Following up on my post of Oct. 8th: https://edcyphers.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/mumford-sons-in-a-league-with-the-beatles-um-no/
(taking issue with an item in Paste which hyped Mumford & Sons’ latest album by comparing the sales of its singles to the Beatles’ chart successes)
The following is from the today’s Rolling Stone online feed:
Folk-rockers continue their slow decline
LOSER OF THE WEEK: Mumford & Sons. Look at the numbers: 600,000, 169,000, 96,000. Not an impressive trajectory for a smash album. Babel had a fantastic debut two weeks ago, but its sales plunged 72 percent last week and another 43 percent this week. And the band’s single “I Will Wait,” despite a respectable 6.6 million YouTube views, seems to be petering out as well – it’s down 14 slots on BigChampagne’s Ultimate Chart (which tracks Internet criteria) from Number 16 to Number 30. It’s still possible for Mumford to maintain its positioning with a slow-burning, Lady Antebellum-style, release-great-singles-over-time strategy, but for now, its chart run appears to be declining.
And just to be clear, the BigChampagne chart didn’t exist in the Beatles’ day (and they’d have owned it if it did) so the Billboard singles chart makes for the best apples-to-apples comparison. Billboard’s chart shows “I Will Wait” at #32 this week, down from its peak of #23. So the statement still holds true: Mumford & Sons still haven’t cracked the top twenty with a single. And the drop from 600,000 in album sales to 169,000 the following week is quite spectacular.
And as for a “release-great-singles-over-time strategy”, there were already (as Paste correctly pointed out) six Mumford singles on the chart simultaneously as of two weeks ago. So much for doing that.
Not saying they aren’t great. Just saying it takes more than a single great week on the chart to earn anyone a comparison to any all-time great. Especially the Beatles.
Hmph.
Every Moment Has A Song 