ETA: It’s actually 79 on Amazon Pop at the moment

I always used the (all) music number – but, it’s #35 on Amazon Rock! :)

I do too.  I just found it entertaining to see it so high in pop lol.

Walmart online has nothing to do with Walmart retail stores though.   Walmarts online ranking is a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket compared to what CD’s will sell in the actual stores when albums drop (see what I said about David, Archie also ranked very high on there and sold poorly)  The problem with many Walmarts is even though its #2 in terms of music sales many Walmarts cut down on the size of their music dept and good display is hard to get. James happens to be releasing on a day thats crowded and most likely going to see Rihanna, Daughtry, Nickelback and other more established artists getting the best endcaps. Even Lauren’s album I had a hard time finding in my Walmart.

Yes orders from his website will count, but do you really think those fan packages are getting huge orders?

I don’t think those fansite sales ever amount to much for anyone.  People who visit fansites (or even know about them for that matter) are a drop in the bucket compared to people who hear about and buy their music in more general, main-stream ways.

David was also #1 on Walmart for a while. IIRC the pre-orders on his site ended up only being around 8,000 when all was said and done and he only sold around 46,000 albums his first week.

I’m not sure that Walmart ranking means anything.  It appears to just take into account the online pre-orders.  Not that many people pre-order compared to those who actually buy after the album comes out.  And, the number of people who are more likely to buy online pales in comparison to the number of people who will buy in the actual store.  I just think that Walmart ranking is far too small a sample to be indicative of anything. 

I’m not sure what James will sell his first week, but I believe he just hasn’t had enough main-stream exposure to go over 50K.  That’s not a criticism, and it’s not an opinion based on the quality of the music (I haven’t listened to it yet).  I just don’t think enough people actually know about James, or that he has an album coming out. 

I could be wrong, and I do hope he sees some success.

I sorta feel the same way about not enough main-stream exposure to go over 50K, SpenserJ, but it would still be wonderful if he does start really picking up steam in these next 10 days (not much time to do it, I know) and surprises us.

I just looked at the upcoming releases from HDD for 11-21 (had thought Taylor Swift was also releasing then, but HDD shows the next week instead), and there are so many big names releasing that day, not to mention the big names who have JUST released, it’s probably not likely James (or Javier Colon either) will be in the Top 10 or 15 the first week.

I’m personally predicting anything from 30 to 60k, and that’s considered decent numbers for first week sales in his genre (opening numbers for even the top hard rock & metal artists, vary from as low 10k to as high 90k). LMB may be going to pop radio but James is still being promoted mostly to the rock & metal media.

James is an American Idol contestant who is releasing an album after 5 months of twice weekly TV exposure to a weekly audience of over 20 million. You can’t compare him to normal hard rock artists who don’t get such a huge exposure. There is a reason why a lot of idols have been dropped from their record companies after releasing just one album.

I ended up asking Dylan directly lol, and he replied he DID THE SOLO! So happy this awesome track has Dylan shredding on it. Perfect!

I went to the ‘So You Think You Can Dance” show in San Jose 2 weeks ago.  During the intermission they had videos of Scotty, Lauren and of course Pia.  Even in James’ hometown area no video of him.