Neilstein Soundscam: Suffocating on Buzz
I was in Iceland last week and therefore didn’t publish a Soundscam chart. Since we live in Vince’s magical Soundscam world where there are no concrete rules, let’s just do what makes the most sense: rather than trying to recreate a list for a week gone by, let’s just skip last week and pick up where we left off two weeks ago!
As a reminder, you can access pure album sales figures every week at Metal Insider’s “Metal by Numbers” column.
I’m glad you all like the evolution of the new Soundscam format with Facebook stats, YouTube stats, etc. To the reader that suggested I include Twitter: the number of followers a band has could be a useful bit of information, but there’s no equivalent to what Facebook has with “talking about this” (other than trending topics, which are only really useful for huge, mainstream issues). That makes it difficult to measure changes week to week unless I start tracking the number of followers of every metal band ever on a week to week basis… a sisyphean task if ever there was one.
Here’s this week’s Metal Power Ranking:
1. ↑ Suffocation / Peak: 1 / Last Week: 4 / Weeks On: 4
Suffocation are absolutely crushing it right now. Pinnacle of Bedlam sold 3,175 records in its first week out, a great number for such a brutal band. 19,769 people are “talking about this” on Facebook, up from 14,503 last we checked in. That’s out of 433,324 total people who like the band on Facebook; holy fuck! The video for “As Grace Descends” now has over 92,000 YouTube views, up from 67,000. On top of all that, the band just announced a U.S. tour with Exhumed and Jungle Rot. Killing it!
2. ↑ Meshuggah / Peak: 2 / Last Week: 3 / Weeks On: 4
Meshuggah wrap up their U.S. tour in the next few days; as a result they’ll probably start tumbling down this chart. The band doesn’t have a new album out either (any buzz boost generated by the Pitch BlackEP Scion released seems to have faded) meaning there won’t be any album sales and there won’t be anything new for fans to kvell about on social networks. Still, 13,525 people are “talking about this” on Facebook up from 8,934 last we checked in, which says to me that the current tour is making a mark. For anyone wondering, a representative for Scion told me two weeks ago that at the time the download count for the Pitch Black EP was at 12,871.
3. Puscifer / Peak: 3 / Last Week: n/a / Weeks On: 1
Their new Donkey Punch the Night EP sold exactly 8,000 units first week, a whole lot more than I’d expect for such a weird band, even given Maynard’s involvement, and a remixes/covers release at that. Credit a good marketing and PR campaign that included a fun video for the band’s cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” which has already racked up over 124,000 views. 12,950 are “talking about this” on Facebook out of 239,712 total who “like” the band.
4. ↓ Coheed and Cambria / Peak: 1 / Last Week: 1 / Weeks On: 3
3,800 units of The Afterman: Descension sold in its third week out after shifting 40,600 first week (I’m not sure what it sold in its second week). They’re still on tour with Between the Buried and Me, but for some reason social activity is way down: 9,562 “talking about this” down from 44,000. I guess there was nowhere to go after the album release resulted in a huge social network activity spike.
5. ↓ Hatebreed / Peak: 1 / Last Week: 2 / Weeks On: 4
Sales for Divinity of Purpose are slowing down with “only” 2,325 shifted last week, still a solid number for any metal band. Momentum is slowing elsewhere too. The band is not currently on tour (although they did recently announce another tour with Every Time I Die, Terror, Job for a Cowboy, and This is Hell in support) resulting in a drop in social network activity, 12,000 “talking about this” on Facebook down from over 17,000 two weeks ago. The lyric video for “Put it to the Torch” only racked up 7,000 additional views since we last checked two weeks back.
6. ↑ Kvelertak / Peak: 6 / Last Week: 7 / Weeks On: 4
Their video for “Bruane Brenn” has racked up 86,000 YouTube views to date (not including however many thousands of plays it received during the Stereogum exclusive) and they just announced a U.S. tour with Black Tusk and Cancer Bats. However, buzz seems to be slightly fading: 2,253 “talking about this” on Facebook down from 6,651. Their new album hasn’t even come out yet, though, and with an upcoming tour there’s plenty of room to grow.
7. ↓ The Bronx / Peak: 5 / Last Week: 5 / Weeks on: 4
Keeping things saucy with a new video for “Youth Wasted” that garnered nearly 10,000 views on Vimeo (where it debuted) and 3,000 on YouTube. Bronx IV shifted 600 units last week and 1,833 are “talking about this” on Facebook out of 53,000. The band won’t be touring the U.S. again any time soon, although they did score a gig at Metallica’s Orion Music + More fest.
8. ↓ Intronaut / Peak: 6 / Last Week: 6 / Weeks On: 4
Social network chatter is falling — 1,828 “talking about this” down from 3,124 — despite their tour with Meshuggah and their recently released studio videos. As with Kvelertak, the album hasn’t come out yet so there’s still plenty left in the tank for Intronaut to scale the charts despite this week’s downturn.
9. Deftones / Peak: 9 / Last Week: n/a / Weeks On: 1
Must be their current tour with Periphery that’s responsible for the social media buzz without a brand new album out: 15,245 people “talking about this” out of over 2 million fans. Even with Koi No Yokan being released all the way back in November, it still shifted 2,975 units last week.
10. Devourment / Peak: 10 / Last Week: n/a / Weeks On: 1
New album Conceived in Sewage has been the polarizing topic of many a water cooler debate. The band is not touring and I’m told they’re not really going to, and the album only sold 830 records first week. But 3,363 are “talking about this” on Facebook out of 35,000 total, which at nearly 10% is a high proportion. The “Fifty Ton War Machine” lyric video release two months ago has 103,000 views, which is more than Suffocation’s (above) in a similar amount of time. Any mention of the band stirs a rigorous debate in the MetalSucks comment section. Conclusion: the online buzz is most definitely there even if it doesn’t translate as well IRL. If the band decides to tour regularly they could take it to the next level, but otherwise I don’t really see them moving farther up this list.
