As we reported yesterday, vinyl sales are on an unprecedented upward rise in sales. This has led some to wonder if the hype over Animal Collective’s newest record — only released on LP to date — will land it on the Billboard charts.
It would be a monumental achievement in any format given the band’s oddly enticing brand of music, but considering the album, which won’t get released on CD until January 20, came out in a deluxe double-LP 180-gram gatefold vinyl format accompanied by a full album download this past Tuesday [January 6], it would be a near miracle. Or at least that was the thought only a few short years ago. In either case, we’ll have to wait and see, but for all of us audiophiles who have been proclaiming wax as the best format available, we told you so.
From MTV.com: In an age when downloads are routinely trouncing physical sales, the prospect of one of those old-school albums crashing the party is as quaint as, well, having a bandleader named Panda Bear (as Animal Collective does). Based on the low-hanging-fruit figures on the most recent Nielsen SoundScan tally — which represents the typical early-January dead zone in sales — Merriweather could chart in the mid-160s thanks to the immediate sellout of all 4,500 copies of the initial run.
But because so many of those albums were sold in independent stores that don’t report to SoundScan, it’s impossible to know until Wednesday if the official figures will put the band on the charts. At press time, an unofficial tally on SoundScan put sales at less than 200 copies. To put this feat in perspective, though, Domino Recording Company spokesperson Peter Berard said that Merriweather sold almost as many vinyl copies in one day (including preorders) as the band’s September 2007 album, Strawberry Jam, has sold to date on vinyl.
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