River of Dreams - Charts

[Dave]

Hello everyone,

I thought it would be handy to keep any day-to-day details and discussion of the charts performance (official and unofficial) of River of Dreams in a separate thread, to avoid cluttering up the main charts thread and the other River of Dreams threads.

There will of course be some inevitable duplication between the this thread and the main charts thread but not too much, I hope. We can of course move this thread to the Charts board later on, if we think it belongs there.

To start off, I'll just mention one thing I've noticed over the last few weeks in the preorder charts of online retailers (Amazon UK and HMV). River of Dreams is basically nowhere - not in the top 10 classical prereleases at HMV and only the no. 17 overall prerelease for 27 October releases at Amazon.

This is the first time I can recall such a poor prerelease performance by any Hayley album only 11 days prior to release date. I hope I'm wrong but this is starting to concern me as shops often decide what and how much to stock based on preorders.

Let's hope Decca already have some kind of agreement with supermarkets about stock levels and in-store chart placement, and that they have plenty of TV advertising planned for next week and the week after - RoD definitely needs it, the tour alone won't do enough.

Dave

[milewalker]

Hi Dave,

I dont know if this is meaningful or not, but the ROD EPK on YouTube is getting less than 10 views a day....

[martindn]

To be honest, I don't understand their thinking on this. I hate to be negative, but who is going to buy this album? Yes, her fans will out of loyalty and for the three new tracks. But they will mostly have most of th tracks anyway. So for this to succeed, she needs to win new fans. The only way to do this is heavy promotion.
It has not escaped my notice that the Stoke concert had very little that could be regarded as classical music, from Hayley. The classical input came from Raven I'm not sure that the ROD album will even qualify as classical either, so probably no radio station will play it. This is a bit worrying.

Even though Hayley is in many people's opinion is the finest singer of her generation, if not of all time, she is not getting a fair crack of the whip.

Martin

[Dave]

Hi everyone,

Well we shouldn't be writing RoD off just yet, there has finally been a bit of good publicity for Hayley over the last few days and it has now broken into the Amazon UK top 100 for the first time (it only got into the top 500 this week!).

Currently it is no. 91 overall at Amazon and is (just!) no. 1 in "Greatest Hits":

1. Hayley RoD
2. Abba Gold
3. Andrea Bocelli GH
4. Queen GH 1 2 & 3.

So things are perking up, though it's still a very long way behind where any of her previous albums have been 3 days before release (Amazon top 20 is more usual). It's possible of course that some of the promo was irrevocably scheduled to coincide with the original release date of November 3rd so there may be more to come over the next 2 weeks. We shall see.

Dave

[milewalker]

Hi Dave,

For a variety of reasons, I am not writing RoD off. For one thing, I have no idea what constitutes success in a case like this. I would guess that the album will exceed 20,000 sales, but probably not 50,000 - but that is only a guess.

I am personally more intriged with the possibility that Hayley is using the associated concert to accomplish a few things - I am particularly impressed by the sudden inclusion of Wuthering Heights in her concert repertoire.

Jon

[martindn]

Hi Jon,

You are right in my opinion about the concerts. I was at the rehearsal for ROD at Stoke as you may know, and it was wonderful. Several songs were without doubt the best performances I have ever heard, and Wuthering Heights was one. I have never liked that song, but this time Hayley had me in tears with it. What does that say about Hayley as an artist? After several years of believing that she had moved on from those songs, I am now convinced that she can do whatever she chooses. I can't wait to see where this leads.
I have no doubt that in years to come, Hayley will be seen as one of the greatest singers of all time. That is despite what sometimes looks like deliberate media bias against her. In the end, her sheer talent will win through. And the result of that can only help us move towards a kinder and more caring world order. Who said it was only entertainment and isn't important. Oh, I think that was Hayley!

Martin

[Dave]

Yes indeed Jon and Martin, and although I don't wish to start a discussion on where Hayley will be headed next in this thread, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if her next "new" studio album was not "classical" in the UK, like her previous ones.

The main reason for posting again here is that I forgot to say that River of Dreams was advertised on the top rated breakfast show on ITV this morning, GMTV. There was a 60 second advert taken up half by the Pokarekare Ana NZ video, with excerpts from Songbird and River of Dreams too under the voice over. It's the same "cool" lady as did the voice over for Pure and Odyssey if I recall correctly, she is very good at it!

By the way, 60 seconds at peak time is twice as long as any of the Odyssey or Treasure ads that I can recall. It probably explains why RoD is now up to no. 85 at Amazon UK.

Dave

Edit

Just seen Andy's post in another thread, oops!. I'll try to digitise and upload the advert later.

[martindn]

Thanks for that Dave, and good on em. If they are prepared tp promote ROD like that, it could succeed. Re the classical thing, I tend to agree. The ROD setist contains very little that is classical, only Ave Maria, one song, that we know is a favourite of Hayley's. Not even that ever present song In Trutina is included. The genre for the iTunes download was described as "Folk" (but that did include In Trutina). So lets try to assign genres to the ROD setlist. Waht do we com eup with.

Prayer - Film music
Ave Maria - Classical
Scarborough Fair - Folk
Songbird - Pop

Shanandoah - Folk
Now is the Hour - ??Folk/Pop/World Music??
Never Saw Blue - Pop
Danny Boy - Folk
Mummers Dance - Folk
May it Be - Film Music
Pokarekare Ana - Folk
River of Dreams - Classical??
Sonny - Folk
Santa Lucia - Folk
Both Sides Now - pop
Wuthering Heights - pop

Hine e Hine - Folk

So 9 out of 17 songs are Folk. And she was in Celtic Woman, basicaly an Irish folk oufit.

Does this say something about where Hayley might be going? And they still call her an opera singer!

Martin

[Dave]

Let's not drift off topic for this charts news thread, everyone. There are plenty of other threads (and new ones can be created) for the other aspects.

Better news from Amazon today, following Hayley's recent promo blitz. R o D has shot up to no. 21 in the Amazon overall music rankings as I write - Sunday Life and especially, this morning's BBC Breakfast (thanks Drew!), with more TV to come today and this week.

Fingers crossed that the surge will be maintained.

Can anyone yet report where the supermarkets, HMV, Zavvi, Woolworths or WH Smith have placed R o D in their in-house charts? That could be important and I expect more variation than usual, this time.

Dave

[Andrew]

Hi Dave and everybody else,

I spotted 'River of Dreams' in Zavvi and HMV on Union Street, in Aberdeen today. This happens to be the same street where the Music Hall is located.

As you might expect, Zavvi are marketing the CD within the "New Releases" section today...

'River of Dreams' seems to be sitting at Chart Position "14" in HMV though...

I look forward to seeing 'River of Dreams' climbing its way up the Charts!

Andrew

[comet]

River of Dreams at No. 24 in the popular chart,
12 copies on display at eye level @ €16.95
Golden Discs St. Stephens' Green Shopping Centre at the top of Grafton Street where Hayley once busked

HMV Grafton Street in dissarray , Treasure back on ground floor the whole classical section has been moved,
no sign of River of Dreams, but I may have looked in the wrong places.

Both shops were busy enough on a bank holiday Monday after the Dublin City marathon.

[jimg]

Hi All
RoD is on sale at our local Tesco Extra at £8.97. It is displayed as album of the week along with 3 others. It is also displayed as NO14 in the charts.

Jim

[Dave]

Thanks for the info so far guys! The Tesco chart position is good.

Asda online has RoD at no. 30.

WH Smith online has it at no. 1 in their classical chart, ahead of Katherine Jenkins new album, but in their main album chart, Katherine is no. 6 and Hayley isn't even in the top 100. Make what you will of that!

Woolworths online have RoD at no. 25, this is roughly where I expected to see it.

I'll have a look round some supermarkets this evening.

Dave

[grant]

Hi Dave and everyone

Oct 27, 2008 16:31:02 GMT Dave said:

Asda online has RoD at no. 30.

The same in store. I visited my local ASDA at around 4pm. They have it at £9.71 and had two on display, although it looks as though they may have had as many as six earlier on!

The advert was broadcast on Channel 4 at 4.30pm in the middle of "Deal Or No Deal" with voice over 'out today' at the end and showing HMV £9.99.

Best wishes
Grant

[roger]

I did the rounds of a few local stores this afternoon. HMV had none copies at £9.97 but it was displayed under "New Releases" and not in their Charts section.

Sainsbury's had it at #21 but I believe that was incorrectly positioned as many other albums appeared in several places as though customers had been shuffling them. No printed chart was displayed. They had three copies at £9.77.

There are none in W H Smith, and we don't have an Asda or Woolworths. Tescos are in completely the opposite direction and I doubt I will have time to check there before Sunday.

If anyone can tell me why I bought two copies, I should be most intereted to know!

Roger