‘In Rainbows’ Stats Released
October 15, 2008 by Albert Costill
Filed under News
On Monday I wrote a little post about the effect of In Rainbows one year after it’s experimental release. Today, in some sort of coincidence, Warner Chappell (who published the album) revealed how well it album actually sold.
Here are some of the very impressive stats, courtesy of Music Ally:
- 3 million copies of In Rainbows were altogether sold, this includes digital, physical and boxset sales.
- In Rainbows made Radiohead more money before it’s physical release than it’s 2003 predecessor Hail To The Thief has altogether.
- After being made available for free for 3 months the album was no.1 in the UK and in the US.
- 1st Radiohead album on iTunes – no.1 album selling 30,000 units in the US in the first week.
- The physical CD has sold 1.75 million to date and is still top 200 UK & US.
- They sold 100k boxsets via W.A.S.T.E.
- Nearing 17 million plays on last.fm.
While obviously a big part of this success was due to the hype surrounding the release of In Rainbows, it doesn’t explain everything. The fact that people were willing to buy the album, either digitally or physically, is extremely important.
I have two theories on why the album faired so well.
The first is that people were more than willing to reward Radiohead for this venture. Giving fans the option to pay for whatever they feel an album is worth was clutch. Let’s face it, the cost of an album is too high. I bet sales would rise a bit if price tags dropped. Most music fans will happily purchase an album to support an artist that they like. But, they know that the labels are cashing in, so why support them? Fans knew that their money for In Rainbows was going to the band, so they didn’t mind handing it over to Radiohead, even if they could get it for free.
The second theory is that the album is fucking great. If Radiohead released an album full of animal sounds, there is no way fans would have kept buying it. Sure, there may have been an initial spark because of the hype, but if the album sucked, fans wouldn’t have kept buying it. If you build it, they will come.
Image via Wikipedia
I agree with your theory. The album got mad press, yes, but it was good enough to keep on selling.
I know people have read about all this hype and said, “yeah, because the were radiohead”.
But I truly believe that working an album digitally first is a great way to build buzz around a retail release.
DJ Orion on Tue, 28th Oct 2008 3:56 pm
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