The Rolling Stones - A bigger bang was certified platinum by the RIAA. The reason for weak chart positions - More than half of the sales were transacted on the internet.

RIAA certified shipments to stores, not sales.

The market transition is plainly apparent. Soner or later, there won't be any more "record stores" -- everything will be sold as direct download.

soundscan - they scan unsold cds?

>soundscan - they scan unsold cds?

No, they scan SOLD CD's on stores/internet.

stonedmike it's like everytime you go into a store (or amazon etc) & the clerk 'scans' the barcode on a product (Rice Crispies etc)- that's where soundscan gets its data.

georgelicks: "RIAA certified shipments to stores, not sales."

Mmmmm... Yes, the same happened with B2B. But are the "shipments" a certain criteria? If RIAA tells "this album is platinum", does that mean the record, sooner or later, will top for sure the 1 million sales in USA?

>>georgelicks: "RIAA certified shipments to stores, not sales."

Mmmmm... Yes, the same happened with B2B. But are the "shipments" a certain criteria? If RIAA tells "this album is platinum", does that mean the record, sooner or later, will top for sure the 1 million sales in USA?


Actually, it means nothing. I've seen Platinum albums that never reached the million mark, like Stripped (750,000) or Madonna's last album (730,000).
If you see Live Licks, it was certified GOLD. The album is double, so it needs to sell 250,000 copies to reach that level but actually it sold 105,000 copies to date. Contrarily, Forty Licks it's still at 4x Platinum when the album surpassed the 2.5 million mark, enough for a 5x Platinum certification because it's a double CD.

Just an example: Black Eyed Peas its #9 this week with 18 weeks on the Top 10 and total sales of 1,696,688 but have the same award of ABB but with 1.420,000 more of copies sold:

Stones' ABB: Platinum with 277,647 copies sold
Black Eyed...: Platinum with 1,696,688 copies sold


In other US chart news this week, Rough Justice is #27 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks after 11 weeks.
The chart run for RJ it's one of the most stranges ever:
29-29-27-25-28-29-27-25-26-28-27

It means that the song always had potential for a great hit on the rock chart, bubbling on the same 5 positions for 11 weeks, but it never got a more strong suport on the radio.

has anyone seen the tv ad in the u.s. for ABB? Has each of the stones commenting on how great it is. Kind've strange, kind've sad.

There IS a TV ad for ABB? Any more info? Doesn't sound as bad as those ameriquest ads!

Yeah, it was like a 30-second spot during The Daily Show (8:00 to 8:30 pm EDT in the u.s.) on the Comedy Central network

Only seen it once. That was enough.