On Fox News, I caught the last bit of a segment from an interview of the PR guy for the Dixie Chicks. He seemed like he was in a hurry and he said something to the point of…“They are losing popularity from our pro-Bush fans but we are also gaining new fans who agree with what Maines said. I don’t think this will affect any sales of their new releases or their upcoming tour.”
(Not a quote but a summary of what I heard)
I tried to find this quote, word for word but no deal.
-M
I heard on the news yesterday that they took a 40% dip in record sales, which to mean means they lose money.
And yes, they may have cross over pop fans, but their heart and soul is country. The country stations more than anything are leading the ‘ban the Dixie Chicks’ hype. I know I enjoyed their music, but tend to turn it off now if it comes on the radio.
According to **Billboard **, sales for the Dixie Chicks concert tour have been completely unaffected beyond the odd comment to a bvuilding asking for a refund. The Chicks sold $49,000,000 worth of tickets during the March 1 weekend.
Their album is back in the #1 slot on the Top Country Albums chart after spending a week at #2.
And it is at #30 on the Billboard 200 chart, which counts all albums regardless of genre/style.
And I have seen nothing about their sales being down 40% and even if that’s true, it’s not that surprising, as this is usually a slow period in terms of album sales.
They haven’t lost any money.
Perhaps they haven’t made as much as they might have, but they haven’t lost any.
This article from New Zealand implies that their views have hurt them financially. In addition to the 40 percent dip in sales noted earlier, their album is basically number one by default; nothing new is being introduced right now.
How much they’ve lost because of their stance is open to debate, but I think it’s obvious they’ve lost some money they otherwise would have made.
http://att.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,11476,00.html
This article says that radio play declined 20% and album sales declined by 21,000 copies from the previous week. This decline was not as large as other country acts. What the album sales would have been in the absence of the comments is unknowable, but it makes sense that a 20% decline in radio airplay would probably hurt sales somewhat. On the other hand they have received huge amounts of free publicity.
Sticking purely to factual data: it appears that all of the Dixie Chicks concerts in Texas for 2003 have sold out, as have all but 3 of the concerts booked throughout the South.
Now, it’s certainly possible, even likely that the Chicks have alienated some fans, but not enough to prevent sellouts. So, it appears that SCALPERS will be the only ones to suffer, if there’s any backlash!
This week’s Entertainment Weekly just arrived, complete with naked-cover story on the Chicks. A quote:
There’s also a chart of their album’s sales from the week ending February 9 through the week ending April 20. On March 9, 145,788 copies of Home sold, down from 202,350 the week before (the high in the period, labeled “a post-Grammy-show bump”). March 16, sales were 123,952. March 23: 71,732, called “the post-Bush-insult freefall.” March 30, sales were 51,379, and April 6, 41,554.
Given that, in the context of my original question, Moore’s statement that sales are not down is simply false. Pre-Bush-comment: 145,788 sales. April 6, the day before Moore’s column is dated, sales were 41,554 – a 71.5% decline in total sales in four weeks. (Re: Renshaw’s comment: sales bottomed (so far) at 33,127 the week ending April 13.)
Whether or not their sales would’ve gone so low if they hadn’t made their comments is probably unanswerable.
So sales went like this over a 6 week span?
202,350
145,788
123,952
71,732
51,379
41,554
That’s not an uncommon six week swing, especially for a CD that’s been out for a while. See recent albums from Creed, NSync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilara, and the Now collections for similar examples.
The comments prove nothing.