So did the advance singles help CA sales?

[zappafrank]

Can't recall if I already made a similar post or if it was a one-off comment in another thread, but I really do think that the advance singles (Caravan/BU2B around Time Machine, and Headlong Flight a few months ago) really did help the sales for this album. Enough people heard the new material and decided they wanted to get the album right away, vs. waiting a bit to see what the general consensus turned out to be with only a single song available ahead of time (like with Far Cry for S&A).

 

I honestly don't see any other way of explaining it, except for maybe the fact that the album itself has had a lot of buzz for a while now (going back to the Time Machine tour), but I'm not so convinced that the stragglers who wandered in to buy the new album were even really aware of the new album being a concept, having a book, etc. I think only the in-touch fans knew that, and we were all guaranteed to buy the album right away regardless. So I think all of the overflow can be accounted for to a large degree by the early release of so much new material.

 

What do you guys think?