Buckingham's Gift Of Screws #48 on Billboard Charts
 

According to Billboard:

Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham's Gift Of Screws claims the #48 spot, with 9600 sold.

YEAH!!! HE cracked the top 50!!!

Yeah!! Now his next album will crack the top ten [Knock on wood]!!!!!!

Now we're cooking with gas. Michele

From VH1 Com

http://www.vh1.com/news/articles/159...etallica.jhtml

Jem's Down to Earth bows at #43, having sold a reported 10,600 units, while Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham's Gift of Screws claims the #48 spot, with 9,600 scanned. "American Idol" alum Kristy Lee Cook's Why Wait follows at #49, selling just 40 fewer copies. Taproot's Our Long Road Home enters the Billboard top 200 at #65, with 7,700 scans, with Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer's morbidly titled Who Killed Amanda Palmer coming in at #77 with 6,700 sold. B.G. and Chopper City Boyz's Life in the Concrete Jungle sold 5,200 copies its first week, which lands that LP at #117, while All Shall Perish's Awaken the Dreamers comes in at #126, with 5,000 sold.

I think it's great he placed so high on the chart compared to his last album, but 9,600 compared to 13,000 for UTS is way off! Might have something to do with the cd being sold, or given away along with tickets to the shows....

That is weeeeeird.

I doubt the 9600 number is a total. I think the number represents how many were scanned at dealers who participate in Billboards polling data. I could be wrong about this but I don't think Amazon's sales are even counted by Billboard (along with many other retailers).

Amazons numbers along with itunes numbers are counted by soundscan which Billboard uses for it's charts... So yeah, this 9,600 is the total for the first week... There are the odd small mom and pop stores around the US that probably don't belong to soundscan so therefore their numbers aren't counted, but all the major sellers are captured by soundscan to get an accurate number.

The record company would have a better calculation of what was actually sold when they factor in these numbers along with any cd's that were sold as part of a ticket purchase, or cds sold at the venues... Those numbers aren't included with this, so in reality it's likely alot closer to 13,000 or even beyond.

Macman thanks for the info, I hope you're right. I'd read a few years ago that Amazon's sales and others (I forget which) aren't counted by Soundscan. Since Amazon is such a major player in sales it's only fair that their sales should count for the Billboard Charts.

Some retailers used to be left out of "counts" that Billboard used.
Overall the Billboard album charts are more fair for all types of music
than they used to be.

Up until the last Eagles cd was released Walmart never used to supply their numbers, then they changed. They were reporting that the Eagles sold something like 950,000 in the first week - at Walmarts alone, and how odd would that have looked if they weren't anywhere on the charts. So they changed, and Billboard started using their numbers. It only made sense that they provide their numbers, they were at the time the 2nd largest music retailer in the US - and may still be.

Who cares about how much he sold, isn't this the highest chart position he's had since GI? or even L&O??

Actually the sales numbers do matter (at least to Lindsey and WBR).
Plus it's hard to compare chart placement, the charts have changed
so much over the years. It used to take a lot more record sales to
reach high into the Billboard Charts.

So whatever chart number you're looking at it wouldn't be comparable
to the same number from the past.

All that said, at least he placed inside the top 50.

I know that sales have gone down so much though since even 2000. But how much could have have been expected to sell?

Its hard to say. On Prince's massively successful tour in 2004, every ticket holder received a copy of his latest album on the way out of the venue. That's how he was able to stay in the Top 10 with that album for so long.

With Lindsey, its a little more difficult, as you needed to buy at least two tickets for the album, and some of the shows took place before the album was out.

Sounds like a great question for Billboard's nerd-in-residence Fred Bronson - http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/chart_beat/bonus.jsp