Has SMiLE gone gold?

[Lonely Summer]

I haven't seen anything about the sales for the various packages of SMiLE. It was something like #25 in Billboard first week out, dropped way down the second week....then it was gone. Can't imagine it sold enough to go gold, unless the various packages are all counted together.

[Wirestone]

They are. Each copy of the big boxed set counts as seven units.

[KokoNO]

Where was that confirmed though? The boxed sets certainly should count as seven units apiece though, no argument there. If they do, then only about 71,500 sets need to be sold in order to go Gold.

I have no clue if the two disc sets are going to be factored in with the boxed set. I see no reason why they shouldn't. If they are though, then it's likely that a big chunk of the solid first week sales were actually the two disc sets. Pretty sure that as far as the Billboard charts are concerned, they're ranked by the number of copies, not units. That much is obvious or else we wouldn't even be having this discussion since the album would clearly be nowhere close to the mark.In all likelihood, the big boxed set probably hasn't sold more than 20,000 copies in the United States. I mean, it's an expensive beast. In the long haul, it will be the two disc set (which will effectively be known as the Smile "album") that will sell consistently. It will probably be the band's consistent #2 selling studio album after Pet Sounds.

[The Shift]

Now don't be forgetting the one-disc CD version sold here in the United Beach Boys Heartland Kingdom! 

[Andrew G. Doe]

The RIAA rules state that in multi-disc sets, each qualifying element* counts as one sale, thus the 1993 box went gold by selling 100,000 units. Ergo, to go gold, the big box would have to sell just under 71,500 copies.

[* this disqualifies the two singles]

[KokoNO]

Also, I just want to complain again about Warmth of the Sun and the missed opportunity that it was sales-wise. All they had to do was subtitle it Very Best of the Beach Boys - Volume 2 and the general public would have figured out it was the follow-up to Sounds of Summer. Instead, they're generally unaware and while Sounds of Summer has sold about 3 million in the United States, part II has pretty much landed with a thud. I really think they should re-title both Volume 1 and Volume 2 to make it painfully obvious.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Or release the two together, combined and at a good value price.

SMiLE box set SOLD OUT in the uk. That' not bad going for 44 year old music...

[MaxL]

Or release the two together, combined and at a good value price.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Giftpack-2CD-DVD-Beach-Boys/dp/B001F0K0LS/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1330858573&sr=1-1

Maybe it's a UK-only thing, idk.

[Ron]

I dunno.  "Gold" Lost it's meaning long, long ago.  You used to have to sell a million to go Gold.  That ended in the 80's I believe, but really if the boxset counts as 7 each what significance does Gold have anymore?  It's like how the US Government has policies to make sure every school student passes; then just makes the test easy enough that a small farm animal could pass.  LOL

Kind of makes the whole thing pointless. 

[ArchStanton]

Well, it's 7 disc at about $140 a pop.  So $20 a disc, which is quite a bit above your normal CD. 

I want to say Rolling Stone said it had sold about 50K after 2 or 3 weeks, but I could be crazy (whatever they said, it was a very sturdy number compared to sets of a similar nature).  So in that case, I'd say it will go gold, especially since they measure units shipped not sold.

[KokoNO]

So in that case, I'd say it will go gold, especially since they measure units shipped not sold.

Yes, but I really doubt this is an excessive case of over-shipment akin to the Backstreet Boys' Black and Blue album (which I remember reading had sold under 6 million according to Soundscan, yet was 8x Platinum....talk about a lot of CDs being sent back!). I really doubt Capitol just went ahead and produced thousands of boxed sets and took the risk of having thousands of them sit in their warehouses. Also, with the decline of smaller record stores and larger chains like Wal-Mart unlikely to carry larger boxed sets, I doubt there's too many of the larger boxes sitting on shelves either.

[ArchStanton]

Fair enough, but we're talking about it having to ship 71.429 units.  I just mentioned it as it is a factor, albeit small as you point out.  For what it's worth, each Best Buy I've been to seems to have a copy or two on their shelves. 

[KokoNO]

Oh, no problem. I wasn't arguing with your statement or anything, just saying that whatever the sales totals are (which we don't even know), they're likely pretty close to the shipment totals for this particular release. Major new album releases are where you usually get the largest discrepancies right away because the labels will ship a ton of copies to stores in order to make sure demand is met. For example, Adele's next CD, whenever that will be, it will probably ship double the amount of hard copies that it sells in its first week because there will likely be heavy demand and first week sales approaching one million copies (although, most of those would likely be digital downloads).

[Lonely Summer]

Was in my favorite record/cd store last night - one of the few left - and surprised to see the only copy of SMiLE in the entire store was the big box. Not one copy of the two disc set or the vinyl to be seen. Only a few Beach Boys cd's in stock, and the vinyl reissues of Today, Summer Days, Surfs Up, Sunflower and Endless Summer. Only one other store locally has had any copies, I know retail sales for music are on the wane, but the remaining stores have tons of copies of Sounds of Summer, Pet Sounds, etc. Was the belated release of SMiLE considered a failure? Did BWPS satisfy the curious? Can we expect a renewed push from Capitol once the summer tour begins?

[cablegeddon]

I dunno.  "Gold" Lost it's meaning long, long ago.  You used to have to sell a million to go Gold.  That ended in the 80's I believe, but really if the boxset counts as 7 each what significance does Gold have anymore?  It's like how the US Government has policies to make sure every school student passes; then just makes the test easy enough that a small farm animal could pass.  LOL

Kind of makes the whole thing pointless. 

was gold once a million units? I thought it was always half a million!

[Andrew G. Doe]

Was the belated release of SMiLE considered a failure?

Not at all. TSS exceeded Capitol's hopes and expectations.

[Ron]

I dunno.  "Gold" Lost it's meaning long, long ago.  You used to have to sell a million to go Gold.  That ended in the 80's I believe, but really if the boxset counts as 7 each what significance does Gold have anymore?  It's like how the US Government has policies to make sure every school student passes; then just makes the test easy enough that a small farm animal could pass.  LOL

Kind of makes the whole thing pointless.  

was gold once a million units? I thought it was always half a million!

Originally, it was a million.  Or more specifically, it was invented by record companies to give to their own artists... so they could say Elvis was a "Gold Selling Artist" or whatever.  Traditionally the number settled at 1 million... so if you hear that Leslie Gore had a "Gold Record" or something, that's what they're talking about.  In the 80's (I believe that's when it happened, may have been the early 90's) the RIAA started keeping track and changed it to half a million.  

Then they ran into the problem, where it was very hard to sell "Gold" in somewhere like... Germany for instance.  So they set different numbers for each country.  

In The US, though, originally and for decades it was 1 million sales.

Edit: I just looked it up, the confusion comes from the difference between Singles, and Albums.  Singles used to be 1 million; so Elvis, etc. would sell 1 million 45's and get a 'Gold Record'.  Albums originally were 1 million in sales; or 500,000 copies sold.  So that remains the same.

[Andrew G. Doe]

From that unimpeachable source, Bellagio 10452:

"The current RIAA certification levels are 500,000 units for gold and 1,000,000 units for platinum for singles, and the same figures for albums with additional dollar sales of at least $1 million and $2 million, based on one-third of the list price (although for multi-dics sets, each disc counts towards the award and the dollar sales are not a factor). However, to quote the RIAA, "catalog product, specifically pre-1972 album releases, are eligible for certification by meeting either the unit shipment or manufacturer's dollar requirement for each award level." Translated into English, this means that from 1958-75, the gold qualification for albums was sales of $1,000,000, whereas for a single it was one million units sold. In 1975, the criteria for albums was amended to $1 million in sales at a minimum of 500,000 units sold. The following year the platinum level was introduced, albums being $2 million at 1,000,000 copies, and a straight 2 million copies sold for singles. In 1989 the level for gold singles was reduced to 500,000 copies."

So there.