[MacMan]

Sting is a hard act to compare FM with. Although they are both world wide acts and successful... Sting has the upper hand I believe outside the US in terms of popularity. He generally does a million per disc in the US. At least that's where I believe his current disc stands. I think his last cd did alot better, but he had a huge hit with that one song Desert Rose (could be wrong on the title) that was first a Jaguar commercial (which I thought was a video the first time I saw it).

For an artist like FM, I agree the days of selling millions and millions are over unless there is something else tied to the music to get people to connect with it. Call it a gimmick... A hit song, whatever. The Dance wasn't just a live album that everyone found great and went out and bought because of the music. It was the reformation of one of the greatest bands, and it was the most successful line-up back together for the first time in ages. It was nastalgia for alot of people. Plus it was the 20th Anniversary of Rumours, a huge success. Plus it aired on TV which can capture huge audiences. So there was something other then the music... selling the music. And it was a unique situation with The Dance.

Why do you think all these artists ala Janet Jackson and the like do all these crazy things now to get noticed....just to sell cds! Everyone seems to do something other than just play music, to get noticed and the word out there on a large scale to sell the music.

Stevie herself, although nothing close to Janets stunt, talked really openly about drug dependancy while promoting TISL. It was done like that, not only to help others that maybe in a similar situation, but also to get noticed, to connect with people, to get the word out that yes, I have a new album out.

So this time around, it's a little quieter... They are relying only on the music and the history of the band to sell the band and the cds. Had they had a couple more hits off the album like Peacekeeper, I'm sure it would have sold alot more. Which can partly be blamed on marketing of the music.

But this year could be interesting once they release the DVD of the tour. We might see album sales increase because of that. There were alot of people that saw this tour and who wouldn't want a copy of basically what they saw in concert. I mean all the shows were pretty much the same.

I don't think SYW is a flop, I think it's just more of a sign of the times.