11 Frbruary 2009
Springsteen’s Super Bowl: Small Payoff

By Roger Friedman

Bruce Springsteen’s appearance on the Super Bowl had a dramatically smaller payoff than anyone could have anticipated. In the week following the show, Springsteen’s album, "Working on A Dream," sold just 100,000 albums.

That’s not good. In the week before the Super Bowl, "Working" sold around 212,000 copies. All that hype, and publicity, countless interviews and free promotion, and now "Working" has moved only 312,000 total CDs.

Where have all the music fans gone? Is it possible, I ask naively and rhetorically, that everyone is downloading their music, and that the great majority of those are doing it illegally?

I think the answer must be yes.

The rest of the chart is dismal, with just a few hundred thousand in total sales for all CDs in the top 50. The number 1 CD, a self titled album by rockers The Fray, sold a paltry 190,000. Otherwise, CDs by the likes of Beyonce, Britney, Jamie Foxx, Kanye West, all of the usual suspects, are just sitting there in stores, gathering dust.

For Springsteen, though, the low sales figure has to be incredibly frustrating. "Working" is part of a $100 million deal he made with Sony Music a couple of years ago. Bruce, who doesn’t care for doing publicity, put his heart and soul in the process this time. Now he’ll have to wait and see if sales will improve as he goes on major tour.

Source: FOX News