Here's a question I have that is relevant to the Carpenters albums, but could also be generalized towards any other artist or musical group.
How many copies of an album does an album have to generate within a year of its release to be considered a successful album?
500 thousand copies? 1 million copies?
I would estimate that there are some musical groups/artists release one album after another and never sell more than 50 thousand copies of any individual album.
Rock groups like King Crimson and Roxy Music and artists like Frank Zappa never had albums that sold extremely well. Still, they continued to release albums, even if they knew their albums would not reach anywhere near the top of the charts.
Is an album that sells, 100 thousand copies a failure or a modest success?
The British folk artist, Nick Drake recorded and released 3 albums in his short recording career (1969 - 1972) and they sold a combined 7,000 copies. Nick Drake died in 1974. But later, when Nick Drake's music got more attention, his albums sold in higher quantitied.
Getting back to the Carpenters, from a commercial perspective, which albums were successes and which were failures and which fall into the in between category, given that the Carpenters, to some extent, got accustomed to seeing their albums reach Gold or Platinum status.
Note: This isn't to say that one can not gain a lot of enjoyment from a Carpenters album that didn't sell very well.
How many copies of an album does an album have to generate within a year of its release to be considered a successful album?
500 thousand copies? 1 million copies?
I would estimate that there are some musical groups/artists release one album after another and never sell more than 50 thousand copies of any individual album.
Rock groups like King Crimson and Roxy Music and artists like Frank Zappa never had albums that sold extremely well. Still, they continued to release albums, even if they knew their albums would not reach anywhere near the top of the charts.
Is an album that sells, 100 thousand copies a failure or a modest success?
The British folk artist, Nick Drake recorded and released 3 albums in his short recording career (1969 - 1972) and they sold a combined 7,000 copies. Nick Drake died in 1974. But later, when Nick Drake's music got more attention, his albums sold in higher quantitied.
Getting back to the Carpenters, from a commercial perspective, which albums were successes and which were failures and which fall into the in between category, given that the Carpenters, to some extent, got accustomed to seeing their albums reach Gold or Platinum status.
Note: This isn't to say that one can not gain a lot of enjoyment from a Carpenters album that didn't sell very well.