Feist Tops Amazon's Crix Pix

Amazon's editors are among the first group out of the block with their top picks of the year, annointing Feist's "The Reminder" album of the year.
Fascinating, though, that a website that makes its money from albums that actually sell, the top 20 portion of the list is full of discs that have had, at best, moderate sales success."The Reminder," for example, is a breakout hit with sales of 359,000 through Nov. 18 and only two of the top 20 have topped the million-sold mark. Amazon is suddenly looking like the one retailer willing to place the praiseworthy alongside the commercial, a differentiation that is disappearing in the cyberspace chase for the quick buck.   
A further breakdown of the online retailer's top 20:
MAJOR LABEL RELEASES: 10
INDIE RELEASES:10
DEBUTS:1
MAJOR LABEL DEBUTS:1
U.K. ACTS: 6.5*
U.S. ACTS: 9.5*
ROCK: 4
RAP: 2
COUNTRY:1
R&B:0
POP: 2
DEAD GUYS: 1
ALTERNATIVE SOMETHING-OR-OTHER: 11
TOP SELLER: Kanye West's "Graduation" (No. 3) with 1.7 million units sold.
NO. 100: Neil Young's "Chrome Dreams II"
SURPRISES: Daniel Johns, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, Mark Knopfler

*Alison Krauss and Robert Plant's album causes the half point

Comments

[Tim]

"Suddenly"? Amazon's been doing this since 1998 in music...and the lists used to be quite a bit less commercial...