How'd you like those headphones, anyway?

I noticed my compact disc player starting to swell after I played Better Man 4 times. Can you just tell me the lyrics ?

"My shadow left me long ago" > "I can feel the dawn, I can feel the earth, I can feel the living, All around, round, round, round, All around, round, round, round"

However, another 42 instances of "round", and we might have to tip the scale in favor of Swallowed Hole

Very nice. I've been listening with them non-stop

Fan since the beginning, seen them 20 or so times live over the years, read this forum everyday, post never.

I think the real message is that this album has very limited mass appeal. 380k in sales is what, about double the size of the 10 club membership, less than double? For all the hype and promotion, the non-jamily public is definitely not finding this album interesting.

this has been pretty extensively documented in other threads (primarily by McParadigm) but those numbers reflect the decline of the industry as a whole. When you control for that (which is to say, look at how it does compared to the other releases this year, since the numbers are less useful in absolute terms) L-bolt is, I believe, about as successful as Yield.

Also, welcome to the board

Its back to #40 on the Billboard 200. I think it'll reach 500k, Sirens is doing well still, and maybe a 3rd single will help.

I think you could also speculate that PJ would be hurt by piracy far less than other, younger acts. Maybe someone has the facts to disprove this, but I think the hardcore PJ fanbase would be more likely to buy a physical copy then the fanbases for many other bands, fan bases that have always known digital piracy as a reality.

McP has argued as much. Well established (which is to say older) bands tend to be hit less hard by this.

It makes sense. Whether out of nostalgia or habit, I'd think older fans would more likely want the physical copy than younger fans who never really had that type of experience.

i wonder if older fans are more album driven as well?

But a lot of the bands hit hardest by piracy, the bands that came up in an era when it was most prevalent, have found ways to thrive despite it.

Piracy became so rampant because of its convenience. The success of itunes proves it. It wasn't just you were downloading for free from napster, but you could literally just type the name of a song and then you could listen to it. Everyone jumped on itunes because it's practically the same thing, and people didn't care that the mp3 now cost 99 cents.

Services like bandcamp where you can quickly access the music you're looking for, and get it at a reasonable price (often one you name yourself) in a format you want are working for new bands.

no doubt. It just means we need newer metrics for figuring out how widespread/successful a release is.

I nominate metacritic!

I like this album, but aside from Infallible, I don't really care if I ever hear it again.

I still like 10 out of the 12 songs. I tried really hard to like the other two but in the end they're half-baked failures. Most of the songs on the album succeed in spite of their sanitised and safe production / instrumentation treatment.

3rd single hello ????????

Matts playing on this record overall is pretty great.
He's found his place at last.

72 - 363,000 - YOURS TRULY - Ariana Grande
73 - 359,000 - GREATEST HITS: CHAPTER 1 - Kelly Clarkson
74 - 349,000 - LIGHTNING BOLT - Pearl Jam
75 - 349,000 - 13 - Black Sabbath
76 - 345,000 - STARS DANCE - Selena Gomez
77 - 343,000 - SET YOU FREE - Gary Allan

Welp, that's about as high as I figured it might get, so I guess that shows what I know.

And while we're on the subject of pop music's changing/splintering/compartmentalizing position in the 21st century digital age, I saw this quote in an article today and was amused.

"Hating Nickelback is the last form of pop music monoculture."

If only.