[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

The best part is that they make very little from album sales.

The reported sales are wholesale, not retail. The industry rags don't report "and then the record stores returned 456,000 copies to make room for the new album by Scrambled Debutante."

[retrokitten]

Got that right. We were at Costco the other day and they had TONS of DC cds. It didn't look like any had been sold. We live in suburban Chicago, not exactly a hotbed of conservatism.

[Enchante]

"The reported sales are wholesale, not retail."

So the "526,000 sales" number that's being tossed around is merely pre-orders from stores, which still have to see how many CDs they can sell? The stores can still return stacks of unsold CDs if the album bombs with the public? Gee, you'd think that honest (cough, cough) journalists would report on the difference between stores receiving the stuff on a consignment basis and actual consumer sales..... it will be interesting to see if the number fall through the floor in the next few weeks. If stores can's sell out their initial lots they won't be ordering any more and returning some of what they have in stock. That would be an entertaining spectacle for the Dixie Sluts.