HW: What now?

[Chris Bates]

Scott Heller wrote:

>         I was just thinking about Distant Horizons, the latest HW studio
> lp, and someone told me that it only sold like 2-3000 copies worldwide...
> Is there really only this small of a market for HW? What the hell can the
> band do to increase their sales and therefore be able to support more live
> shows? Or, do we just have to accept that Dave is reaching the mid-50's and
> now wants to enjoy is life on the farm not really rock out anymore....

Whenever I go into a record shop I look at the HW CDs and they are
almost all rip-off compilations. They can only increase their profile
in the shops by stopping these things. In my view if shops removed
all HW compilations they would sell more legitimate albums.

They also need to advertise properly. The last and DH were not advertised
- no posters, no press ads. How is anyone to know that they're touring
or releasing material? Most HW fans are now ageing and probably
don't read the music press anymore and so don't see gig listings. Any
band needs either to generate good word of mouth or advertise widely
outside the music press.

As for the volums of sales, I read recently that the last Danii Minogue
album sold below 10,000 copies and Kylies last effort topped out below
the 20,000 mark and they (Kylie in particular) were much much bigger
than HW ever were.


Chris Bates