Wilco - Cousin - New Album

[Brian F.]

2 hours ago, jff said:

 

Those numbers are interesting.  Considering how difficult and time consuming it is to press a record these days* (see: the massive Cruel Country delay), I doubt any "name" band would do a run of 1000 only to blink and immediately need a full pressing.  I'd be curious to know what their typical sales are on vinyl in the first year of a new release.   

 

*Wilco may have figured out how to beat this problem by...if I'm remembering correctly....partially bankrolling a Chicago pressing plant, which surely lets them jump to the front of the line when they need to press vinyl.   

 

EDIT:  https://www.chicagomag.com/arts-culture/record-plant-smashed-plastic-is-keeping-it-local/

 

Smashed Plastic pressing plant.  Tweedy/Wilco bought them a pressing machine.  Surely this gives them leeway to press as much or as little as they want, any time they want (within reason), making the 1000 run for preorders plausible.  But I'm still skeptical.  Seems if they were going to do this, there would be something different about the preorder version (and maybe there is and I just don't know about it....different color wax? something different about the cover art/inserts/etc.?)

 

According to the article, Wilco typically presses 30,000 records.

  

 

In its first week of wide release, Cruel Country sold 7,000 copies across all formats (LP, CD and downloads).* That would include direct sales by the band as well as sales by retailers set up for tracking by Luminate (which will exclude some independent record stores). That number is slightly lower than it would have been but for the "white label" CD release on Record Store Day. (There were a total of 8,000 copies of that release available.)

 

In its first week of release, the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot box set sold 13,000 copies (8,000 vinyl, 4,500 CD and 500 digital downloads). That includes all the various permutations of the set, from the 2-CD highlights version to the 11-LP behemoth.

 

Bearing in mind that sales typically peak in the first week for an established artist and then drop off precipitously, these numbers support the idea that they would "budget" 1,000 LPs (and 500 CDs?) for Wilcoworld preorder (since the majority of sales will be through third-party retailers).

 

I shouldn't be surprised by these numbers, given that the by-far-most-common response by "civilians" when I have mentioned the band over the past 28 years has been "Who?," but it's amazing that the band has been able to sustain such a successful career with such a small audience. Obviously, the band's audience is larger than just the people who still buy their albums in 2023, but it's still small in the grand scheme of things.

 

* I don't have a breakdown of this, but an educated guess is that 4,500-5,000 were vinyl, 2,000-2,500 were CDs and a de minimis number were digital downloads.

 

EDIT: I should note that my copy of the LP is black vinyl. There's probably a separate tranche of the "floral ice" variant. Maybe they do another 1,000 of the variant.

[Analogman]

Isn't funny how things have changed over the years - 

 

Quote

Pearl Jam's "Vs." album sold an estimated 950,000 copies in its first week in the stores . . . 

 

[Brian F.]

Yes, and that record was broken several times. Incredibly, the current record was set in relatively recent 2015 by Adele's 25, which sold a mind-boggling 3.38 million copies in its first week.

[Analogman]

That is right - I forgot about that one.

[kidsmoke]

6 hours ago, Brian F. said:

 

In its first week of wide release, Cruel Country sold 7,000 copies across all formats (LP, CD and downloads).* That would include direct sales by the band as well as sales by retailers set up for tracking by Luminate (which will exclude some independent record stores). That number is slightly lower than it would have been but for the "white label" CD release on Record Store Day. (There were a total of 8,000 copies of that release available.)

 

In its first week of release, the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot box set sold 13,000 copies (8,000 vinyl, 4,500 CD and 500 digital downloads). That includes all the various permutations of the set, from the 2-CD highlights version to the 11-LP behemoth.

 

Bearing in mind that sales typically peak in the first week for an established artist and then drop off precipitously, these numbers support the idea that they would "budget" 1,000 LPs (and 500 CDs?) for Wilcoworld preorder (since the majority of sales will be through third-party retailers).

 

I shouldn't be surprised by these numbers, given that the by-far-most-common response by "civilians" when I have mentioned the band over the past 28 years has been "Who?," but it's amazing that the band has been able to sustain such a successful career with such a small audience. Obviously, the band's audience is larger than just the people who still buy their albums in 2023, but it's still small in the grand scheme of things.

 

* I don't have a breakdown of this, but an educated guess is that 4,500-5,000 were vinyl, 2,000-2,500 were CDs and a de minimis number were digital downloads.

 

EDIT: I should note that my copy of the LP is black vinyl. There's probably a separate tranche of the "floral ice" variant. Maybe they do another 1,000 of the variant.

 

I have the Floral Ice vinyl. Very cool looking and VERY thick vinyl. Is the black the same?

[Brian F.]

2 hours ago, kidsmoke said:

 

I have the Floral Ice vinyl. Very cool looking and VERY thick vinyl. Is the black the same?

 

The black vinyl didn't seem particularly thick, but I didn't really examine it. I just pulled it out of the sleeve and glanced at the label to see what it looked like. I haven't listened to it yet.

[WilcoCAN]

If anyone has an extra floral ice color vinyl that they want to sell, please let me know. The Wilco store no longer seems to have any for sale.

[calvino]

17 hours ago, kidsmoke said:

 

I have the Floral Ice vinyl. Very cool looking and VERY thick vinyl. Is the black the same?

 

Yeah I was surprised when I opened the Floral Ice vinyl -- plays wonderfully, though. 

[calvino]

15 hours ago, Brian F. said:

 

The black vinyl didn't seem particularly thick, but I didn't really examine it. I just pulled it out of the sleeve and glanced at the label to see what it looked like. I haven't listened to it yet.

 

You definitely would have noticed it by just pulling it out of the sleeve - guessing it isn't as heavy as the Floral Ice.

[Brian F.]

2 hours ago, calvino said:

 

An attentive person definitely would have noticed it by just pulling it out of the sleeve - guessing it isn't as heavy as the Floral Ice.

 

I fixed the above for you. Never underestimate my obliviousness...

[DiamondClaw]

So, one week in and I am really liking this album! I can't remember liking one right off the bat like this in some time. Usually it takes a while for the growers to seep their way in. CLB really got the elaborate, rich soundscapes I've been missing the past few albums. Overall, maybe not quite as adventurous as it was hyped to be, and not as many up-tempo toe-tappers, but Cousin hits the spot for me so far. Favorites at the moment, probably "Levee" and "Sunlight Ends." Can't wait to see how everything holds up over time.

[lost highway]

I've decided "Sunlight Ends" has a melancholic sweetness that hits me in the heart like nothing since "Wishful Thinking".

[ZiggyBratwurst]

On 10/6/2023 at 9:36 AM, DiamondClaw said:

I can't remember liking one right off the bat like this in some time. Usually it takes a while for the growers to seep their way in.

Ode To Joy bowled me (and my wife) over right out of the gate. We put it on repeat throughout the house via our Sonos system, and literally listened to it every waking minute that first weekend it was released. Cruel Country was nearly the same. 
 

Unfortunately Cousin isn’t really grabbing me much. I don’t hate it, of course, but I also don’t love it. The first 90 seconds of Pittsburg is off-the-charts good, but after listening through 16 or 17 times, nothing else has made me sit up and take notice. But that’s totally fine. I don’t expect to love every record a band makes. 

[kidsmoke]

On 10/7/2023 at 11:20 AM, lost highway said:

I've decided "Sunlight Ends" has a melancholic sweetness that hits me in the heart like nothing since "Wishful Thinking".

 

What a nice way of expressing it! 

[summerdai]

On 10/3/2023 at 9:16 PM, Brian F. said:

 

The black vinyl didn't seem particularly thick, but I didn't really examine it. I just pulled it out of the sleeve and glanced at the label to see what it looked like. I haven't listened to it yet.

It's the thickest record I own (or have ever seen)

[nalafej]

Happy 1st Birthday, Cousin!

[Brian F.]

After not listening to this for a few months, I've listened about five times over the past week and the album has held up well against my original very positive feelings about it. I still think "Sunlight Ends" is one of the five best songs they've ever done, and "A Bowl and a Pudding" is also way up there. And "Meant to Be" has taken on a special resonance for me since the album first came out.