The National's High Violet Sold 51,000 Copies Last Week
For context, Vampire Weekend sold 120,000 copies of Contra, good for a #1 debut; the National, 50K copies of High Violet later, just attained their best chart spot ever, at #3. (2007's Boxer only reached #68.) Working against them? The fact that their record came out in May, rather than January; a tattooed heartthrob by the name of Justin Bieber (#1 at 60,000, the second worst top sales effort since 1991); and the fact that the moody, lugubrious strains of the National--though they play well to the elite, from the New York Times to D. A. Pennebaker--just don't quite have the same demographic oomph as their lighter-hearted fellow New York denizens. A good day for critics and Brooklyn dudes who drink wine; a terrible one for pretty much everyone else who depend on record sales for their livelihood. [Billboard]
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