The Wilco Leak: Good Or Bad For Sales?
Monday, April 16th, 2007
As most people who follow new album releases probably know by now, the new Wilco album, “Sky Blue Sky,” has leaked to the internet. The album, which will officially be released on May 15th, was leaked in early March.
The band seems mostly ambivalent about the leak, saying essentially that it may hurt album sales somewhat, but that it may increase revenue from other sources.
Jeff Tweedy, talking with Billboard, is quoted as saying,
“There’s probably some good argument to be made that it will prevent a few people from buying the record . . . But there’s also the idea that I believe is true for us, which is, it’s people listening to our music.”
In an interview with X-Press Online, Wilco’s drummer Glenn Kotche said,
. . . It’s absolutely true… I have met countless people at shows who have confessed that they have downloaded our records illegally - or burned copies instead of buying it - and then you see them at a show and they have bought tickets to the show and they are going to buy the older records or t-shirts or whatever.
If any band truly understands the nature of album leaks, it would be Wilco. In 2002, their album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was leaked and went on to sell over 500,000 copies. Their next album, “A Ghost Is Born” was also leaked and opened at #8 on the Billboard charts.
Obviously, these successes do not necessarily indicate a correlation with leaks and album sales, but they could.
More recently, Modest Mouse’s new album “We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank” was leaked before it’s official release and went on to open at #1 on the charts with album sales of more than 130,000 copies. Bright Eyes‘ new album, “Cassadaga” also leaked before it’s official release last week, and initial reports have it doing very well, too.
Is there enough evidence to suggest that leaks actually increase album sales? Probably not. But as much as album leaks may hurt sales, the extra buzz from the blogosophere and mainstream media outlets, like Reuters, who end up writing about the leak, likely at least make up for lost sales and probably add a few more.