Did ya here?!!! Soundgarden sold 1 million copies of their cutting edge/old ass album Telephantasm. Awesome. Soundgarden bass player and part time homeless man Ben Shepard probably could use a few bucks.
But how did Soundgarden, a great, but mostly dead band, manage to rouse the interest of their fan base to buy their album before it even hits the shelves?
Pre-orders? Fanclub specials? Pre-release downloads?
Nah, they just got Activision (publisher of Guitar Hero) to buy 1 million copies and help the album go platinum.
This week, the rock group Soundgarden received a platinum record, the music industry’s honor for the increasingly rare feat of moving a million albums. More unusual: Soundgarden got its plaque before the album even hits stores on Tuesday. Traditionally, records go gold or platinum based on the number of CDs that a record label ships to stores (minus the unsold copies returned to the label), or on the quantity of downloads sold. But Soundgarden’s “Telephantasm” bypassed that system. Copies of the CD, a retrospective of the band’s songs going back to 1987, were bundled inside a new Guitar Hero videogame. To put this package together, the game’s publisher, Activision, essentially purchased a million “Telephantasm” CDs, handing Soundgarden platinum status out of the gate…
“These 1 million units, purchased by Activision, are non-returnable and represent official sales of the album,” said RIAA director Kate Harold in a press release Tuesday.
Platinum albums aren’t easy to come by these days thanks to piracy and free streaming music: It took Justin Bieber’s screaming army of preteens two months to buy a million copies of My World 2.0.
Harold expects this kind of chicanery to continue. “I anticipate we’ll be seeing more and more of these types of partnerships and cross-pollination of industries which benefit everyone, especially music fans,” she said…
Wow. What garbage. Gaming the system to appear relevant. . . and still the only reason I care, is because they were shady about the “1 million copies.” I definitely think this strategy has a long shelf life… not.
Take Control of Your Music
Voyno
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