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Posted by Ritchie_az on 07-05-2008 at02:52:

Album Sells

This has probably been asked before.

How many copies has DA sold of different albums?

Mr. Buechner's Dream? Horrendous Disc? Alarma? Doppelganger? Songs of the Heart? Shotgun Angel? Etc.

Does anyone know? (Obviously, the older albums have sold more.)

Also, I remember reading that Shotgun Angel was the #1 selling Christian record in 1977 (could have been 1978 ) and that Alarma was #3 and Horrendous Disc was #7 in 1981. I was born in 1980, so I have no idea, but I thought DA was, more or less, always "underground." I don't recall where I read it and have never been able to verify it. Anyone know?

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Posted by Dr Rich on 07-05-2008 at06:18:

 

I think back in the "old days" DA used to sell pretty well.

I had no idea that Alarma and Horrendous Disc sold as well as that.

Do you remember where you read that info??

That is all interesting stuff.

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Posted by Ritchie_az on 07-05-2008 at06:24:

 

I want to say I read it in a book, but, I don't know, it could have been on wikipedia, for all I remember. Maybe it was in the liner notes of the rereleased HD album--the one Larry Norman took all the credit for. Off the top of my head I have no clue, and I'm at work (term used losely), so I can't really research it now.

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Posted by Dr Rich on 07-05-2008 at06:32:

 

A book? That would be a cool book to read.
If you remember, be sure to post it.
I would love to read such a book!

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Posted by Ritchie_az on 07-05-2008 at06:39:

 

There's a couple of books. One is called CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums In Cristian Music and the other I don't recall the name of, but it was written probably 20 years ago and had several DA references (a friend owns it).

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Posted by Dr Rich on 07-05-2008 at06:42:

 

I remember CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums In Cristian Music and I wish I would have bought it, but I sadly, however, did not.

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Posted by Mark on 07-05-2008 at09:24:

 

Years ago I thought that I read somewhere that Horrendous Disc sold 150,000 copies. Nowadays after hearing stuff here that sounds like it may not be true.

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Posted by Audiori J on 07-05-2008 at12:28:

 

The book "100 greatest CCM albums", I have a copy...great doesn't exactly mean best selling.

One of the old Interviews with Terry on the site says, Darn Floor sold about 8,000 copies and that was a disapointment. Terry says they were selling around 60,000 copies of albums at the time. I also remember hearing "Lets Spin" sold better than most DA albums, if not all. I would guess the Marantha albums probably did very well, the band was doing some big tours at the time and that music was loved by the Church crowd. They also had radio play and a lot of magazine press coverage back then.

As for Horrendous Disc, probably only Larry knew the sales figures. In the timeline we have :

November 1981
"Alarma!" is #12 on CCM Magazine's sales chart. "Horrendous Disc" is #14.

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Posted by audiori on 07-06-2008 at21:31:

 

Yeah, we've had to do a lot of reconnecting with the fans after the end of the Word/Maranatha!/heavy-touring days. The good news is, its never stopped growing since the internet became so popular. Not a week has went by in the last ten years where we haven't added names to our store database.

I've seen a few websites speculate about the band's sales these days. Generally, if you hear exact numbers (or estimates, for that matter) for the sales for any current release... its crap. We don't give those numbers out without the band's permission, and they don't generally give permission to do that. Anybody doing that is just speculating. For one thing, sales figures are all over the place depending on what kind of release it is and what band it is. Some titles have to be reprinted over and over again, some lesser releases survive with only one or two printings. I've heard some try to estimate total sales from presales.. thats silly too. They don't compare. So, if someone says "today, DA generally sells XXXXX number of CDS"... they have no clue what they're talking about.

Sales were great at Cstone this week by the way... sold lots of Midgets, Holy Ghost Buildings and Lost Cabins. All three seem to be very popular among old fans and new ones.

Another cool thing... JJT mentioned Daniel Amos from the main stage during the 25th anniversary show and there was a pretty loud cheer that came up from the entire audience. I was pretty surprised by that just due to the number of kids out there.

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Posted by Audiori J on 07-06-2008 at22:23:

 

I talked to a few fans at Cornerstone who bought a handful of releases because they don't have the internet and get caught up every year at Cornerstone. Some didn't even know what "All Day Sing" was. There is a large number of disconnected fans.

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Posted by Aqua Green Toupee on 07-07-2008 at07:41:

 

quote:

Originally posted by audiori Sales were great at Cstone this week by the way... sold lots of Midgets, Holy Ghost Buildings and Lost Cabins.

You sold lots of Midgets, Holy Ghost Buildings, and Lost Cabins. That's funny.

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Posted by wakachiwaka on 07-07-2008 at07:48:

 

Reminds me of my friend who was confused by the concept of "midget races".