Neil Young's Living With War Fails to Blitzkrieg Charts
Neil Young's antiwar and anti-Bush album Living With War, after receiving what was surely more press and chatter than any other pop album this year, debuts at 15 on the charts, with only 60,000 sales in the first week. In comparison, Surprise by fellow fogey Paul Simon, minus the pre-release political debate, also debuts on the charts this week, at 14 with 61,000 copies sold.
Back in 2002, Neil's little-awaited stinkbomb Are You Passionate? managed to sell 56,000 its first week. Despite the controversy, Neil doesn't seem to have broken very far beyond his natural audience these days with Living With War. I wrote about the likely fecklessness of Neil's political gesture last month.