Reissues reflect charts

[whippedflea]

In as much as Herb Alpert is one heck of a musician, he's also one of the finest businessmen in America...a real success story. Doing some web browzing, I stumbled upon some interesting facts about how the original TJB albums sold and charted back in the day. Here's what I found...

THE LONELY BULL 24
VOLUME TWO 17 (in 1966)
SOUTH OF THE BORDER 6 (in 1965)
WHIPPED CREAM 1
GOING PLACES 1
WHAT NOW MY LOVE 1
S.R.O. 2
SOUNDS LIKE 1
HERB ALPERT’S 9TH 4
THE BEAT OF THE BRASS 1
WARM 28
THE BRASS ARE COMIN’ 30
GREATEST HITS 43
SUMMERTIME 111
SOLID BRASS 135

I guess I never realized how the albums from 1969 onward sold. Reading Herb biogs, the albums seemed like they were popular enough to be ranked in the top 5, but history reveals something different. Now, any of us would love to have an album rank 135 in Billboard, but coming off of that long streak of top 5's, I could see why Herb decided to take some time off in the early 1970's. I can also see why he thinks (at least) that those later albums aren't worthy of a reissue. We know he's wrong, but for Herb, those last few TJB records might leave a bad taste on his mouth(piece).

What's really sad is that GREATEST HITS didn't do better!! Granted, it was one of the only 4 TJB albums that your local record store may or may not carry in the 1970's and 1980's, but I always was under the impression that it was a top 10 album at least.

However, I have a personal note on GREATEST HITS. In early 1976, I decided that I had to stop listening to my Mom's Herb Alpert records and that I needed some of my own. My father and I went shopping and immediately looked to GREATEST HITS. Anyway, my father was so miffed that GREATEST HITS didn't have "This Guy's In Love With You" on it, he spent the extra $1.25 and bought me FOURSIDER.

 

[Rudy]

"Greatest Hits" probably would qualify as one of those albums that had some decent initial sales (hence the #43 showing), but was also a steady seller throughout the years while it was still in print. So even if it had a lower chart showing, the total unit sales probably surpassed a few other higher-charting TJB albums. Wish someone had kept track of the sales numbers on these albums!

 

[whippedflea]

I guess what bewildered me was that BRASS ARE COMIN' actually outsold GREATEST HITS!! Like everybody here, I've been a record hunter for decades, and I've only come across maybe 5 copies of BRASS ARE COMIN' "in the flesh," while original copies of GREATEST HITS with the ochre label are all over the place!

PS - I case nobody's ever talked about this here....
Did you ever notice on EVERY (1970's & 1980's) copy of GREATEST HITS on vinyl, A&M goofed (on purpose?) and spelled 'HERB ALBERT..." on the spine writing??

 

[Mike Blakesley]

FWIW -- BRASS ARE COMIN did not outsell GREATEST HITS. It hit higher on the charts, but that has nothing to do with total sales. I'd bet GH is probably in the TJB's all time top 10 best sellers.

And the "Albert" spelling has been mentioned in at least a dozen other threads over time -- try searching "Herb Albert" and see how many hits you get!

 

[stefandaystrom]

Chart PEAK iinformation gives only part of the story, and viewed ALONE can be very misleading.

While LONELY BULL peaked at 24, it stayed on the chart for a whopping 157 weeks total, and was certified Gold. (It may have sold beyond Gold even, but I don't think they were routinely certifying beyond Gold in those days, like they have in more recent decades, no matter how many total an album sold.)

GREATEST HITS as well as WARM also went Gold, whatever their chart performance, while nothing else after WARM went Gold except GH, KEEP YOUR EYE ON ME, and of course RISE (which went Platinum).

While GH only peaked at 43, it stayed on the chart for 32 weeks. OTOH, BRASS ARE COMIN' only stayed on the chart for 20 weeks, despite peaking at 30.

Also keep in mind that chart rankings are relative for a GIVEN WEEK, and that one busy sales week a #20 position may outsell a slow sales weeks' #30 position, etc. So historically they're only a VERY ROUGH guide.

The fact that WARM went Gold but BRASS ARE COMIN' didn't would imply that WARM, as well as GH, outsold BRASS ARE COMIN'. But again, keep in mind that's it's unclear by how much. It's possible that WARM just barely made Gold, and BAC just barely missed Gold, or equally possible that there was a giant difference between the two in sales; there's simply no public record of sales to that detail to figure it out definitively.

(For more contextual chart performance history, check out the books from Record Research -- www.recordresearch.com -- which has a Billboard Albums book that I got the above info out of, and also has books reproducing the original charts in some cases, tho for the full Album chart it only has one book covering 65 through 69 so far, the rest of the years it only has the Top 10 Albums week by week which wouldn't help much for the issues being discussed here.)

 

[Mr Bill]

Stefan!?!?!?!?!

Where the heck have you been my friend? Long time since our lunches with Richard Derrick in Santa Monica! Don't be so absent in the future -- we miss your input 'round these parts.

--Mr Bill
sweating in Bahrain in the middle east right now

 

[manifan]

All I know is I really, REALLY want "Warm." I hope Herb sees fit to release it on CD.

 

[TallPaulInKy]

GREATEST HITS as well as WARM also went Gold, whatever their chart performance, while nothing else after WARM went Gold....

I was a DJ at an adult radio station (meaning we played the Easy Chart in Billboard, not songs with adult lyrics) in those dyas just before going into the Army. Warm was a very popular album to me and the listeners of the station where I worked. Looking at the songlist, The Sea Is My Soul; Without Her; Marjorine; Girl Talk; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Zazueira; The Continental; Pretty World; Warm; To Wait for Love; Sandbox. You will notice this was really the first Herb Alpert solo type album and several of the tracks to me are more jazzy than what had been heard before. This is not a negative point as I have always liked the album and still do. It is probably my second or third favorite Herb Alpert album.

So it sold well even though it did not have the benefit of a TV special to help with sales the way The Brass Is Coming did. Besides I remember the songs from WARM getting airplay whereas I don't remember many of the BRASS songs individually, so my guess is it sold primarily on benefit of the TV exposure..

The GREATEST HITS was a good album but two problems for the time, It did not have This Guys In Love With You or in it's place a new song. The album was just early excerpts from some great selling albums. So the crowd that would have purchased it already had all the songs on other albums. The TJB album was issued as part of a series of Greatest Hits albums with the same basic cover design, the others in the series were Wes Monrtgomery, The Baja Marimba Band, and if I remember right Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66. To my knowledge I don't think there were ever anymore artists issued in that series (cover design).

In those days, I have to admit I purchased (and still have) the albums by the other three, but not the TJB as I already had all the songs.

I have wandered a little on this post, but WARM is a really good Herb Alpert album. And this are just my impressions of the music business at the time.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

In retrospect it looks like the dumbest marketing mistake of all time not to include "This Guy's In Love" on the GREATEST HITS album. I have speculated that, at the time, they were figuring Herb might have a whole nother career ahead of him as a vocalist. Each album after BEAT OF THE BRASS featured more and more Herb vocals...if they'd had one more vocal hit (they certainly tried enough singles) I bet they'd have probably done a whole vocal album. "This Guy" and one or two other hits could have anchored a "Herb Alpert SINGS!" album.

 

[Harry]

The TJB album was issued as part of a series of Greatest Hits albums with the same basic cover design, the others in the series were Wes Monrtgomery, The Baja Marimba Band, and if I remember right Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66. To my knowledge I don't think there were ever anymore artists issued in that series (cover design).

There was one other in that GREATEST HITS series of the early '70s, THE SANDPIPERS.

And Sergio's title (still in print on CD!) had two different color schemes, a rarer orange color and the ever-present lime green.

Harry

 

[Ed Bishop]

Don't know where you guys are getting your info, but THE LONELY BULL actually peaked at #10. As a lifelong Billboard/Cashbox/Record World chartwatcher, I can tell you that LB peaked at #10 with the 3/26/66 Billboard. Spent only two weeks there and yes, it did chart for a total of 157 weeks. Its #24 position was its ORIGINAL peak back in 1963(it also charted for 24 weeks its first time out). It returned to the Lp charts fairly late--November 27, 1965.

And while it's well known that WHIPPED CREAM was the breakthrough album that put the TJB in the big spotlight, SOTB was the one that began as a sleeper. It eventually peaked at #6 with the April 16, 1966 chart. Like LONELY BULL, it had an earlier chart life: Debuted January 16, '65, and peaked at #62 on March 13, staying on for 16 weeks. It then returned on October 30, and you know the rest.....

It was the TJB's huge Grammy success--coupled with the big hits from GOIN' PLACES and WHAT NOW MY LOVE--that turned the gang into legends and megasellers.

It's strange Herb apparently thinks so little of VOLUME 2, since it did finally chart in early '66, and did indeed stay on for a year and peak at #17. Inexplicably, for its entire chart run Billboard listed it as simply TIJUANA BRASS.

One cannot gauge sales by chart number, peaks or weaks; however, it's safe to say that most of the albums sold over a million copies, at least through 1968, with all but VOLUME 2 selling two million or more(actual sales figures will probably never be known).

Over the years, the albums I see the least are after 1969; everything from the '60s is commonly available and often in good to great condition. Stereo is usually found more often than mono, but there's plenty of mono, too.

 

[Rudy]

One cannot gauge sales by chart number, peaks or weaks; however, it's safe to say that most of the albums sold over a million copies, at least through 1968, with all but VOLUME 2 selling two million or more(actual sales figures will probably never be known).

Not to mention certifications by the RIAA--does anyone know if these were ever properly certified gold, platinum, or whatever? Some labels didn't report; others reported belatedly.

 

[Ed Bishop]

A&M was a member of the R.I.A.A. I remember that every album through WARM was certified Gold. What that meant at the time isn't what it means now(today, and since 1976, gold is 500,000 units). Back in the '60s, it meant one million dollars' worth of product sold at retail--theoretically, which meant the list price of mono and stereo editions were tabulated to determine gold status. However, IIRC, member labels submitted albums for certification, the R.I.A.A. didn't directly keep tabs of sales numbers. So I suspect some gold certifications may not have been justified; however, Herb's big albums certainly sold enough for gold status, and, if platinum had been instituted then(it wasn't until 1976), most of his albums into '69 most certainly sold at least a million copies each.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

There's more to the RIAA story. Until Soundscan started reporting actual sales data, certifications were granted based on sales at the manufacturer (not retail) level, so in the 1970s record companies would send boxes and boxes of "hot" new releases to stores, only to have a high percentage of them returned unsold after the "gold" or "platinum" certifications were safely hanging on the wall. I still remember getting 25 LP copies of the "Annie" soundtrack album, and sending about 24 of them back months later.

This story probably has nothing to do with Herb's sales, however, since he quit having mega-hits before most of that kind of sales padding started happening.

 

[Ed Bishop]

This is true...by the early '70s, the labels--well, some of them--started fudging the books, as it were...I remember a Billboard ad for War's "The Cisco Kid" claiming it had been certified gold fifty minutes after release..?!? Of course that was ridiculous, and someone should have put a stop to the nonsense, but this or variants thereof went on into the early '80s until the R.I.A.A. set up new standards for certification. SoundScan makes that aspect of the business pretty much tamperproof now.

The abuses did have a curious side effect: if a single or album was certified gold, but really didn't sell that many copies, of course tons of returns were sent back, resulting--not all that long after a record's release--in its 'instant cutout' status. I don't think A&M ever played this silly game, since A&M albums were never cutout staples. (labels like Casablanca were another matter).

ED

 

[Rudy]

One book I read mentioned that some albums shipped double platinum and returned platinum.