The Smiley Smile Message Board

My guess: somewhere around #50 in the US and between #15 and #20 in the UK.

That low..

After this promotion, that can't be an option.

I think I agree with Shelter.  No big deal, though. 

Apart from Smile, no Brian Wilson solo album ever charted higher than #54 in the US (BW88) and #30 in the UK (Imagination). So #50 in the US and #15-20 in the UK would actually be pretty darn good.

My guess is about #40 US and maybe #20 UK.  Remember, it's not had 37-odd years of free advance publicity. Also, the year between UK live debut and studio release.

What shelter said sounds pretty reasonable...Brian unfortunately just isn't one of those artists who can expect to have a huge hit at this late stage of his career, no matter how good the record is.

The promotion should help to some degree though.

For an album without any major hit singles, made by a guy who's old enough to be the grandfather of most people you see on MTV nowadays, reaching the US top 50 would be a great accomplishment.

BW has a certain amount of celebrity status in the US, but none in the UK, and I'd be seriously surprised if TLOS charted at all. The only reason Smile and Wonderful got on the charts was due to desperate (though perfectly legal) chart manipulation from Camp Melinda.

Actually, haven't all of Brian's solo albums, not just Smile, done better in the UK?

I always thought he was more of a celebrity there.

Brian Wilson: US #54, UK did not chart
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times: US did not chart, UK #59
Orange Crate Art: US did not chart, UK did not chart
Imagination: US #88, UK #30
Live at the Roxy Theatre: US did not chart, UK did not chart
Pet Sounds Live: US did not chart, UK did not chart
Gettin' In Over My Head: US #100, UK #53
Smile: US #13, UK #7
What I Really Want for Christmas: US #200, UK did not chart

Funny - I was under the impression that BWPS charted in the UK because it sold enough copies to do just that. Certified gold over here, y'know, and that's an independant audit.

You can call me crazy...

It's going to go Top 10 in either the UK or US (most likely UK.)

I certainly hope you're right...that would be a huge morale booster for Brian.  He may downplay it, but you know in the back of his mind he still wants everything he puts out to be a hit.  That 60's mentality ("go write a #1!) has to still be in there somewhere.

My guess is #37 in the US, #12 in the UK, and #3 in Lithuania

Brian is actually quite famous in the UK.

But I still think TLOS is gong to chart better in the US.

But that's just a shot in the dark.

Yeah, Mojo for instance hardly ever seems to bring out in issue without any input from Brian... Whenever they have a special on any subject or another 'best of' list, it's almost a given that Brian is one of the celebrities that they've asked for an opinion or his favorite song by this or that artist...

I'm a little pessimistic. Amazon UK has the standard TLOS CD currently at 251 in it's bestseller list and the CD/DVD combo version at 57. Presumbably folk here are pre ordering the latter first as it's a limited edition.

I would be surprised if it got into the Top 100 in the US but I expect it at least to get into the Top 40 in the UK. That's not great but not bad either.

 8)

For no reason I have had a look at what Frank Sinatra was doing at 66. He came up with this album.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/frank_sinatra/she_shot_me_down/

I have no idea how it charted in 81 but I would think the target age group would be the same for Brian in 2008. Should be interesting to compare.

I have that album. It blows chunks  :lol :lol

I am predicting US #39, just slipping into the top 40. Being on Capitol may help with sales and promotion...you would think.

She Shot Me Down is a great album. This was not a collection of swinging, big band tunes. Frank Sinatra wanted to do an entire album of saloon songs, songs of lost love and forgotten dreams, a concept album if you will. Frank brought back Gordon Jenkins for some of the arrangements, and Don Costa produced it. For me, the highlights are the title track, "Long Night", and "The Gal That Got Away". Sinatra's voice was slightly frayed, but effective. These were his types of songs; he loved performing them. I don't think the album was a commercial success, but it was a critical success. For some reason (I don't know the story behind it), the album was only avilable on CD for a short period of time, then pulled. It now goes on sale on Ebay for big bucks.

Frank Sinatra recorded one more album, L.A. Is My Lady, in 1984, then called it a day as a recording artist. OK, back to TLOS's charting potential...

Edit: Frank Sinatra also recorded the song, "That Lucky Old Sun" - 59 years ago!

Basically it was a fan favorite, but didn't perform nearly as well with the general public as his immediately previous late-career-peak album Trilogy, which featured a little ditty called "New York, New York".  Looks like possibly a good parallel to me...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I thought the same when a review mentioned Sinatras voice at 66 but thanks for pointing out a few more similarities. Will follow the charts with interest.

I am wondering what planet you are from, and if you visit earth often......LOL...

Being something of a transatlantic person, I am under the impression that Brian's celebrity is bigger in the UK than the US.

And the notion that SMiLE charted in the UK due to manipulation is absurd. SMiLE was a huge mainstream deal over here in the UK, the CD was even featured in supermarkets for a while. Not to mention it was advertised on TV and in print.

as for the Wonderful 7" single, you only need to sell a couple of thousand singles in a week to get into the top 40 in the UK. IIRC Wonderful was a limited edition of 3000 or 4000, and most sold out in that first week. it was ALWAYS going to make the top 40, for a week at least. Independant analysis showed it to be the best selling 7" in the UK for over a decade....no doubt helped by the fact that I bought two copies of all three versions (there were three different coloured discs)...and I am sure I was not alone in doing that!

Brian had a bona fide UK singles chart hit....and he just about repeated it with Good Vibrations in December '04...though I think that only got to #39. I bought five of those, gave four away as Christmas pressies.


my guess is that TLOS will fare better in the UK than the US, but probably won't crack the top 20 in either country. I hope I am wrong, and that it is a major chart success.

And not even all of these copies ended up in the UK. I bought two copies in a Dutch record store. So unless that store got them from a British store, those didn't even count for the UK charts.

The 7" Wonderful was a UK only release...so if a Dutch store got hold of some, they were from a UK source. Whether it counted towards the UK charts is another matter.

You have to sell very few singles these days to get into the top 40 in the UK. There's no doubt in my mind that there was no manipulation of the charts for Wonderful or SMiLE.

Legal downloads count too for the single charts nowadays.

We're sure to have sold a million copies by January.

For anyone interested, TLOS is currently at #22 on the US iTunes chart.

The regular TLOS CD is #6 in music at Amazon.   The Deluxe is appox #25, and vinyl is #1000+.  For the official/Billboard/whatever count, does each regular, deluxe, and vinyl copy count as a sale in their total?

On the selves of Woolworths and WH Smith today at 19 and 20.

Amazon: 8, 38, 1008 for regular, deluxe, vinyl, respectively.

Again, does anyone know whether the Billboard numbers include sales of each version?

It just entered the Dutch album chart at #55.

And it's #27 on the "Droomlijst" (dream list), which is the Dutch top 40 for alternative albums. Isn't it funny how Brian Wilson was as mainstream as could be 40-45 years ago and that at some point in time his music apparently became 'alternative'?

Billboard charts are compiled from sales of all formats - CD, vinyl, download and, for all I know, cylinder.  :-D

Andrew, what are you feelings/thoughts on having all of the different variants on TLOS?? Fair, not so fair, bad, etc. ???? All I know is that I spent alot of moola on 3 versions, when I should have only bought one and waited. I've emailed many bonus tracks to the UK yesterday and am tired!!!

Marketing. That's all it is. The record company have invested in the product and artist, and have a right to market it as they see fit. Not quite sure how the Best Buy/iTunes versions fits into this scenario, but anyway, I figure it took about ten minutes for someone to compile a CDR of the 5 bonus tracks and two live version from the DVD.

Essentially, they're milking the collector/hard-core fan - they know there are people out there who will buy this stuff on principle and doubtless budget accordingly. Back in the day, you got a pic sleeve on your single if you were lucky... but granted, the market wasn't so fragmented then, and vinyl wasn't merely king, it was essentially all there was. I would hope that when Capitol put out Last Wilson Standing - The Best Of Brian 1986-2008 sometime next year, there's a bonus disc of all the odds & ends from this period.

Eh? Is that in the works? If there were bonus cuts/non-LP songs I would definitely buy that sh*t.

OK, I made the title up, but I'd be seriously surprised if something along those lines didn't happen very soon - after all, a 'best of' aside, what else is there left except for The Smile Sessions 1966-67 ?

And that'll happen too...

May I humbly chime in with a 'sensitive' question? I am absolutely not in the financial position to acquire all the bonus material AGD refers to above (can't afford the vinyl either, much as I'd want to). So: is there a good Samaritan that would, um, be willing to, um, PM me?

(I hate to beg, honest. You may scold me for doing so and ban me for 24 hours too.)

I have the itunes bonus tracks and would love to discuss them if someone would be willing to discuss the Best Buy bonus tracks with me.  I have ordered the best buy version but it hasn't arrived yet.

And they have to gague how to get it right. For example 3 different colours of the "Wonderful" single at under two quid each was not too bad. I bet a bunch of us bought all three. If some people just bought one, that's cool as the musical content is the same for all three.

SMiLE was very special, and I was more flushed with cash than now....so I bought the CD (x3, two for friends as gifts), the vinyl (x2 just in case), the special UK picture box edition (that was crap), and the DVD...as well as attending a concert. This time around I have bought the vinyl TLOS and I am humming and harring about the CD.

BUT...around the same time I was investigating buying a Bowie single I liked and it was available in about 5 different versions, all with different "B-sides" and different verisons of the "A side". I honestly couldn't decide which to buy....not being as huge a fan of Bowie as I am Wilson...so I bought none. I already had the album, I liked the single and would have bought one in the hope of "helping" it up the charts. From the descriptions available online there didn't seem to be a "standard" version. So, a marketing failure there...and IIRC the single didn't chart well, at a time when Bowie was doing well (Heathen).

Capitol are bound to try to milk us, and to get the most from having signed Brian. They can do that in several ways....hope that Brian will release more high quality material (who knows?).....release special editions of TLOS and/or related material.....release compilations of other Brian-related material they own the rights to or can cheaply buy the rights to...in the end we have to decide what to buy, knowing full well something "better" may come along in another five years, or ten years.

It's hanging tough at #5 on Amazon music. Not bad.

Even New Kids On The Block have slipped to 10,

This is more than impressive!!

But I bet i'm alone on that statment  ;D

New entry at #37 in the UK album chart...

Hits Daily Double. Don't know if many of you have checked this out before, but it compiles sales on Monday and Tuesday of each week from record chains, and then releases a chart on Wednesday. Right now, it shows Lucky Old Sun to be at #32 in the US, although this changes every 5 minutes as updates arrive.

FWIW, their week-ending charts on Wednesday typically mimic Billboards fairly accurately.

Here is the link: http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/sales/salescht.cgi

At day's end, the Daily Double put Brian at a very respectable #22. You can bet that Billboard will fall somewhere in there - although I don't know if the on-line sales are figured into that.

Holy cow, 22 is not bad at all!!

Its not Billboard, but if the Billboard number is somewhere close....holy cow Brian, you have a palpable hit on your hands!

When the &(*^ does Billboard publish its chart?

Apparently on Thursday.

Hot 100 (from wiki)

The the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday; while the airplay tracking-week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Thursday. Each chart is dated with the "week-ending" date of the following Saturday.

Example:
Monday, January 1 – sales tracking-week begins
Wednesday, January 3 — airplay tracking-week begins
Sunday, January 7 – sales tracking-week ends
Tuesday, January 9 – airplay tracking-week ends
Thursday, January 11 – new chart released, with issue date of Saturday, January 20.

22,  ;D

Fingers Crossed

22 would be fantastic, although I'm still really pulling for at least top 20!

Does Hits Daily Double include Internet Sales?

TLOS sold suprisngley well on-line

That, or a rich Japanese obsessive is buying up copy after copy after copy etc. etc.

It charted at number 21.

...at the risk of sounding like a 14-year old female Rihanna fan: 'h-o-o-r-a-y'.

Well hoo-fucking-ray.  ;D :woot

Just awesome.  I was in shock as soon as I saw the link at the bottom of the page.  Think Capitol will pick him up for another album?

And hey, Andrew...you haven't really done a review of TLOS yet! Did it meet your expectations?

Hell, it exceeded mine by a large margin.

*sings quietly: '21...won't last forever...oh no...20...won't last forever...oh no....19...won't...[couple months later]...1...'*

ah, a man can dream...

:)

I do hate to be a downer though (bullshit, actually I enjoy it) but I wonder how the multiple versions of the album affected sales. At this point, gotta say, it was a pretty nifty marketing gimmick.

article said it sold 21,000 copies

This is great news, 21,000 copies.

Congrats Brain and Scott..

Will it have legs though? Time will tell.

So that's two US top 25 studio albums for Brian in the last four years... Against just one for the Beach Boys in the last fourty years... Way to go Brian!

I could be wrong, but it seems that I recall online sales not kicking in until the second week on Billboard. If so, it could definitely improve. That Daily Double was pretty much dead-on.

That's pretty impressive, the marketing of the album in the US has worked.

While I try to be realistic...I hope TLOS is still in the US and UK top 40's next week...

Maybe release a single in the UK, get a little airplay. For example, if it's in the top 40 then the pop radio stations will play it at least once in their chart rundowns.

I just looked up TLOS on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Regular CD edition #146 in amazon UK music, #11 in amazon.com rock music (#16 in pop).

I think that says a lot. TLOS is selling better in the states than in the UK...what's the situation elsewhere around the world?

Come on Capitol, you've done Brian proud in his homeland but don't forget the rest of us!

TLOS only went on sale in Australia last Saturday, the ARIA chart to be released on Sunday evening (13th Sept) will be the first opportunity for TLOS to chart. It has been getting airtime and positive media so its a possibility (plus the name Brian Wilson has a spin off effect from the Sydney Festival this year). Link to ARIA album charts: http://www.ariacharts.com.au/pages/charts_display_album.asp?chart=1G50

Hate to be a damper again, but 21,000 copies isn't that great of an amount. Then again, if Beach Bum is correct about the delay for internet sales to be counted, then expect the sales figures/chart position to rise.

Regardless of what happens, I think it's safe to say TLOS is a success.

God Billy 21,000 is a lot for Brian, Elton john's last record sold as much in it's first week, and he sells out stadiums all over the world

Just let us have some fun  >:(

Oh, don't get me wrong...I'm enjoying it, and I'm real happy, for Brian in addition to us as fans. I'm just expecting that number to rise if the internet sales aren't counted, as I'm thinking that number is a bit low.

I think that what is more important than #21 on its' initial week on the charts is...where will it be in week #3?  Is there any staying power?  Despite the (mostly) positive reviews I think this has peaked where it is right now.  I hope I'm wrong.  But even with PSML, chart positions faded rather quickly.

I have to agree with Mr. Larson regarding the staying power of this. Plus the fact that I personally bought 2 copies at Best Buy and 1 from iTunes. That's 2 for me out of that 21,000 plus 1 for the internet sales. My point is that alot of fans bought all 3 copies and really that's only 11,000 people that actually bought the album. Make sense?  I'm tired, deal with me please.

Correct me if I am wrong, but are the Billboard stats reflective not on units shipped rather than sales? If so, imagine the first week they shipped 21,000 and sold 10,000. The next week fewer units would be shipped, causing the chart position to drop.

It's enough for a #21 position, so apparantly that is quite a lot nowadays.

I hope that the news of TLOS being #21 will make some of the more casual fans curious enough to check the album out. People like us on this forum were aware of things like the TLOS live performances and the Midnight's Another Day demo, but for the more casual fans this chart position will probably be the first sign they get that Brian's made the next great album that nobody really expected anymore.

#21 is a better chart position than any Beach Boys album after Pet Sounds....apart from 15 Big Ones.

So it's a pretty decent position, when you consider that means it has charted higher than Smiley ever did...or Wild Honey...or Surf's Up...

I, like everyone else, just hope it holds on for a 2nd and 3rd week...at least inside the top 40.

Who, I'm a little confused. Can anybody tell me how high TLOS charted on the official Billboard album charts? I don't mena any internet-charts or whatsoever. Just the official charts....

It's #21 on the regular, official album chart...

Lessee -

there are 1204 members in the Smileysmile.net community. Each of them must have bought at least one item pertaining to the TLOS bonanza. I used SPSS and a two-sided confidence interval of 0.05; --> 700 members have bought 2 items --> 400 members bought 3 things (this peaks enormously because it corresponds with the bonus tracks issue --> 250 members bought 4 items --> 100 members bought 5 --> (the curve becomes flat until:) --> Andrew G. Doe bought 8,312 items (and he still complains about the sound quality; even the CDs pressed in Bhutan and Ulan Bator don't satisfy his demands).

The upshot of my calculations is that 2 copies were bought in the general marketplace in the first week after release. Which is not bad at all for a Brian Wilson solo album.

I'm still enjoying the free stream!

Put me down for one when AGD gives me the ok on the sound. ;)

Don... Billboard is US sales only... Not all Smiley Smile members are American...  ;D

8313 - just got the Timbuktu special edition: the packaging is camel skin.

I am waiting for the super 8 film....

:lol


Apparently so..the New Kids on the Block's new album (wtf?!) is at #2 and it sold about 95,000. I guess I didn't realize just how bad CD sales are slipping.

Rumor has it that the Capitol A&R Dept. has committed a limited clay tablets edition.

How about a classical Latin translation.....or Sanskrit?

Actually there's a lot to commend super 8 film...commercial releases *are* still being made.

TLOS is also at no. 2 on Billboard's Internet album chart.

 8)

Really? Awesome! Esp. considering we are about at the point where more cds are sold online than in stores.

Just saw that, I read somewhere it was selling great online.

Thanks ! That's awesome !!
Should open the door for another album on Capitol.  :)

entered the German charts after one week at 45 - remarkable!!

I believe it's 54 in Holland for the second week and a row, not bad at all.
Better than the new Motorhead anyway.

I really hope this makes Brian realise that the effort is worthwhile. Whether we get another great album from him again is to some extent irrelevant...we've got this one. And the world in general seems to appreciate it....OK not on the scale of his 60's work, but it is selling well nonetheless...

It was 55 last week.

Maybe this should be its own thread, seeing as it's thoroughly cranky, but we're talking how TLOS is being received.  Here is uber-crank Jim DeRogatis from the Chicago Sun-Times (a guy I know and frequently disagree with; he uses his contrariness as a stylistic choice):


Brian Wilson, "That Lucky Old Sun" (Capitol) [1 STAR]
By Jim DeRogatis on September 4, 2008 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBacks (0)
When it comes to the great Romantic narratives of rock history, few are more enduring--or consistently untrue--than "Brian is back." Every few years, ever since Beach Boys auteur Brian Wilson first fled the spotlight amid a haze of drug and mental problems after the undeniable peak of "Pet Sounds" (1966), one group of allegedly well-intentioned friends and musical collaborators after another has come forward to herald the return of the genius, from the vile Mike Love (who actually wrote a song called "Brian's Back" for a failed comeback in the late '70s) to the controversial psychologist Eugene Landy (who managed Wilson and co-wrote his songs during the failed comeback in the late '80s) to his current coattail rider, Hollywood hack Scott Bennett.

"At 25, I turned out the light/'Cause I couldn't handle the glare in my tired eyes/But now I'm back/Drawing shades of kind blue skies," the 66-year-old Wilson sings in "Goin' Home," but there's no more reason to believe him than anyone else. The retro-harmony-laden tune is one of the few actual songs amid the sappy, soggy and predominantly dreadful pastiche of unfinished snippets, recycled riffs and spoken-word Beat-poetic interludes on the new 38-minute, 17-track conceptual song cycle "That Lucky Old Sun," the singer and songwriter's first full album of new songs since 2004--that is, if you count that year's over-hyped and undercooked attempt to remake and complete the legendary aborted "Smile" album.

Vastly overrated orchestral arranger and wearyingly eccentric lyricist Van Dyke Parks came back for that project, and he makes an appearance here, too. Yet while he is certainly the culprit behind the awful poetry, Bennett is the man who should be derided for much of the rest of this mess: An adept student of the best of Wilson's catalog circa '61 to '67, he crams in countless musical references to and lifts from that era and the influences that led to it, coupled with clichéd lyrics paying homage to a Los Angeles that never really existed (one where every girl is "the next Marilyn, every guy, Errol Flynn") and maudlin, exploitative nods to a not entirely accurate version of Wilson's tragic lost years and mental meltdown ("I wasted a lot of years," the singer confesses in "Oxygen to the Brain," while in "Midnight's Another Day," he tells us, "All these voices, all these memories/Make me feel like stone/All these people, they make me feel so alone/Lost in the dark, no shades of grey/Until I found midnight's another day").

Of course, in blaming Bennett, I'm letting Wilson himself slide. As anyone who's interviewed him in the last decade can attest, while seemingly in better mental health than he was in the '80s, he's still not completely in touch with reality--still not really back from whatever awful trip derailed his career. Nor is his voice, when it can be heard amid the bloated production and army of shadowy backing vocalists, anything but a shadow of its former instrument. But if his degree of involvement in this catastrophe is really as full-fledged as his press materials would have us believe, the only conclusion left is that one of the greatest songwriters of his generation can no longer tell trash from triumph--either that, or he's every bit as willing as the parasites around him to milk the legacy of the past for every dollar it will yield while stumbling through a present consisting of unforgivable crap such as "Mexican Girl," "California Role" and "Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl."

OUCH!

But then if he uses contrariness as his "stylistic choice" maybe he's one of those 'journalists' who knows people read his stuff in order to shout at it.

Just so you know, TLOS didn't even make the top 200 in France.  :-\

TLOS dropped to #52 this week on Billboard.

Oh well... It still will go down in the books as a #21 album...

Quite good, I was expecting it to drop out after one week.

it is #6 in its 2nd week on the top internet charts......

Woolworth's still exists???!!!

I just ordered the TLOS 8-track tape/Betamax package from Amazon. Hope it comes soon!  :lol :lol :lol

Interesting..... As this was the only place I heard the album promoted, on a French radio station in early/mid August  whilst on a weeks holilday?!

Very nice..

Seriously who doesn't buy albums of the internet these days, so that's great

Seriously, who does buy albums on the internet these days?

I do.

Well so do I. But I think it's obvious what I meant: the record industry is failing overall and one big reason is that people are otherwise acquiring music online. No chart, be it the overall pop chart or internet chart or whatever, very accurately represents what people are getting and listening to.

Sorry, I was just coming back to edit a "but I get your point"in, but you beat me to it.