When Bands Have Fans

The music newsletter Digital Music News has posted some interesting stats on The Shins' album sales - assuming you like this sort of thing.

'Wincing The Night Away' sold 119,000 units last week, enough to make it No. 2 in the Billboard chart. If you want signs of an industry collapsing, that's one. A few years ago those numbers wouldn't have made the top 20.

Digital album sales were 35,000, making 29% of the total. This easily outstrips the average digital album sale of 5 - 6%. According "to one label source", The Shins kind of ratio isn't uncommon for indie labels.

Simon Wheeler at indie 'conglomerate' Beggars-XL virtually confirmed this a few years ago when he described the download reality for bands on its labels. It boiled down to: our bands have fans that support them. Message to major label owners: look back to how your record labels built their artists and catalogues to the point they were so attractive you bought them. Oh yeah -- they had artists with fans who supported them.

The idea that people can be touched by artists, care about them and buy their music throughout the decades is probably something that a guy from biscuits (Eric Nicoli at EMI), media publishing (Thomas Hesse at Sony BMG), or whiskey (Joseph Bronfman at Warner) do not understand. Who cares passionately about biscuits - even Jammy Dodgers? Their world is satisfying shareholders and meeting analyst's expectations.

Ahmet Ertegun started Atlantic so he could make records he wanted to hear. Chris Blackwell started Island Records as a hobby, relief from his main business. The guys at SubPop wanted to put out all the cool bands around them.

The Shins are on SubPop. And there they are at the top along with Pretty Ricky, Justin Timberlake, Daughtry, and Robin Thicke. Those guys all have major marketing muscle and distribution. The Shins have fans.