or something. The songs kept getting better and building energy throughout the night, the sets kept getting bigger and crazier and more magical, and the band was on fucking fire and only got hotter. The streets around the Garden were actually howling for at least half an hour after it ended. It was just a perfectly calibrated, expertly delivered performance and an otherworldly, life-affirming experience.
Yeah I agree with this actually. I think I was trying to say that it would have sequenced into +- pretty seamlessly (which it would IMO), but you're right it's more similar to the two or three prior albums in terms of instrumentation and overall structure.
I have conflicting/complicated thoughts about this and maybe it's a subject for another story someday but ultimately I agree that WiMP/Tidal was conceived as higher-end product for "discerning" listeners, however I think it was kinda near-death when Jay rushed in with a briefcase full of money. Jay bought Aspiro for $56m a year ago - and as I recall that was 60% above its valuation at the time; I believe Jay made that way-above-market bid to force the seller's hand to expedite the sale or shove aside any competing offers, though I'd have to look that up. So it had a valuation around $35m let's say? That's VERY low for a streaming service (Spotify was valued at $8.5 BILLION at the same point in time for context), and there was no real plan or potential for growth. Also (and I'm still on a phone here and not looking this shit up so PLEASE understand I'm just going off unreliable memory on all this) I believe Aspiro was a losing proposition at the time Jay made the deal, and it was only a matter of time till a new owner bought it and scrapped it for parts or it shut down altogether (the former option being more likely considering the value of the contracts alone). Jay was actually an unlikely third option: an entrepreneur who had a vision for doing something GOOD with the existing product. To me that is the really maddening part about all this -- that it came from a place of righteousness, and was on a very basic level aiming to do right for the right people: listeners and artists. But the system is fundamentally broken and corrupt, and it can't be overhauled or overturned with a $35 million property, a fact Jay made worse with the Gatsby-via-Trotsky optics he brought to the whole thing, which failed on all levels. I also think, if Tidal somehow managed to thrive, Jay would quickly become complicit in the oppression he's attempting to overthrow, if he's not already there. I fundamentally agree with the frustration he's expressed, I just think he tried to build his movement on a landfill, and I'm not surprised that it's sinking or that it stinks.
You guys are all nuts. Just to clarify, that single sentence appraisal in a business-y story about Tidal wasn't intended to be a review of TLOP. I agree "Facts" is the weakest song on the album, but I think of it less as a "canon" track and more as a bonus, which is something Kanye kinda addresses in that little riff on "30 Hours." It's not part of the grand statement, just a little something else to keep you going if you're not ready to go home after last call. I think of the album-album as "Ultra Light Beams" to "Wolves," which is what he premiered at MSG plus "Waves." Also I fucking HATED "Facts" when he first dropped it (and I'm a dude who spends an inordinate amount of mental energy and money on sneakers), but hearing it on TLOP -- AS A BONUS TRACK -- I liked it waaaay more. Also whoever said they don't like "Wolves" is just trolling, come on. Also whoever said they don't believe people really love TLOP is maybe just frustrated because they personally don't love it, but I promise, and I have no reason to pretend here, I really sincerely fucking love TLOP. Sorry I'm not responding to each of you individually to make more compelling or complete defenses btw, I'm typing this on a phone and it's not the greatest mobile interface for commenting as you might already know if you've ever tried it. But rest assured: I hate you all individually! But I also love you. But you're all nuts.
To me the biggest shift is the overall sound, including but beyond the vocals. His stuff often has this thin, early-'80s tone, but this sounds fucking gigantic. I agree with you that this feels like a serious leap relative to his previous work, and I say that as someone who loves a lot of his previous work. I'm REALLY hoping he's got a full album of these in store.
Looks like you caught us pushing our anti-Taylor Swift agenda on unsuspecting Stereogum readers. What gave it away? When Tom wrote, in this very story, "I like both albums, and I play 1989 way more"?
In fact, here's what happened: I saw the picture, smiled and was super happy, and told my wife, "Hey Max Martin is gonna be at the Grammys tonight! He's got a great seat!" She didn't share my excitement.
No lie, I'm currently wearing a Dark Throne shirt over a longsleeve thermal (under a wool sweater -- it is fucking COLD here). So yeah, you got the look down. I can't even conceptualize a reality in which things like "90 degrees" and "at the beach" and "vegetable gardens" exist. The lemon-tree fantasy world you're conjuring sounds real nice though!
I dunno man. I think people who wear Kanye gear pride themselves on being pretty fashion-minded, and while there are some hardcore stans who will just buy up ANYTHING he's selling, that one doesn't really fit his aesthetic. I also think a lot of Kanye fans have no particular investment one way or the other in Robert Kardashian, and probably even Kim fans who don't care that much about the guy. I'm not saying I don't see people wearing airbrushed "In Memoriam" shirts every day, but that one just seems too specific to connect with anyone besides Kim and Kanye. In any case, it's gonna be 1 degree in NYC this weekend, so we'll probably have to wait a month or so before testing your theory, but I will keep my eye out, I promise.
Yeah, it's one shirt with Donda on the front and Robert Kardashian on the flip. I love Kanye's merch in general and I still can't imagine ANYONE wearing that particular garment, irrespective of price.
Oh no no sorry man I was just SAYING I guessed it so Collin would hound Tracy @ Team Kanye to get me free Yeezys at MSG tomorrow. But I didn't REALLY guess it. Plz don't tell Collin.
FWIW the stuff with McSorley happened really abruptly in 2014 -- like out-of-nowhere overnight -- and I don't think you need to approach Gin (2009) or Eater Of Birds (2007) with trepidation about those albums' content and/or their authors' character during the creation process. Of course you're free to avoid those albums forever, or read into their lyrics from whatever perspective you deem appropriate, but (IMO) it would be like writing off "Motorbreath" or "Peace Sells" because Mustaine became a paranoid Tea Partier later in life.
Oh nah, I apologize for misreading your intent. I included those links - Adrien's essay, Laina's Q&A, and the Metalsucks feature on Fell's ejection from Lord Mantis - to provide some context and encourage people to come to their own conclusions or wrestle with their own uncertainty. I can tell you the book on Fell in the "metal community," but I'm concerned that might amount to a tacit defense of his worst behavior or a blanket defense of his character, which I honestly can't (and wouldn't) offer because I don't know the guy, and if I did, that would only further complicate the issue. Anyway, I'm sorry again for misinterpreting your curiosity as condemnation, and I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to clarify.
I read that line as Fell going for some sort of hardened, violent, literary affect, but utterly failing to land it, because he's not Charles Bukowski or Quentin Tarantino. But I'm not gonna defend it, because it's indefensible; I'm just telling you how it reads to me and why I don't think Fell should have his career ended for having written it. Is it ok when Bukowski or Tarantino do it? That's not my call either. I'm not comfortable policing it and I'm sure as hell not here to stand up behind it. But you're not really asking me, because you admittedly don't give a shit about these artists; you just cut-and-paste the argument made by Adrien - a friend and colleague of mine. Seriously, why don't you ask Adrien? He was gushing about the album on Twitter today. Why don't you ask Laina Dawes? She interviewed Fell for Noisey in 2014, and she's written extensively about her experiences as a black woman in the metal community. What did Lars say in his post on NPR today? I wasn't gonna ignore the subject but I also didn't think it required any more attention than what I gave it in the post above. And if you think it did, you gotta do better than say, "I don't care about these bands, but Adrien once wrote that they should be excommunicated, so how can you argue otherwise?" Adrien and I aren't the same person, and Adrien and you aren't the same person. If you're offended or outraged enough to say something, then say it: Tell me why you're offended or outraged, and if you think Fell should be excommunicated, say it outright.
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