FORBES ATTEMPTS TO GENERATE CONTROVERSY OVER MADONNA'S MNDA SALES
http://top40.about.com/b/2012/04/11/...comment-382247
Forbes Attempts To Generate Controversy Over Madonna's MDNA Sales
By Bill Lamb, About.com GuideApril 11, 2012
Forbes magazine generated a significant amount of mention in the press over a request that Madonna's people should apologize to Lionel Richie for preventing him from taking a rightful position at #1 on the Billboard album chart with his album Tuskegee. That would be a dramatic and powerful statment if it were based on solid analysis. Madonna's official first week sales reported by SoundScan totaled 364,000. This included 185,000 copies that were bundled as an incentive to purchase concert tickets. That means 179,000 copies of MDNA were sold separately. It is this total compared with 199,000 copies sold of Lionel Richie's Tuskegee that leads to the overblown statement that without the concert ticket sales, Lionel Richie would have been #1. However, it is an extreme stretch of the imagination to think that not even 21,000 of the 185,000 people who bought concert tickets would have bought the MDNA album if they were not getting it for free with their tickets. These, in fact, likely include many of Madonna's core fans who are willing to spend $200 or more to see her live.
The Forbes writer goes on to say that Lionel Richie's album is a major hit while Madonna's is not. It seems an open question to call either a major hit until we find out if they even reach gold certification status. The writer erroneously states MDNA has produced nothing like a hit single and no radio airplay while "Give Me All Your Luvin'" did reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the top 40 in pop radio airplay. Lionel Richie, for his part, generated a significant amount of his album's sales by appearing on the Home Shopping Network, and, so far, has failed to generate a pop or country chart single from Tuskegee. Madonna's sales numbers may be a bit over-inflated, but Billboard's policy to measure the intent to purchase an album on the part of consumers remains solid reasoning when assuming concert ticket purchasers are the core of an artist's fan base. Interesting sales numbers to contemplate? Yes, indeed. Controversy? Not really.
