Nightwish

Forostar

Forostar

Ancient Mariner
Anyone heard the new album? Amazing sales! :)

NIGHTWISH's new album, "Dark Passion Play", has achieved the following first-week chart positions around the world:

#1 - Germany
#1 - Finland
#1 - Switzerland
#1 - Hungary
#1 - Croatia
#1 - Czech Republic
#4 - Sweden
#5 - Austria
#5 - Netherlands
#5 - Greece
#6 - France
#7 - Norway
#14 - Italy
#18 - Denmark
#24 - Canada
#25 - UK
#36 - Belgium
#50 - Poland
#62 - Ireland
#84 - US

"Dark Passion Play" has already been certified gold in the following countries:

Germany (more than 100,000 copies sold)
Switzerland (more than 15,000 copies sold)
Austria (more than 10,000 copies sold)
Poland (more than 5,000 copies sold)

In Finland, the record was certified platinum day of its release and double-platinum two days later. The total "Dark Passion Play" sales in Finland have surpassed 90,000.
 
Based on what I have heard, this new lineup is the best yet.  The new vocalist, IMO, is far better than Tanja ever was, and she seems to bring much less drama to the lineup.  I haven't heard the whole album yet, but I get the feeling I'll really enjoy it.
 
Better than Tarja? That's quite a statement considering she was a professional opera singer, better in what way? Definitely bringing less drama (though that drama was only in recent years) is a step up :D Yet another Cd to add to my wishlist :D
 
Forostar said:
"Dark Passion Play" has already been certified gold in the following countries:

Germany (more than 100,000 copies sold)
Switzerland (more than 15,000 copies sold)
Austria (more than 10,000 copies sold)
Poland (more than 5,000 copies sold)
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I didn't realize the bar for gold status was so low in these countries. It got me to wondering why it's different from country to country...

For the sake of argument, let's take the US standards as a reasonable baseline. (I'm not saying it actually is; it's just a starting point for discussion.) In the US, you need 500,000 sales for gold. The US has about 300 million people, so gold here means one sale per 600 people.

Germany has about 82 million people, so their 100,000 standard makes comparative sense. That's one sale per 820 people, which is fairly close to the US.

Switzerland has 7 million, so their 15,000-album standard means one sale per 466 people. Harder to achieve in theory, but still reasonable.

Austria's 8 million people and 10,000-album standard translates to one sale per 800 people, very similar to Germany.

But Poland? 38 million people and only 5000 sales needed? That's only one sale per 7600 people! I have no idea what the average city size in Poland is, but I'm guessing that's only a few albums sold in most towns. Even in their largest city, Warsaw, that means only 222 albums need to be sold!

Yes, I recognize the above statement has flaws. The assumption about Warsaw only holds true if the album sells evenly in all cities; I have no doubt that larger cities like Warsaw must contain the bulk of sales, to make up for rural regions where sales are likely close to zero.

By my calculations, the gold standard in Poland ought to be 50,000 or 60,000 sales, which would make it more appropriate when compared to their population. One-sale-per-600 would require 63,000 sales, and one-sale-per-800 would require 47,500 sales.

Is there something I'm not getting? Why is the gold standard so incredibly low in Poland? It's only 10% of what it ought to be. Did Forostar forget a zero, or does Poland just hand out gold albums easily?


Edit:
The above is not intended to diminish the success of Nightwish, or suggest that their accolades are not deserved. It's a problem with Poland, not Nightwish. And I'm allowed to criticize Poland, since I'm one-quarter Polish ... right?
 
I think you have a point there, SMX. Maybe the recording industry, RIAA or whatever they're called, should set a mutual standard, say one record sold per 700 citizens or something like that? Just to make it comparable throughout the different countries. Do you have number for platinum as well and are those similarly uneven?
 
Whatever arguments, when we talk about those figures, they are one of the few bands who seem to be as good as (or better than) Maiden. Respect!

First I thought the singer was crap, but I only heard one little sample, some months ago. Now, after hearing the whole album I found out I was wrong. It's a decent voice (not that great imo) and the music is again very strong!
 
On gold requirements: well, I think, we have a similar value for the gold status here in the Czech Rep., I am not sure. I think it is some kind of post-communist effect or what. I think in communist countries LPs or CDs or what were not so heavily sold so the limit had to be lower. And after turning from communism to some kind of democracy, the limit remained the same :-) Just my personal theory though.

Well, I did some research :-) I have found some documents from the year 2002 only which say that our low limits are caused by a poor selling of records - in 2001 it was 6.9 millions, the country has 10 millions people :-) So for our local "stars" to be able to get gold or platinum the limit was set for locals to 15000 for gold and 30000 for platinum, for foreign CDs it was set to 10000, resp. 20000. But these were values at the begining of 2002, I believe they are different today but I have not been successful in finding them. For example the best selling album of 2006 had about 57 000  copies sold that year, not much, heh?

So the conclusion? based on sales, not on the number of citizens :-)
 
I could imagine that in countries like Poland or the Czech Republic, people simply have less money to buy records than people in Germany or the US.

And for the record, I really hated Tarja. Whenever I heard a Nightwish song, I thought "hey, that isn't so bad" until Tarja started singing. That type of voice just doesn't fit with the music, in my opinion. I haven't heard the new singer, but for the sake of fairness, I will give her a chance.
 
Yeah, you probably got it, Perun. It is said that an average sallary here is some 20000 CZK, I think. Now subtract some 5000 for taxes, 10000 for living, remaining 5000 goes on food, clothing and other things more important than CDs. And with a common price of - say - 300 CZK per czech record and 500 CZK per foreign record... I am not surprised people rather download it somewhere. But counting with 10 millions and 700 people per sold record we are at some 15000 so probably our local limits are correct :-)

And Tarja vs. Anette - well, quite the same here - I was not very impressed by Tarja's singing. Anette sounds better to me, yeah, a bit more pop sounding, but listenable. But on the other side, Tarja is what is special about the music of Nightwish so I understand the disappointment of the fans. To me, it is very like "Blaze replacing Bruce" affair :-)
 
Tarja's voice fitted very well to Nightwish's bombastic music, in my opinion. Besides, sometimes she sang more opera, sometimes more poppy, so she was quite diverse (and well trained)!

Anette has less abilities but still she did a good job on the new CD. She's got charisma and definitely less ego which is good for the band.

I think that even the most die-hard Tarja fans will accept Anette, sooner or later. That's imo a difference with the Bruce-Blaze situation. Quite some people still hate the Blaze era (you won't find many of those people on this forum).

The main strength of Nightwish is the songwriting and this will guarantee the band's longetivity.
 
I felt "Once" was a step back. It was my first Nightwish album and I hated it, it sucked monkey balls. But I had heard so many good reviews about their earlier works that I gave those a shot and I'm glad I did. Centuries Child, Oceanborn and Wishmaster are amazing albums. Which is why to this day I'm surprised that such a crappy record like Once became their best-selling to date. I'm looking forward to this new one. Let's see, Amorphis, Mastodon, Dream Theater, Kamelot, Symphony X... Nightwish. There, it's been added to the list.

As for the old vs. new singer arguments, they are all ridiculous. Bands change line-ups constantly and break up and form new ones. I think the fan wins out either way. Like Helloween, when Kai left he made Gamma Ray and it is a decent band, so is Masterplan (formed by Roland Grapow and Uli Kusch), and now Masterplan's only original member is Grapow and it is still a cool band... So whether it's a new guitarist or vocalist, change can be good or bad and only time can tell that, it usually works out for the better.

My only complaint would be when it is a sudden change. For example, I don't know how many of you are familiar with Shaman, formed by ex-Angra drummer, guitarist and vocalist (Andre Matos, the only one who's name I remember hehe). There first album, Ritual, was mind-blowing. Really impressive with South American touches to the music and just powerful, as good as power metal gets. Their second effort, Reason, is DIFFERENT. much more mellow and experimental but DRASTICALLY different in vision and direction from Ritual. After a few listens I actually like it, and it is a really good cd if I pretend Ritual never existed. Think of it this way. What if maiden had put out Seventh Son right after Number of the Beast? Big change, no? Maiden has changed over the years, but it has been gradual, easy for the fan to accept (well, except maybe the Blaze era), but when a band switches gears suddenly it is a shock to the fan, just like ANY sudden change is to a human being, whether good or bad (Durkheim discovered that suicides increase when the economy suddenly rises or crashes). Anyway I've gone off topic :p
 
Onhell said:
I felt "Once" was a step back. It was my first Nightwish album and I hated it, it sucked monkey balls. But I had heard so many good reviews about their earlier works that I gave those a shot and I'm glad I did. Centuries Child, Oceanborn and Wishmaster are amazing albums. Which is why to this day I'm surprised that such a crappy record like Once became their best-selling to date. 
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Once is my least favourite album of the first four, indeed. But man! "Ghost Love Score" is on it! One of the best songs in metal with orchestra and choir. "Creek Mary's Blood" rules as well, and "The Siren" (atmospheric) and "Nemo" (nice melodies) are not so terrible either. You know which albums suck elephant balls? "Pink Bubbles Go Ape" & "Chameleon" by Helloween!

*puke*

No, these albums were no drastic changes, and they were not released after Kai's leaving either!  ;)
 
Forostar said:
Once is my least favourite album of the first four, indeed. But man! "Ghost Love Score" is on it! One of the best songs in metal with orchestra and choir. "Creek Mary's Blood" rules as well, and "The Siren" (atmospheric) and "Nemo" (nice melodies) are not so terrible either. You know which albums suck elephant balls? "Pink Bubbles Go Ape" & "Chameleon" by Helloween!

*puke*

No, these albums were no drastic changes, and they were not released after Kai's leaving either!  ;)
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LOL, yes they were!!! Kai left DURING the Keeper pt. II tour in 88 and both Pink bubbles (what a horrible name) and Chameleon were released AFTER that in 1990 and 93, soon after Ingo commited suicide (probably from realizing how much those albums sucked ass) and Kiske left. I don't own those albums though, but I'm tempted to, just to have the whole discography, a fan thing hehe.

back to Nightwish though, I might give Once another shot, but I doubt it will be in the near future. It felt very Poppy, more than usual for them.
 
Onhell said:
LOL, yes they were!!! Kai left DURING the Keeper pt. II tour in 88 and both Pink bubbles (what a horrible name) and Chameleon were released AFTER that in 1990 and 93, soon after Ingo commited suicide (probably from realizing how much those albums sucked ass) and Kiske left. I don't own those albums though, but I'm tempted to, just to have the whole discography, a fan thing hehe.
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I know, I was being sarcastic mate ;)
To me it showed that Kai's leaving had a big impact! :)

I could write a whole essay on why I still haven't bought Chameleon (wouldn't do it for 5 euro even!)
Remarkably enoug, the track "Giants" is imo the best track that came out in 1993! If that album was full of such songs, than it might have been my favourite Helloween album!   :blink:

RIP Ingo. The guy's death was a bit of a shock to me, back then. He had a lot of personal problems which led him to throw himself before a train. :/

Kai wrote a nice tribute to him, "Afterlife" on the "Land Of The Free" album.
 
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