Coldplay Debuts Big, Bucks Industry Trends

LOS ANGELES — Coldplay's new album is already living the life.

"Viva La Vida" will debut at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album chart with over 720,000 copies sold in its first week, the second-best opening week of 2008, according to the trade magazine's Web site. Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III" was the top album debut of the year after it sold a spectacular 1 million copies earlier this month.

Two back-to-back blockbuster sales are a boost to the sluggish music industry, which has had little to celebrate with declining sales.

"Viva La Vida" follows 2005's "X&Y," which also debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200, with 737,000 copies sold in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It album sold 3.2 million copies in the United States.

Comments

[IQ]

Let me get this straight..­.Coldplay sells 720,000 records in its debut week and the headline reads
"Coldplay Debuts Big, Bucks Industry Trends". But Li'l Wayne sells 280,000 copies more(A difference of 39%) and gets mentioned as backdrop, a warm up act if you will. And of course Coldplay gets the HuffPo headline and the 'credit' for bucking the declining sales trend in the recording industry??? I have an idea. Why don't you guys get a copy of Obamas ipod playlist and copy it onto yours and expand your knowledge of Pop Culture. HipHop gets mentioned too often on here as it relates to some sort of legal proceedings(RKelly) or generally something negative(last week Kanye West being booed at Bonnaroo)

Step Ya Game Up HuffPo....­.

[BitterInPA]

Most HipHop artists are only able to squeeze out a few marginal songs because they lack the talent to have staying power. Who will remember Li'L Wayne in five, ten or twenty years?

[IQ]

Alicia Keyes 10 Yrs
Mos Def-15 Yrs
Lil Wayne-5Yrs
Tupac Shakur-20Yrs
Eminem-10 Yrs
These are just a few that come to mind.

Don't take me the wrong way. I really like Chris Martin and Coldplay. I make it a point not to allow prejudice to affect my choices in life. Apparently Chris Marin agrees with me 'Bitter'.

- Martin's fascination with hip hop was shown in the summer of 2006 when he collaborated with rapper Jay-Z for the rapper's comeback album Kingdom Come after the two met earlier in the year. Martin put some chords together for a song known as "Beach Chair" and sent them to Jay-Z who enlisted the help of hip hop producer Dr. Dre to add the drum line to complete the track. The song was performed on 27 September 2006 by the two during Jay-Z's European tour at Royal Albert Hall. In 2007, Martin appeared on a track titled "Part of the Plan" for Swizz Beatz' debut solo album One Man Band Man. Martin has also worked on a solo collaboration with Kanye West, with whom he shared an impromptu jam session during a 2006 concert at Abbey Road Studios.[3­] He performed the chorus on "Homecoming", the fifth single from West's Grammy Award-winning third album, Graduation­.-

[IQ]

See that? That thing that just happened Right THERE! You made my point for me. Instead of dealing with the issue posed. You choose to attack said form of music because you obviously have no use or appreciation for the artform that is HipHop. You did exactly what some in the media do. You assail it as marginal. Despite it being the dominant form of Popular Music in sales, spins, video play, ratings and several other categories for more than a generation now. I understand though. You don't like the music and you choose to believe that it is inferior because if you view the Popular Music scene for what it is, you will come face to face with the stark reality that your choice of music is being(scratch that) HAS BEEN pushed off stage as the choice of young America.

As for the question you pose about staying power; I will take that bet about Lil Wayne my friend. Because folks with your point of view have been saying the same thing about HipHop for 30 years, They said the same thing about:

Run DMC-27 Years
LL Cool J-23 Yrs
Will Smith-20 Yrs
Ice Cube-20 Yrs
Busta Rymes-20 Yrs
Nas-18Yrs
Outkast 14Yrs
Jay-Z-20 Yrs
Jermain Dupri 15 Yrs
Sean Combs-17 Yrs
Dr. Dre-22 Yrs
Snoop Dogg-20 Yrs
Usher-10 Yrs
UGK-20Yrs
Mary J Blige 15Yrs
50 Cent- 7Yrs
Common-15Yrs
Ludacris-10Yrs
Notorious BIG-15 Yrs