DROE sales/charts

[one man]

6th week in Flanders - #108
6th week in Waloonia - # 180

5th week in Germany - #79

4th week in Poland - #43 (down by just one position)

 

[one man]

6th week in Finalnd - the album stays on #36. Either this or Sweden (where DROE is on #36 after 5th week) will likely be their most long-standing charts for this album.

 

[Sole Reaper]

Is the new album helping Formation too? I can't help buy think some people who didn't get FoD the first time are going back to get it too.

 

[one man]

Back when Formation had ceased to chart, I've expressed my hope that the next album would - should it become a commercial success - help raise the Formation sales again after a few years. I'm guessing it is doing that right now. It's hard to get any details, though - as the soundscan info is privy to music business insiders and we only get what they want to disclose from time to time (which rarely is info on non current albums).

I'm guessing Formation is not that far from reaching 100k in the US. Not sure about the worldwide numbers, but I'd say 400k is not impossible.

 

[Sole Reaper]

400k would be very impressive in this day in age. I hope DROE will surpass that.

 

[one man]

So it fell out of the Billboard 200.

As for the other countries - we have a re-entry in Switzerland - #100 (5th week).

 

[one man]

7th week in Flanders # 178 (better than last week)
7th week in Walloonia #121
6th week in Sweden #47

 

[redfly]

Nice!

 

[one man]

Seriously, they outdid Formation big time. Those numbers are in line with Slayer's last album, and better than Megadeth's new one (not to mention Anthrax). Good times for the guys, finally!

 

[one man]

Good news from Finland. On its 7th week on the chart, DROE drops only by 3 positions and is currently #39!

 

[Pascal]

For those of you wondering if Formation has sold 100k units in the US alone well it has. I read an interview from Eric Peterson in Decibel magazine and he did mention this. He also stated that Testament has sold 4 Million records worldwide since their very 1st album The Legacy. I would say DROE is well on pace to surpass Formation.

 

[one man]

Thanks for the update, Pascal. As for surpassing the previous album - totally. It took Formation like 6 months to sell 50k units in the US. I think DROE will reach that number within 4 months.

I'm guessing the worldwide number includes pre-Soundscan sales too, as it's really impressive (although the SoundScan is only in the US, the US is their biggest market and has a huge impact on the worldwide sales, obviously - they had like 1.250.000 post-Soundscan units scanned in the US alone ... 8,5 years ago; one can imagine how big that number is now and how many copies were sold before mid-1991).

Bottom line: I really hope someone asks Eric about more specific numbers for all the records, and how close to gold they are with all of them in the US and in the other countries.

EDIT: Speaking of differences in the sales between the US and Europe, Chuck says they're bigger in Europe. But that was in 1987. I guess this must have changed a little bit. Anyway, the interview's great and Alex is hilarious here :

 

[Sole Reaper]

I would think that Testament is still bigger in Europe than here in the States, but then I don't have any concrete info to back that up. Just a hunch that they've always been more popular in the long run over in Europe.

 

[one man]

Yeah, I used to think so too (as opposed to e.g. Overkill who's big in the States and in Germany, but way smaller elsewhere), but since after week 1 a third of the worldwide sales were those from the US, I started to wonder. However, in some places the record was released on different dates plus they don't have soundscan, so who knows.

 

[one man]

Looks like some of the last updates, as far as the charts are concerned.

Week #8 in Flanders - position 106
Week #8 in Walloonia - position 199.

I'm guessing the album's still among top 200 best selling records in several other countries as well, but few of them have official lists that include that many positions.

 

[one man]

Looks like it dropped out of the Swedish and Finnish charts last week. Still going strong in Belgium:

Week #9 in Flanders - position 155
Week #9 in Walloonia - position 167 (better than last 3 weeks).

 

[one man]

It's weird - according to Billboard's website DROE chart history spanned 4 weeks, while I've noticed it appear 5 times:

week 1 - #12
week 2 - #55
week 3 - #114
week 4 - #170
week 5 - #187

It wouldn't be the first time they fail to be accurate with archive info (for example they're not listing Return to Serenity's chart appearance).

BTW, it's still on the Hard Rock Albums charts (position #20 on its 8th week there; FOD managed 2 weeks).

 

[one man]

Week #10 in Flanders - position no. 174.

 

[one man]

Finally I've found precise SoundScan info concerning recent albums. As of January 16th, 2013 the album has sold 53.673 copies, which isn't bad at all. It sold 845 copies in the week preceding that date, which was a 15% drop in sales as compared to the previous week when it sold 997 copies.

The Excel file with the info can be downloaded here:
http://vakseen.com/site/nielsen-soundscan-sales-11613/. Once you open the file go to the "Indie Albums" sheet. Hopefully the sales will grow with the Overkill tour that started yesterday.

 

[one man]

For those of you wondering whether the beginning of the tour helped the sales or not - it hasn't (yet?). In the week ending on February 6th the album has sold only 516 copies (as compared to 647 the week before). The total count is at 55,466 now, so it'll be like two more decades 'till it reaches the gold status in the US, it seems. Let's hope the tour will have a positive impact on their popularity as it advances in the weeks to come. Source: http://vakseen.com/site/nielsen-soundscan-sales-2613/.