www.smashingpumpkins.com/news_2973

it's official...half a million copies sold.

Wow that's lame.
I thought it already went platinum.
I guess they did fail.

SamC wrote:
Wow that's lame.
I thought it already went platinum.
I guess they did fail.

What is failure in this day and age though? Gold is a tough hurdle. It took Machina way longer to go gold than Zeitgeist did.

SamC wrote:
Wow that's lame.
I thought it already went platinum.
I guess they did fail.

500,000 in half a year is pretty good. I don't think that even counts iTunes purchases. (not sure)

Murder McMurderson wrote:
SamC wrote:
Wow that's lame.
I thought it already went platinum.
I guess they did fail.

500,000 in half a year is pretty good. I don't think that even counts iTunes purchases. (not sure)


I dunno, that just sounds like a really modest number to me.
But then again, I would think that there would be more iTunes purchases than material.

good for billy and co.

Trillian wrote:
SamC wrote:
Wow that's lame.
I thought it already went platinum.
I guess they did fail.

What is failure in this day and age though? Gold is a tough hurdle. It took Machina way longer to go gold than Zeitgeist did.
Actually that it is incorrect. Machina went gold in less than 2 months (According to the RIAA, 04/18/2000), but then of course it still has not gone platinum in 7 years. That was when illegal and legal downloading was still in its infancy though. Gish took 8 years to go platinum, but it also took 3 years to go Gold.

But if you look on the bright side of things, things are definitely looking up, compared to Zwan's sales, and more so compared to Billy's solo record sales (which shipped only 34,000 units in its first week on Billboard, and probably hasn't made much progress since).

I have seen this discussion of platinum on other boards previously. Why did you think it had gone platinum? Because of world-wide sales totals rather than US sales?

worldwide, the cd has easily gone platinum and it doesn't even count itunes, so 500,000 in the U.S. in half a year is amazing.

I wouldn't say it was too spectacular. I mean without the 7 different versions it would have taken alot longer to go gold. I s'pose though in this day an age with all the illegal downloading, its OKAY.

That really isn't too shabby considering they were out of the "scene" for so long . . .

in today's age of illegal downloading, I personally think this is a pretty impressive number considering the album's only been out for about 7 months. and don't give me the "if there hadn't been 7 different versions..." crap....

this is US only sales. they probably are close to or over a million worldwide. and these figures do not include itunes purchases. there aren't too many albums that come out and sell half a million in the US in 7 months anymore.

ghostchild wrote:
and don't give me the "if there hadn't been 7 different versions..." crap....

Calm down. You always seem to get worked up.

What albums came out at the same time that could be compared?

what came out in July last year besides Zeitgeist?

Homicidal_llama wrote:
ghostchild wrote:
and don't give me the "if there hadn't been 7 different versions..." crap....

Calm down. You always seem to get worked up.

What albums came out at the same time that could be compared?

i'm not worked up. you just can't interpret emotions on a message board where everybody types everything instead of face to face reaction.

i just knew before i posted this somebody would go there, and sure enough it happened. i'm just tired of hearing about it.

i don't remember what else came out in july, but i bet there aren't many albums that came out in that month that have sold this many copies.

While they have probably sold well over a million copies worldwide, I don't believe there is a platinum certification by any organization for world-wide sales. Am I wrong?

i don't think so. each country has it's own, i think the U.K is 250,000 for gold, i'm not sure though.

Yeah, Canada has 50,000 for Gold and 100,000 for platinum. Mellon Collie had gone Diamond, which is 10x platinum (1 million copies) in Canadian standards. I don't see a listing for Zeitgeist for gold certification in Canada, although the RIAA website's not updated either. So who knows, maybe it has gone gold in Canada.

According to Canadian standards, Machina and the Greatest hits went platinum, Adore went double platinum . Sounds much more impressive until you realize how many units it really is compared to US standards

But, everything is also more expensive in Canada, if that offsets anything