Talking of Ray Davies, Music Week has reported that that initiative by V2 which involved giving away a version of the new Ray Davies album with the Sunday Times has backfired, failing to deliver a sales boost for the main album release.
Actually I'm a bit confused about this story, because by my records the new album isn't released until today, so I'm not sure how anyone knows whether or not there's been a sales boost or not yet - perhaps its based on pre-orders - though Amazon and HMV both now list this album's release date as last week. So I'm not sure what to think, and the album's publicist is out at a meeting and, needless to say, those V2 people have bigger things to worry about this morning.
Anyway, it seems that retailers reckon the Sunday Times covermount promotion - which saw one version of the latest Ray Davies album 'Working Man's Café' being given away the weekend before last - has failed to result in an expected uplift of sales of the other version of the album, which is getting a traditional retail release and which features extra tracks. It is unclear if V2, who will have received a licensing fee from the Sunday Times, ever expected high sales of the retail album release on the back of the newspaper promotion, but the music retailers, who are generally against covermount CDs of course, had said they would keep an open mind on this one on the basis that the exposure the Times gave Davies might boost sales of the full album on the high street.
However, HMV Head Of Music Rudy Osorio told Music Week: "We were certainly prepared to have an open mind on this and to be persuaded that this form of promotion could deliver benefits at a retail level, but the initial indications are that it hasn't. If anything, fewer copies of the album appear to have been sold in-store and online than might have been the case had the Sunday Times activity not taken place. It kind of confirms our reservations, and it's difficult to see how any retailer can support such promotional activity in future".
V2 are yet to comment, though, as I say, that's not surprising really is it?