IT’S THE HOLIDAY SEASON = SOUNDSCAN SNOOZEFEST

It’s the holiday season so there isn’t much to report in the way of new releases, with labels instead opting to cash in on best-of collections, holiday-themed albums and catalog albums (industry speak for albums that aren’t the band’s most recent release). That said, there’s a really interesting subplot happening on the Soundscan Charts this week.

Let’s take a look at the “Top Hard Music Albums” chart instead of the general Top 200 list we usually track. The Top 10 from this chart (shown above) shows a familiar holiday story — all the year’s biggest rock records are selling well thanks to stocking-stuffer purchases, driven by expensive “end cap” positioning record labels purchase to have these albums featured prominently in the stores (yes folks, those are paid for). Look at the “% Change” column which tracks change from week to week. Every album is trending up significantly, except two — Linkin Park’s live album (because really, who the fuck cares) and… Chinese Democracy, which is down 17% against last week.

That’s downright embarrasing. Geffen should be able to clean up on this album during the holidays with some good placement and nostalgia marketing. For chrissakes, the GN’R Greatest Hits comp is still selling nearly 10,000 copies weekly!! Oh, what’s that, Geffen/Axl’s hands are tied because they fucked up big-time by doing an exclusive with Best Buy? Oops. What’s even worse is that it’s a good album that deserves to be heard.

Fail.

-VN