The Red and Blue Albums in the UK Album Chart

[bri286]

In the mid-week UK charts, 1967-1970 is at number one and 1962-1966 is at number two, just a thousand physical sales behind...and bizarrely, the combined box set (on 4 CDs or 6 LPs) is at number nine!

Naturally, for chart purposes the sale of actual product is worth much more than streams (which, after all, involve no actual purchase, but only a subscription at best), so it seems unlikely that these positions will change during the course of the week given that these albums, like "Now and Then", are achieving physical sales of which most artists could only dream.

This begs the question as to how many CDs and vinyl records are actually sold each week; given that only 5.5m LPs were sold in the UK in the whole of 2022 (the same as in 1990, when the format was already long dead on its' feet) suggests average weekly sales of little more than 105,000 across all artists and genres; the CD position is rather healthier, with 11.6m CDs sold last year in the UK (223,000 per week), but both figures overlook the fact that a high-profile new release, such as by The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, etc., will mean a surge in (pre-) sales for a week or two followed by a comparative lull.

What is clear is that in the UK, despite all the fuss over vinyl, CDs still outsell all other physical formats combined by a minimum of two to one, for a variety of reasons which may include cost, sound quality, convenience and durability - "you pays your money and you takes your choice"!

[Lord Reith]

I'm rather suspicious of vinyl sales figures per year, as probably 90% of them are Swifties buying up 15 different versions of each record.

I suppose their dads are the ones driving the R&B figures by buying up all the versions of it.

The spotify figures for most of the newly remixed songs are in the hundreds of thousands, but with six sides worth of material that adds up to a large figure for each album.

So, a combination of many flavours of physical sets and two very long albums chalking up two or three times the streams of a single album, that's what's driving the chart position.

All good though.

[bobzilla]

...90% of them are Swifties buying up 15 different versions of each record.

I got here and immediately thought, "Yeah, but also how many people on this forum have fessed up to buying every version of Now and Then."

[Lord Reith]

...90% of them are Swifties buying up 15 different versions of each record.

I got here and immediately thought, "Yeah, but also how many people on this forum have fessed up to buying every version of Now and Then."

Ha ha. Yeah that's true, but I think N&T was a bit different in that there was a very powerful video and it got over to a large part of the population who are not big fans or have not even heard the group. So I think that was a genuine, bona fide chart topper... although no doubt selling six copies of the same record per customer helped.

R&B will get across to new young fans, it always does. Not sure how many, but this music always seems to hook new listeners. In the 80s I was a pariah for liking The Beatles. I literally had to conceal my liking of them in some situations. I can remember, vividly, when Lewisohn's "Recording Sessions" came out and I went to a guy's house to jam and as I sat down i saw that book on the coffee table. Before I could say anything, this guy casually leaned over and threw some magazines over the top of it. Seriously. He didn't want me to know he was a Beatles fan! I can remember jamming with an other guy and we were getting along great until I said I liked The Beatles. He literally unplugged his guitar and said he had to go. Yet despite all this anti-Beatles feeling in the 80s, the music still managed to win over millions of new fans. And I know that right this minute, despite pop music no longer resembling anything I can recognise, there are strange nerdy kids out there who are hearing the fabs for the first time and like a dirty little secret listening to it wondering, "Hey, is this old fart music actually like... REALLY GOOD?!"

[beckman99]

a funny detail to the red and blue. the beatles stay in the uk charts at nr 2 and 3 behind taylor swift. the reason is as funny as absurd. the count the sales of the albums separately to the sales of both albums in the box set . hard to beat in terms of absurdity when u think that the box costs the same as if u would buy both albums separately. we´ve been there before .

[Kwai Chang]

We can all rejoice! Young people will exceed our capacities with all the resources they'll have. It could very well be based on inspiration that is their own. I know The Beatles will keep the future gate keepers forever refining the things not yet heard.
Excitement IS included!
KC

[Lord Reith]

If they hadn't released the combined sets, the figures show that this week Red and Blue would in fact be numer 2 and number 1. "The Official Charts" company treated the two-in-one boxes as a separate release. But when all the sales are totalled, The Beatles beat Taylor.

[cliftdean74]

It’s a pity that Apple or Universal or whoever should have been paying attention didn’t just initially release the two separate albums without the box. Or make the box something you could buy on its own via The Beatles store. It would have been great to have a number 1 Beatles single along with a number 1 and 2 Beatles album in the official charts in 2023.

[WOA76]

I'm rather suspicious of vinyl sales figures per year, as probably 90% of them are Swifties buying up 15 different versions of each record.

I suppose their dads are the ones driving the R&B figures by buying up all the versions of it.

The spotify figures for most of the newly remixed songs are in the hundreds of thousands, but with six sides worth of material that adds up to a large figure for each album.

So, a combination of many flavours of physical sets and two very long albums chalking up two or three times the streams of a single album, that's what's driving the chart position.

All good though.

Swifties just paid my Now and Then CD Single sold one CDs i had being DJ and got more paid for it listed and had sold hour sold
I owb free as A Bird and real love CD Singles be nice own all 3

hey she hot market right now buddy my got an RSD of hers for 30$ and sold $600 there few gone 1000s
https://www.discogs.com/sell/history/11897505

[bri286]

If they hadn't released the combined sets, the figures show that this week Red and Blue would in fact be number 2 and number 1. "The Official Charts" company treated the two-in-one boxes as a separate release. But when all the sales are totaled, The Beatles beat Taylor.

Indeed - while the Blue Album sold 14,954 units alone, which is a shortfall of 1,819 units compared with Ms. Swift, the combined Red/Blue box set editions (CDs and LPs) sold 3,625 units and so - rather bizarrely - charted separately.

Therefore, more Blue Albums were actually sold than any other album last week - and the Red Album would also have been at number two, selling 13,432 copies as a stand-alone item plus those extra 3,625 copies in the box set, assuming that everyone buying the box sets would have bought both the Red and the Blue separately.

With the benefit of hindsight, this turned out to be very poor marketing, as it deprived The Beatles of an album chart lock-out...