Welsh band Stereophonics scored the sixth UK No.1 album of their career on Friday, but not without a nail-biting chart battle – one that brought innovation and commercial tenacity out of both parties fighting for the top spot.
Keep The Village Alive, released on Stereophonics’ own Stylus label, eventually saw off RCA/Sony-signed Bring Me The Horizon’s That’s The Spirit by just 1,300 copies to take the crown.
The Stereophonics album was the second ‘self-released’ LP to top the Official UK Album Chart this year: Chasing Yesterday by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds sold 89,110 copies in its opening week to claim the summit in March.
There is a significant connection between the two records.
The team at UK-based Ignition Records took care of marketing for both Chasing Yesterday and Keep The Village Alive – the latter as part of a licensing deal.
This wasn’t the first time Ignition and Sterophonics had teamed up: in 2013 they jointly released album Graffiti On The Train, which has now sold more than 300,000 copies in the UK.
This time round, though, with Sony beefing up Bring Me The Horizon’s campaign, Ignition had to pull out every trick in the book to take on the major for the No.1.
“We can compete with the majors on spend. But we decided to be smart and make our marketing budget work for the duration of our campaign – not overspending in the first week.”
John Leahy, Ignition Records
Ignition Records director John Leahy told MBW: “The first album Ignition and the Stereophonics released together practically doubled the sales of their previous record on Universal. Our target with Keep The Village Alive was to build on that with another platinum release and hopefully a number one.
“We were aware of the Bring Me The Horizon campaign and their determination to make a statement chart entry. We can compete with the majors on spend but decided to be smart and make our marketing budget work for the duration of our campaign, not overspending in the first week.
“So, seeing how close our sales were in the early midweeks we understood the necessity to reach out to our fanbase directly and ensure the fans were aware of and motivated to purchase Keep The Village Alive.”
Interestingly, Bring Me The Horizon were ahead on last week’s Monday (September 14) Midweek sales chart by around 1,000 sales – reflecting both records’ opening weekends.
You could have been forgiven for assuming that it was BMTH (pictured), a younger rock band with a major label marketing machine behind them, who were poised to storm to victory.
But from there, Ignition doubled down – and that meant targeting Stereophonics’ large live fanbase.
On Tuesday (Sept 15), Stereophonics announced two surprise warm-up shows ahead of the band’s December stadium tour.
Ignition tied the album release to the new on-sale tickets.
“Bring Me The Horizon had already recorded some album sales via a ticket/album mechanic propelled by Banquet down in Kingston,” explains Leahy.
“Together with [Stereophonics’] direct-to-fan partners Sandbag we followed the principle of offering tickets bundled with an album and took advantage of the huge amount of interest amongst our fans in gigs by using this energy to remind them the album was also out that week.”
“The stereophonics result proves it’s possible to be independent and compete at the top.”
John Leahy, Ignition Records
He adds: “Bring Me The Horizon responded in kind but with a significant escalation of the stakes, announcing five extra shows of their own and one more with Banquet.
“Careful to make sure the warm-up shows worked for them and for the arena tour routing, Stereophonics reasoned that one last warm up was possible so this was announced on Wednesday evening.”
They may have announced fewer shows than Bring Me The Horizon, but it was enough: Stereophonics finished the week with just under 45,000 UK sales, Bring Me The Horizon around 43,500.
Keep The Village Alive also comfortably beat the sales of another major label priority record: The Libertines’ Anthems For Doomed Youth (Virgin EMI) ended up at No.3.
I love this band. To have got to number 1 on our own record label is amazing! Thank you all! We love ya! x Kelly pic.twitter.com/pWIGqCIdF8
“Overall we’re delighted – we’ve achieved our first objective with plenty left to sustain ourselves going forwards and demonstrated the strength of an all round team performance,” says Ignition’s Leahy.
“All aspects of the campaign contributed – promotion, press, retail, live and direct-to-fan. As an indie we have to work hard to be successful in all areas and we take the time to ensure every detail is considered.
“The Stereophonics result matches that of Noel Gallagher and proves it’s possible to be independent and compete at the top.”
Not just compete, but triumph: Noel Gallagher’s Chasing Yesterday still retains the highest UK week-one sales numbers of any album in 2015 – including Mumford & Sons, Muse, James Bay and Florence & The Machine.
Like Chasing Yesterday, Keep The Village Alive’s numbers were barely affected by streaming ‘equivalent’ figures – more than 44,000 of its total haul were were real, straight-up sales figures.
And even when ‘streaming equivalent sales’ are factored back in, Ignition is clearly having a year to remember…
UK No.1 albums in 2015 (inc. ‘streaming equivalent sales’) – Biggest first weeks of the year
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Chasing Yesterday (89,110)
Mumford & Sons – Wilder Mind (81,351)
Muse – Drones (72,863)
Florence & The Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (68,788)
