So reports Blabbermouth.net. The relevant Billboard chart is here.

In an amusing interview with Rolling Stone, Kele Okereke of British indie giant Bloc Party gets all teary-eyed and waxes poetic about his band’s upcoming album, Intimacy:

It was totally hush-hush but we didn’t want to go the whole In Rainbows route and give away for free. We live in a capitalist world and I do want to get paid and I do want to eat.

Ah, the sweet smell of money-makin’, money-money-makin’ in the morning.

But wait!  He goes on to further explain the hard-and-fast marketing tactic behind recent one-off single release “Mercury” (”Superchrist” or “G.L.O.W.,” anyone?):

We’re kind of just making it up as we can go along. You can do that these days and it’s pretty exciting I think.

Indeed. So is the key to making friends with the press blatantly discussing your strategies?  We know Jared Paul thinks so.

But so far, Bloc Party has gotten no snarky remarks on Pitchfork or Stereogum or [enter ad nauseum music blogs here].  Quel dommage!

Four days ago floor seats sold for about $50 each on eBay, but right now you can get them for $30 each on StubHub.

I just watched an eBay auction with a reserve price of $120 (seller feedback score = 36) for two general-admission tickets to the Smashing Pumpkins’ upcoming concert in south suburban Chicago expire with 0 bids. (Recall that face value per ticket was $83 for the sold-out show.) Another auction for two GA tickets, this one with no reserve (seller feedback score = 145), has received 13 bids to this point with under 15 hours to go before the auction expires. The current high bid? $61.

UPDATE (8/1): The second auction was won for $102.50.

She writes:

It’s becoming clear that digital sales for the hyped song reached nearly 100,000% of the prior week. 100,000%? Yes, an amazing 100,000%. More than 11,000 people downloaded the track on iTunes alone, irrespective of the more than 40,000 listens it got on the Pumpkins’ MySpace page since the movie launched. The song ranked as the most-listened Pumpkins tune on the Rhapsody music service and drastically climbed the charts at other Web 2.0 music licensing platforms like Napster and Last.fm.

There was lots to talk about this week despite the short time since the last podcast, so we went a bit long, and for the first time since episode 5 we had all four original members of the podcast on to give their opinions on what was a bizarre half-week of news.

Listen to the whole show (1:10:19)

(download)(iTunes)

This week’s topics:

Panelists
-Chris, Jason, Jill, and Andrew

Jill responds to our ticket price comments from last week and discusses her new gig at smashingpumpkins.com.  Plus we get a sneak peek at some of her future articles. (10:02)

News
-We go Access Hollywood and discuss Courtney Love and her alleged blogging skills. (5:32)

-The August tour gets some new dates, and we discuss the slow rate of ticket sales.  Plus, Jason hatches a plan to get my grandparents to the Boca Raton show, and Jill is unaware of the musical genius of Lifehouse. (6:09)

-The Beginning is the End is the Beginning shoots to the middle of the iTunes sales charts, was there ever a more unlikely “hit”?  Plus, Jason, who runs a Smashing Pumpkins fan blog, calls Watchmen fans ”dorky”, and Andrew humbly recalls predicting the whole thing. (13:55)

In Depth Discussion: Where do the Pumpkins rank amongst their 1990’s peers?
-VH1 considered the Pumpkins worthy as a promotional tool for their top 100 songs of the 1990’s list, but not as musicians to be included.  What was the most likely Smashing Pumpkins song to be included on the list and where would we place it?  We have a few laughs and ponder the Pumpkins’ place in the 90’s.  Plus, we once again groove to Third Eye Blind, Jill warms up her vocal chords, and Andrew reveals himself as the only hair metal fan on the panel. (26:16)

This Week in Pumpkins History
-The band plays an extended stay at the Fillmore. (1:17)

Song of the Week
-The End is the Beginning is the End, June 28th, 1997

Stay tuned after the credits for some outtakes from our discussion of 1990’s music.

Another chapter has been written in the improbable rise of all-but-forgotten Batman & Robin disc-filler “The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning” to minor cultural relevance, as Watchmen trailer-viewing iTunes buyers have momentarily propelled the track past offerings from Vanessa Hudgens and Keith Urban to a position in the top 80 50 songs.

Wow. When was the last time a Chicago area Pumpkin show didn’t sell out in minutes?

After the first hour, floor tickets are still available.

Not that that’s stopping the scalpers.

Whether it’s the price, the venue (or rather, The Venue) or the 21+ age limit, I’m still a little surprised that tickets don’t appear to be moving that quickly. I still imagine this will sell out well before August 9, so those interested should buy now or pay later.

With a possible 3 HU contributors in the area (though probably only 2 in attendance at the proper show, you’ll probably find me at the blackjack table), perhaps a get-together is in order?

This week we pondered the idea of the Pumpkins as a “collective”, speculated on whether the band will have another mainstream hit, and reviewed last year’s acoustic Berlin secret show.  See the end of the show notes for a chance to take part in a future episode of the podcast.

Listen to the whole show (1:00:49)

(download)(iTunes)

This week’s topics:

Panelists
-Chris, Jason, Jill, and Andrew

News
-In yet another post-RockWalk interview, Billy and Jimmy introduced the possibility of the Smashing Pumpkins as a collective of rotating band members.  We discuss how that may affect future plans.  Plus, Jason starts the drum circle and Andrew clues us in on the lifestyles of the rich and the German.  (13:59)

In-Depth Discussion
-Could the highest-charting Pumpkins single still be yet to come?  Jason has some compelling reasons why while Andrew maps out a plan to make it so.  Plus, Jill groups the Pumpkins in with Boyz II Men and Celine Dion, and I realize that I definitely do not have my finger on the pulse of mainstream youth.  (20:26)

Concert Review - Zitadelle Spanau; Berlin, DE June 5th, 2007
-We review this very special acoustic show.  Jason fires me from the podcast, Jill gives us the fangirl perspective, and if you listen carefully you can hear the 10:00 PM trucks slithering by.  (16:28)

This Week in Pumpkins History
-Andrew brings us down on the 12th anniversary of the unfortunate death of Bernadette O’Brien, and I attempt to cheer everyone up with a call for audience participation.  (3:38)(

Song of the Week
-Tarantula, June 5th, 2007

As I mentioned at the end of this week’s show, in honor of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the release of Adore we are planning an entirely Adore-centric show for the end of May.  If you would like to be part of the show, record yourself giving your thoughts on the Adore album or tour and email the audio file to (chris at hipstersunited dot com).  Please keep the file less than 60 seconds and limit background noise as much as possible.  You can be pro- or anti-Adore, but I will pick my favorite questions and comments to play and discuss during the show.

Back when Zeitgest came out, HU was tracking with interest the sales numbers for the new disc. Would the fanbase respond and rocket the Pumpkins back to the top of the charts? Would the “reunion” be a success or crash and burn?

While the first week numbers were solid, the precipitous drop in week two had this HU prognosticator predicting the album as being considered a failure .

With the annoucement a few weeks ago that Zeitgeist has now gone gold, I’ll admit I may have been presumptous in my prediction. 500,000 units shipped is no small feat, though I’d still be curious to see total Soundscan numbers.

Either way, please pass the potatoes, it goes well with crow.

In the first major competitive bid against iTunes, Amazon.com has recently debuted its own online mp3-buying portal here. And guess what. The Pumpkins are #9 on today’s top artist list!

… Right above Pavarotti and Wagner. Seriously? It seems like the mp3 market is reaching a new, DRM-free demographic that’s not obsessed with Rihanna’s damn umbrella. CNET posted a scathing usability article about the beta store and obviously it has quite a way to go to gain competitive edge against iTunes. But, if Amazon can provide lower prices, a consistently intuitive, multi-tenant user interface, then they will certainly enter this market as a stiff competitor. Plus, if they can manage to eliminate the 60 seconds of hard drive deep freeze my computer enters when it tries to load iTunes, I’m totally on board.

I can’t help but notice, however, that Feist’s single is at the top of the daily downloads chart — yes, that song from the iPod commercial. Ahh, sweet commercial irony.

Let’s just hope the Pumpkins stay up on the chart!

A recent article in France’s Le Monde newspaper discusses the recent festival in St. Malo, La Route du Rock, where the Pumpkins headlined a three-day event.

The article in question, “L’indie-rock cède à l’appel de l’argent”, takes the Fox News approach to fair and balanced journalism in examining what it thinks is the decline of the indie rock genre and its growing monetary demands. The Pumpkins were paid 120,000€ to appear at the festival, commanding 45% of the entire festival budget. However, the article points out that the festival had to increase its overall budget this year:

Cette année, La Route du Rock a dû augmenter son budget de 100 000 euros par rapport à l’édition précédente.

Now, budgetary inflation is understandable. Operating costs grow each year, and gas is worth its weight in gold in Europe. Heck, at a cost of about 100€ for admission and transportation fees (plus more if you wanted to camp out for all three days), the Pumpkins would have had to draw a whopping 1200 fans to break even for their appearance fees. So, how many attend? According to the New York Times, last year, the festival drew 30,000. Mon dieu.

The article barrels on to argue:

Radiohead ou Björk (inaccessibles aux budgets modérés) continuent d’être considérés comme indépendants.” Les Smashing Pumpkins aussi, présentés dans le programme de La Route du Rock comme “le groupe qui a rapidement régné sans partage sur le monde de l’indie-rock”, alors qu’ils enregistrent aujourd’hui pour Warner.

So, contrary to the article, I don’t know anyone who would consider Bjork, Radiohead, OR the Pumpkins part of the indie rock genre. They’ve been around for decades, sold millions of records, and generated kajillions of dollars in revenue. Le Monde diplomatically infers scorn upon these acts for asking large appearance fees (blogs citing the article, however, are FIERY), but I’m going to go against the grain here and assume no one is doing the proper analysis. 120K doesn’t go far, especially when you’re paying for the following operating costs of the band itself:

A month after it’s release, comeback album extraordinaire Zeitgiest is still slowly sliding down the charts, although sales are steadily leveling off. This week sees the album chart at #29, down from last week’s #20 position, with roughly 21,000 albums, a decrease of roughly 8,000.
Hits Daily Double is reporting 20,831 on their sales chart, which seems to be pretty close to accurate, though they do have an incorrect chart position.

Overall sales for the first month are at approximately 235,000. While for many bands, this would be an unqualified success, given the Pumpkins previous sales history, the acceptability of this number is slightly murkier, and the chances of this album going gold anytime soon are beyond slim. 
Is the band viable? Certainly, especially in this era of diminished sales. Is the band vital? Probably not, but few would expect them to reach new highs in this reincarnation either.

This will probably be the final sales update for Zeitgeist, as it’s becoming more difficult to get accurate information without buying a Billboard subscription, and frankly, it’s just not all that interesting to note that the album is dropping a few thousand sales per week.   

In this third week edition of Zeitgeist sales-tracking, we don’t see the precipitous drop that occured from opening week to week 2, though the album did continue to slip down the charts, landing at #22 on the Billboard charts.
Hits DailyDouble claims a weekly sales total of 26,396, but had the album charting at #21. Despite the position being off, HU believe that number to be fairly accurate, as #21 on the Billboard charts, Colbie Caillat, was reported to have sold 27,000 copies of her debut.

So other than the ignomious fact that not only is Zeitgest being outsold by Miley Cyrus, but also her “Achy Breaky” father Billy Ray Cyrus, what can we infer about the record’s long term viability?

The percentage decrease in sales was only 37% this week, and I would expect a general trend for sales to continue to decrease at a more gradual pace.
So is roughly 215,000 sales after three weeks a success for the Pumpkins in 2007? It’s not a bad effort (especially given the product), but it depends what the expectations were coming in. One sure thing is barring a hit single, the chances of this record going gold anytime soon look to be fairly slim.

Week two sales are often more representative of an album’s staying power, once the diehard fanbase is sated from opening day sales.

So, 37,158?

A 75% decline?

Ouch.

With that weak tally, Zeitgeist dropped from #2 to #13 in this week’s charts, and without a strong single to staunch the bleeding, its fall from the charts will most likely continue in the weeks ahead. Even a 50% drop next week will leave the album fighting to stay in the top 50.

Machina stayed on the charts a total of 13 weeks; if this rate of sales drop continues, Zeitgeist’s reign will be lucky to make half that, though I would imagine the percent decrease will level out somewhat.

The question now remains, how will what looks to be the failure of the comeback album over the next few weeks affect the band’s future plans?  We know Billy couldn’t fight the fight against the Britneys of the world, but what about the Hannah Montanas, T.I.’s and Colbie Caillat’s?

According to Hits Daily Double, Zeitgeist clocks in at #2 on the charts with 146,091 sales.

HU was slightly off, forecasting only 140k, but all in all, fairly on the mark.
If only there were a way to track multiple copy sales, to see if the bonus track/limited edition controversy had any effect on sales, because let’s be honest, for all the bitching, the people who did not buy the disc because of this most likely were not going to purchase it anyhow.

Predictions on week 2? A significant drop, to be sure, if recent trends hold true, both for the Pumpkins and the industry in general. Anything under 40% would have to be looked at as a strong showing.

I’d expect a shade over 50% of a drop, to let’s say, roughly 70,000, is probable. With no very strong releases coming out next week, the record could still stay in the top 5 for a fortnight, but chart position is hardly an indicator of success these days.

If Zeitgeist is to have a chance of not being looked at as a disappointment, it needs to level out after the week 2 freefall and keep a solid position on the charts. This doesn’t take much nowadays, as last week’s #50 record sold less than 14,000. However, with no tour support until October, the record will need to take on a life of its own to stay on the charts for the rest of the summer. I’m not too sure I see it picking up many casual fans in the weeks to come though.