The Arcade Fire's second album, Neon Bible, claimed the No. 2 spot on the U.S. Billboard 200 charts this week, stomping all over new LPs from Daughtry, Relient K and Robin Thicke. According to Billboard, the album sold 92,000 copies this week; only Notorious B.I.G.'s Greatest Hits sold
more. That album, which was released ten years after the rapper's
death, sold 99,000 copies. This position is miles ahead of Funeral's chart ranking, which peaked at #131. The album also topped the Independent and Rock Album charts. Neon Bible also took #2 in the UK, coming in second to the Kaiser Chiefs' Yours Truly, Angry Mob.
This is disappointing. I was hoping for #1 and 100,000 units sold, but Arcade Fire fell short of each of those marks. Coming on the heels of Explosions in the Sky's first-week 76th place, I think we can safely assume that "indie rock" will remain outside mainstream acceptance in the near future. I guess in the long run, that is a good thing. We certainly don't need a repeat of the mid-90s Nirvana knockoffs like Candlebox or Bush or some other horrendous corporate attempt to cash in on a youth trend. But it would have been nice to see another 8,000 copies get sold so the clueless mainstream audience might say "Who's Arcade Fire?" and take notice of how incredibly better this music is compared to everyone else mentioned above. Actually, I can't state that definitely, because I don't know who Daughtry, Relient K, or Robin Thicke are and have certainly not heard their music. On the bright side, I think I read that Funeral went on to sell something like 750K copies worldwide despite never getting higher than 131, so maybe some of those 750,000 people are just slow on the uptake this time around. Of course, it could just mean that everybody downloaded the album for free and don't feel compelled to support the artist of such incredible music. I just really, really, really hope that isn't the case.
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