Dammit, I JUST bought Mclusky Does Dallas, unaware that they were releasing a box set. Oh, well.

Victory Press Release (last week of February 2006):

"You buying our album tomorrow has much greater meaning than simply supporting Hawthorne Heights. ROCK music needs your support. Our society and culture has put rock music on the backburner. If our album can debut at #1 all of us will have taken ROCK music back to the top of the charts where it belongs. You might ask, how has ROCK been put on the backburner? A current example is an artist that we are up against called Ne-Yo. Many people are saying that Ne-Yo is going to outsell us because Ne-Yo has had a tremendous amount of over the top, mainstream media coverage. His album will be in stores tomorrow. Radio has played his single 160,000 times. Our single has been played 3,800 times. We know that does not seem possible but it is the truth. Ne-Yo is on a major label. Hawthorne Heights is on an independent label. ROCK music needs to win tomorrow. Independent needs to beat Major tomorrow. If all of you take action we can create history. The mainstream media may not choose to fully embrace this ROCK band from Dayton, Ohio but all of you have. No one can take that away from us. It cannot be bought because it comes from the heart. That is what makes us different. Your support means everything to us and is the most valuable thing that we have. You are the people that we depend on. This is as much about you as it is about us. You hear our voices every night. Now, we need to hear yours. You see us at our merch table every night. We need to see you in the stores tomorrow. We cannot come out on top without you. Passion and music with real meaning has a chance to beat out what the media forces down our throats. No one expects us to win. We need to prove them wrong. They underestimate us. Please help us create history tomorrow. This is a 'call to arms', a 'battle cry', not just for Hawthorne Heights but for all of the other great ROCK bands and independent labels that we all love. All of us deserve this and it is something that we can do together."

Victory e-mail to Street Teams (first week of March, 2006):

Happy Hawthorne Heights day everyone - street date has finally arrived!

It all comes down to the next six days and maximizing our sales at as
many stores as possible. We are neck-and-neck with this Ne-yo
character on Universal and we need everyone out there tilting the tide
in our favor. Our projected numbers for first week sales are about
even so we really need to make every unit count if we want to win.

We do this first by selling more Hawthorne Heights, hitting as many
stores as possible, making sure Hawthorne Heights stock is in the
front and very visible in every store we visit. Get inside, do what
you need to do, and move on to the next store. Move Hawthorne Heights
into as many key positions as you can. Remember there are two covers
so not only put them together, put them in different places. HH should
have spots in all the new release racks toward the front of the store
but we can always increase our presence by dropping a few in another
displays.

If you don't see our product on display at the front of the store,
particularly later in the week, then go to the bin and move what you
can. There are a lot of stores that are not as on top of this as they
should be, especially something as hot as Hawthorne Heights, so we
need to give these people all the help they can get.

Also look for HH in the areas where stores keep overstock. Sometimes
this is below the bins or on the top of the rack. If you find any CDs,
particularly under the bins, try to move those out first to the other
areas of the store.

On the off chance you find a store that doesn't have any copies of the
new Hawthorne, find a clerk and ask him why they don't have it. If
it's sold out, find out when they have more coming in. If it's showing
as in stock, let him know that you can't find it so he knows to order
more.

Here is a list of the best chain stores to go to:

Best Buy

Target

Wal Mart

FYE

Coconuts

Wherehouse

Circuit City

Sam's Club

K Mart

Sam Goody

Virgin Borders

Borders

Barnes & Noble

Fred Meyer

Hastings

Meijer

As for Ne-yo, the name of the game is to decrease the chances of a
sale here. If you were to pick up handful of Ne-yo CDs, as if you
were about to buy them, but then changed your mind and didn't bother
to put them back in the same place, that would work. Even though this
record will be heavily stocked and you might not be able to move all
the stock, just relocating a handful creates issues: Even though the
store will appear to be out of stock, the computer will see it as in
stock and not re-order the title once it sells down and then Ne-Yo
will lose a few sales later in the week

This is most important in stores were we are competing with Ne-yo,
which is in the big chains that sell pop and urban product. The stores
listed above are in the order you should hit them up.

The main thing is to keep the pressure up all week. First day sales
are important but keeping our sales going and having a strong weekend
are equally important to grabbing the ..1 slot that belongs to us.

Please be sure to email me this week and let me know which stores you
have gone to and worked your magic at.

Thanks everyone,

[NAME DELETED]

true.

Maybe Def jam should sue Victory for saturating the music market with cookie cutter emo bands. I swear to god, Victory has a factory somewhere that puts together skinny emo kids with pre-cut hairstyles, sleeve tattoos, extra belts, tight pants and a notebook full of songs to be scream/sung about their failed relationships and the harsh realities of growing up in a middle-class family in the suburbs.

wow. this is so retarted.

Hawthorne Heights is the worst band ever. ever.

I don't think Victory has had a good act in a long time.

If you can tell one Victory band from the next you have bad taste in music.

Do yourself a favor buy the McClusky box set.

you mean "hahahahahahahahawthorne heights"?

Um, I thought record sales were determined by wholesale units sold to stores. Thus, wouldn't Ne-Yo have made #1 no matter what, since the albums in question were already sold en masse to the stores in question? Most stores don't order more often than once a week anyway, IIRC, and these charts come out weekly.

What stupidity. Record labels practically buy their place on the Top 100 anyway.