Well I really don't know, I wasn't the one compiling the statical information for the site that Wiki sited. I imagine it includes all sales for all formats - LPs CCs CDs. Well if you want to compare two albums 30 years apart isn't that in favour of The Beatles that we are even having that discussion? And numbers don't bother me the fact that cheap throw-away pop music is gobbled up by masses only reinforces my opinion that the more obscure music is the better it sounds.


I was trying to make apples to oranges comparison. Sgt Pepper was an album for the sake of an album - a stand alone identity supported by and The Beatles' reputation and the music on the album, it wasn't released and than supported by a worldwide tour where the band/artist also made their money by selling T shirts & CDs, which would make it more of a business venture than art for art sake.

:confused: So I guess people didn't buy albums from Alantic Records to listen to Jazz because it wasn't "a big deal." Ahmet Ertegün was just wasting his time and money setting up a record company - maybe he should've went into shipping like Aristotelis Onasis. :(

I'll quote wiki to support that that record company wasn't a "big deal" until the vinyl industry as a whole had mainstream success and became a "big deal." It's also unfair to jump down my throat with one example when that example is the one that blazed the trail of popularizing the format. It's like saying AOR was a big deal around 1967 and downplaying Sgt. Pepper's importance with that statement when really it's a reverse causality.

The Jazz era spans a long time & course there was a time in it's early history where the LP wasn't around, or important. Sgt Pepper was release in '67 that's 13/14 years after "The market for these records exploded during late 1953 and early 1954." When it says "records" that probably means both 45s and LPs, but it only shows there was a market for LPs before Sgt Pepper.

I'm going to be honest and say that I literally have no idea what we're even arguing about at this point and that my original post that illicited more responses was just a construction to serve as the vehicle for my "pounds to euros" joke since I was dumb and didn't get your comparison, so I suppose we'll agree to either agree or disagree, whichever one we're doing once I re-read what we've been talking about.

This what I thought we were arguing: Can the historical cultural importance and artistic value of Sgt Pepper (by The Beatles) be undermined by the sales performance of an artist thiry years after it's release?

Take heart, friend. I think the Knight of Neap is so irreverent that I can't honestly debate...it? I don't even know what the hell he is. Nice guy. Just robotic.

"so irreverent...Nice guy. Just robotic." You sound like Fry describing Bender.