Muse part ways with manager Addis, sign worldwide with Q Prime

[sade]

So...they ditch the management that got the job done outside of NA...for the management that hasn't gotten it done in NA?

 

Are they going to tour every year now while going years between albums, like Metallica and RHCP?

 

Curious decision is all I'm saying. Muse isn't creatively dead like those two bands, but this seems like a weird choice.

 

I don't know when Muse partnered up with their NA management, or what exactly where the responsibilities between Warner/management, but I would argue that the NA team seems to have done rather good work considering the late start Muse had in the US due to issues with Maverick. In 2007 they were still opening for My Chemical Romance in mid-sized clubs, by 2013 they'd become Grammy winners, multiple Grammy nominees, had sold out consecutive arena dates in the big cities, headline major festivals and had record-breaking radio play in the alternative format.

 

True, there have been some bumps in the road as well, the public just didn't respond to T2L as well as was probably expected sales-wise, but that was a world-wide phenomenon (France probably being the only expection). I don't think this era marked significant growth in Europe for Muse, even if they did technically play a stadium tour, a lot of the attendances weren't really akin to those huge stadium acts that tend to pull.

 

I agree with your point about over-touring though, I really hope they lay low this year, just Coachella and the small anniversary gigs for the hardcores.

[serpentsatellite]

I think it's a bit unfair to say the US didn't "respond" to T2L.

Madness, at least, was a monster hit on alternative radio, even gaining some airtime on Top 40 stations.

Easily one of (if not the) biggest US hits in a lot of areas.

[sade]

I meant album sales-wise, it hasn't even gone gold after over year, current US sales are around 450 000 - (TR has sold ~800 000). Madness did really well, but that didn't seem to tranfer to album sales which is somewhat curious. However, like I pointed out, lower sales for T2L have been consistent in most markets.

 

A lot of work also needs to still be done in the more minor US market areas, a lot of the arena dates had attendances like 5000-7000.

[FabriPav]

So...they ditch the management that got the job done outside of NA...for the management that hasn't gotten it done in NA?

 

Are they going to tour every year now while going years between albums, like Metallica and RHCP?

 

Curious decision is all I'm saying. Muse isn't creatively dead like those two bands, but this seems like a weird choice.

 

They also manage Cage The Elephant, Foals and The Black Keys (among others), which aren't creatively dead at all.

[Maneachicken]

As a big artist, the promotion of T2L, its subsequent tours and its singles were piss-poor across the board.

 

Madness surfed the wave of being a good track, sounding fresh and being the first real single from the album. It still had relatively little push.

[Niall]

I don't think it's fair to speculate on things like this. Their old management were very competent and always ahead of the curve digitally.

 

And TSL didn't do well because it wasn't very good!

[Will_]

And TSL didn't do well because it wasn't very good!

 

Fair point

[Hat]

Everything is gonna change forever.

[sade]

I would specify that T2L didn't sell well because of the combined effect of TR being viewed as a disappointment...and T2L not being a good album. TR still had great sales off the BHaR hype. Plenty of bad records sell well, I guess this was more a case of "fool me once..."

 

I'm not going to speculate on the reasons for the management change because obviously I know nothing, but I will say it was kind of shocking how badly Madness and subsequent singles did in Europe, hardly a blip on the radar. You would think a band of this caliber would get their first single played on the radio. Its success in US proved people did respond to it as a song if given a chance. I don't know what this talk of lack of promotion (for albums at least) is though, when T2L came out Muse had huge presence in the relevant media.

[FabriPav]

I would specify that T2L didn't sell well because of the combined effect of TR being viewed as a disappointment...and T2L not being a good album.

 

It wasn't a good album for you? Or it wasn't good because it didn't sell well?

 

And sales in general don't have that much to do with quality, which is a subjective personal judgement.

[sade]

It wasn't a good album for you? Or it wasn't good because it didn't sell well?

 

And sales in general don't have that much to do with quality, which is a subjective personal judgement.

 

It had certain great highlights which I love but it's not an album I reach for. Even the "anything goes" approach which by itself was fun at first just seems almost off-putting because not that many jokes are funny on repeated exposure. I just felt the album lacked so much heart, it felt like a series of calculated experiments. And lacked amazing songs, really.

 

If you don't want to talk in terms of good/bad, you can at least observe the sense of disappointment a big section of the fanbase seems to have, in comparison to their older work. I would also argue the last two albums have somewhat turned some of the public sentiment against Muse. I mean they have hardly ever been the music snob's favourite and have operated from the outsider's angle, but some of the things the band has done recently has produced even more dismissive and sometimes even hostile reactions.

[kueller]

But for example, last tour was pretty hated from the fanbase but still managed to get good attendance rates and a lot of new fans just for the way the band put themselves out there.

 

Albums vs. concerts I know but it's all I can think of right now.

[sade]

It is difficult to compare album vs. tour sales because a lot of people will turn up to hear the old songs even if they don't like the current album. And honestly, I don't think the TR tour was "hated" by the fans. It was disliked by us, the fringe minority that do obsessive things like follow online the concerts in real time, and are also likely attend several concerts. The average fan going to the concert at any one date was probably more than happy.

[Dee3Dee]

The average fan going to the concert at any one date was probably more than happy.

 

Yeah, fuck these people.

[kueller]

Quality's a hard thing to measure in general. It's a factor in the sales, cause obviously if only one person in the world liked an album you could predict that album's sales would be low. But in practice it's not usually that simple. You have things like context, how many people liked this album compared to the other. Or something like a pop album might have a lower percentage of people that like it,but the numbers still make the sales higher than a more obscure album that might have a greater percentage of fans.

 

Then in trying to quantify those and explain the quality points you just end up pulling back to the other factors like promotion and accessibility and timing, things that are more concrete.

[FabriPav]

If you don't want to talk in terms of good/bad, you can at least observe the sense of disappointment a big section of the fanbase seems to have, in comparison to their older work. I would also argue the last two albums have somewhat turned some of the public sentiment against Muse. I mean they have hardly ever been the music snob's favourite and have operated from the outsider's angle, but some of the things the band has done recently has produced even more dismissive and sometimes even hostile reactions.

 

I really don't think the "big section of the fanbase" is that disappointed, as of now. It seems like you're trying pretty hard to justify the lower album sales (are they that lower?) because of a quality decrease, which may or may not have happened (imo it hasn't), but, again, has not much to do with album sales, compared to other factors like promotion.

 

And what's public sentiment? "Alternative" music reviewing sites/critics?

[sade]

I really don't think the "big section of the fanbase" is that disappointed, as of now. It seems like you're trying pretty hard to justify the lower album sales (are they that lower?) because of a quality decrease, which may or may not have happened imo it hasn't), but, again, has not much to do with album sales, compared to other factors like promotion.

 

And what's public sentiment? "Alternative" music reviewing sites/critics?

 

In comparison to TR/the overall trend of Muse album sales T2L didn't do that great. This is a really intreresting thread:

http://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=92557

 

The gist of it is, sales as of beginning of this year (the last two pages actually provide this information):

 

TR

UK: ~790,000

FRA: ~815,000

US: ~ 800,000

WW: ~4.200,000

 

T2L

UK: ~320,000

FRA: ~425,000

US: 451,000

WW: ~2,400,0000

 

Furthermore, the sales numbers show T2L doesn't seem to have great "legs", i.e the album doesn't seem to be selling quietly but consistently well in the lower end of the sales charts due to word-of-mouth or whatever. France seems to be the only exception, with Muse back catalogue, including T2L, contining to sell quite well.

 

That thread also shows that of the current WW sales of Live in Rome (300 000) 1/3 are from France (100 000 +), that is really interesting.

 

It is hard to pinpoint any one reason for low album sales simply because there isn't one, and I would say all the points raised in this thread are valid and played a part. But honestly, I just don't see the logic that a band with a really solid fanbase that they have built over 15-20 years (i.e. not a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon), with previously good album sales, and a strong fan base would suddenly sell so much less of their current album and have NOT that be a reflection of the fanbase's response to the album's music. Decreasing album sales cannot just be explained by the state of the music industry, Artic Monkeys for example had a clear sales increase with their current album in comparison to their last one -it's a great album with superb critical reception, so no wonder.

 

I did hesitate to use "some of the public sentiment", almost used "(music following populace's)" sentiment or something. The majority of the people probably don't have an opinion on them. It just seems that wherever you move on the internet, for example, the amount of dismissive comments seem to have increased, the band getting voted by the public as a contender for "worst band", not winning even the awards they used to collect like Live Act awards, the general overwhelmingly negative reaction to Survival as the theme for Olympics, boss of Radio 1 publicly calling out as their songs being not good enough and subsequent radio silence...it's again not one thing but a trickle of several factors.

[Hat]

If anything, I'd say TR is to blame for the low album sales of T2L. Not that T2L is a great album, but if TR would have actually been great, the following album would have sold well anyway.

[sade]

If anything, I'd say TR is to blame for the low album sales of T2L. Not that T2L is a great album, but if TR would have actually been great, the following album would have sold well anyway.

 

Yup, I agree it definitely played a part.

 

I would specify that T2L didn't sell well because of the combined effect of TR being viewed as a disappointment...and T2L not being a good album. TR still had great sales off the BHaR hype. Plenty of bad records sell well, I guess this was more a case of "fool me once..."

[FabriPav]

Artic Monkeys for example had a clear sales increase with their current album in comparison to their last one -it's a great album with superb critical reception, so no wonder.and subsequent radio silence...it's again not one thing but a trickle of several factors.

 

Arctic Monkeys have just simply been hyped/promo-pushed incredibly (remember the 10/10 album of the decade NME bullshit?), no wonder they've sold so much. It has little to do with quality. I'd actually say the album is their worst so far and waaay worse than TR or T2L (but that's off-topic)

 

Regarding TR-T2L sales, I'd rather want to compare TR sales at the beginning of 2011 and T2L sales at this point in time.

[sade]

NME has hyped Arctic Monkeys throughout their whole career, the point I was making was that several albums down their career, in the current state of the industry, they put out an overwhelmingly positively received album by both the critics and listeners (check any "best of the year" list in music media) which resulted in increased sales- best of their career, if I've understood correctly.

 

(Personal opinion: even if at the end of the day Muse is my favourite band even if they frustrate me often and greatly, and all the while loving some individual tracks off TR and T2L more than anything done by Arctic Monkeys, AM is a vastly superior album to both of those albums.)

 

I couldn't find compiled sales data for TR for the exact same time frame as T2L has been out (one year 4 months), however here's some figures by collecting data on this thread: http://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=58646&start=75

 

TR

 

UK

sales by November 2010 654,200 (out one year two months)

sales by Feb 2013 ~780k

 

US

sales by October 2010 581,452 (out one year one month)

sales by March 2013 775 000

 

http://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=92557&start=50

 

The person doing the most chart data compiling in the T2L thread suggests based on current sales T2L will go on to sell 200 000 this year WW, so ~2,6 million units. According to him, it will probably trickle to gold sometime this year in the US (so additional sales of 50 000 there) and diamond (600 000) in France (again, last two pages of the thread).

 

I also found this point he made interesting:

Where muse do suffer is that they lack strong sales in Germany (TR 100k+, T2L ~60k) and if the band's management were looking for somewhere to promote the band prior to their next album it would certainly be there.

 

EDIT: Corrected a wrong number that slipped in.

Edited February 7, 2014 by sade

[Moonlight__]

I think the low album sales has to do with the fact that now albums are selling less and less by each year. There is already lot of difference in a few years.

Also i think there was lot of hype around TR. At least that seems like it to me. Every band has that one album everyone buys and there is a lot of hype around it, i remember Muse being extremely hyped and popular (here in holland at least).

But that happens with a lot of bands/artists, even in the past. they kinda reached their peak there with popularity i would say. the quality of T2L hasn't got much to do with it i guess. maybe a little, but this album wasn't hyped at all and there was a lot of negativity from media etc. so then everyone is going to think the same. same effect as a hype has. everyone is going to buy it because they heard it's good. now everyone heard it's not ''great'' so they are not going to buy it. hopefully you get what i mean.

It seems to me this album was better received by the ''big'' fans than TR was. maybe i'm wrong though. i for sure think that T2L is better than TR.

they still have a strong fanbase so it still sold quite well. lots of album released in the last 2 years haven't sold more than around 2 million(few expectations). so they did very well.

[FabriPav]

^Agreed

 

Sent from my ACER Liquid E2 using Tapatalk

[Finn.]

i think there was lot of hype around TR. At least that seems like it to me. Every band has that one album everyone buys and there is a lot of hype around it, i remember Muse being extremely hyped and popular.

 

Yes, probably due to the fact their last album incude the big hit that was Supermassive and the impressive Knights of Cydonia. Everybody were waiting the next work of these guys.

 

Album sales don't matter anymore, today in the music business the money is in live gigs. Albums are more or less the excuse to tour again.

[serpentsatellite]

Physical album sales in the US are so low that most major retailers (like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc) have short term plans of basically eliminating the sale of them outside of getting in a few brand new releases, and anything they can dump in a "value bin."

 

In a lot of areas, most stores that JUST dealt in CDs and movies went out of business. In my area, there hasn't been a big name "record store" around for almost the last decade.

And right now if you walk into a Best Buy, the rack of CDs for sale is probably less than six feet long.

I like to have physical releases, and often end up having to pre-order on Amazon, these days. (Another reason physical retail in general is severely suffering, that...)

 

Yeah, piracy has always caused sales to drop over the years, but really it's things like iTunes and other digital music services.

And it becomes a vicious circle, when you want to buy a physical copy of something and walk into a store at 10am to find they just sold the last of the six copies they ordered of a new release and you end up buying it digitally.

You just start doing that for everything.

 

And unfortunately, more than ever, digital formats have encouraged the sales of one song or single.

Look at the huge discrepancy between the Americans who bought Madness and the T2L sales.

 

The one "quality" issue I think could have had an impact, at least in America, was that the (sometimes extreme) differences in genre between the tracks could easily have been offputting to the "Madness-fans."