EMI Press Release on New Album's Worldwide Success
Band founder Steve Harris comments; 'We really enjoyed the process of making this record and were delighted with the reaction. It’s very gratifying that our fans all over the world seem to agree by supporting us so strongly. We are now very much looking forward to the forthcoming tour and intend to play live as much of the album as we feel works in the set. This tour will be very different to the last one in terms of the songs we play and we will very much enjoy the challenge of playing this new material live.'Manager Rod Smallwood adds; 'This is great news for the band, especially – finally - a Top 10 US Billboard entry. During the 80s we had six straight million-plus selling Platinum records and all of these would have been at least Top 10 under Soundscan with three or four probably debuting at No 1. Having said that though we are very pleased to finally make it and this, along with great sales all over the world and number one in Europe, really is a testament to Maiden's and Metal's ever increasing popularity. We very much look forward to starting our World Tour in the States and Canada in early October and if ticket sales are anything to go by it will be quite an event for our fans over there.'
Maiden's Top 10 US debut comes hot on the heels of the band's No.1 album in Europe on Billboard’s pan - European chart with nine No 1 and eighteen Top 5 chart entries in Europe alone. First week sales in the UK were also at their highest since 1990. In just the first week the new album has shipped over a million copies Worldwide and impacted on the charts pretty well everywhere in the World.
Next month the band start A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH WORLD TOUR which takes them initially into major arenas through North America, Japan and most of Europe with the majority of the dates already sold out. They will play to over half a million fans over 44 shows in 11 weeks in 18 countries.
CHART BREAKDOWN SUMMARY TO DATE
# 1 Germany, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Greece, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Brazil
#2 Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Hungary, Columbia
#3 Chile
#4 UK, Austria, Spain, India
#5 France, Ireland, Arabia
#6 Iceland, Belgium
#7 Holland
#8 Denmark
#9 USA
#10 Mexico
#11 Portugal, Japan
#12 Australia
#15 Hong Kong
#16 New Zealand
5 Comments
the album hit the charts in many countries yet unfortunately we ,the fans in turkey, had to order it from abroad. the point is no official distributer has begun selling amolad in turkey so there are no chart infos thus no proof of attention for maiden. i am slowly beginning to lose my faith in seeing maiden with bruce in turkey.
Ancalagon, I don't think so, you can see 'em in Paris if you like; there is a turkish company named MARMARA which makes cheap flights to Paris.....go google and hit marmara group......generally if you book early, you can see them with 300€ in total.....alternativelly, you can wait the next tour that in my opinion will include Greece, so you take the train and see 'em____no5
thanks for your suggestions number.i was in athens indeed last year during the early days tour. i saw maiden there with 15.000 greek fans and i must admit that you are an enthusiastic crowd(too enthusiastic for me in fact because that was my first maiden concert and i really wanted to stand still and concentrate) i am already planning to make a journey to germany on close dates to paris concert.
my point is turkey and turkish fans are a little unfortunate about maiden in terms of distribution and organization. i doubt that maiden will sell those numbers of tickets at that price in turkey and i'm sure steve is well aware of that that's why he never utters the word "turkey" in any of his interviews. as you pointed out he said they will be back in greece during the next world tour.very lucky greeks indeed!
turkey has a very strong market, but 95% of sales concerning turkish artists......which is not that bad, in some regards.....for me, Turkey is a very important place musically, as I am learning to play oud, you know there are 2 big schools (ways) to play oud : the mode arab, which is used to all arab countries and the mode turc, which is used in.... turkey !......balkan and ouzbec players they play in Turkish mode but they tune differently, because the traditional turkish tunning uses a C that doesn't exist in western music (!!!!) something between B and C (!!!!)____no5
...since I get registered everybody calls me number. I understand why, but see my signature :it's no5 my name!!!! voila : ____no5