Jack Johnson’s Sleep Through The Static Keeps On Selling

This new album of Johnson’s really is the little album that could. Even though I talked about Jack Johnson’s new album Sleep Through The Static last February, The Blot had no idea the how big this album could be. After its ninth week on sale, Sleep Through The Static has sold over 1 million copies (1,006,270 to be exact) and show’s no signs of slowing down. (link) After spending 8 weeks ranked in the top 10 of album sales, Johnson’s fifth studio album is now ranked 13th on the Soundscan sales chart with only a 15% drop off of sales from the week before. It doesn’t look like this album is going anywhere, while Johnson’s star continues to rise within the music industry.


Speaking of Johnson, did anyone catch Saturday Night Live this past weekend? Andy Samberg reprised his impersonation of Johnson, this time as the host of “The Mellow Show.” Honestly, the skit was really, really not funny, but I thought the impersonations were pretty spot on. I always love Samberg as Johnson and Bill Hader as Dave Matthews and host Ashton Kutcher as John Mayer were pretty good. Too bad they weren’t given funnier material to work with. The best part of the skit was when Keenan Thompson showed up out of nowhere as Boyd Tinsley, violinist of the Dave Matthews Band. I also loved the reference to J.J. Casuals footwear from a previous SNL commercial. You know, J.J. Casuals are the only shoes that look like feet...for when you have to go somewhere that requires shoes, but you want to keep it casual like Jack Johnson.

Here is the original J.J. Casuals Parody Commercial:

Jack Johnson - Sleep Through The Static

Earlier this year The Blot was questioning whether Jack Johnson was a big enough star to be headlining two of the three biggest music festivals of the year, Bonnaroo and Coachella. I now take it all back after seeing the staggering numbers Johnson’s newest Album Sleep Through The Static has been achieving these past two weeks. The album was released on February 5th and sold a staggering 375,000 copies in its first week out. Just so you can compare, Sheryl Crow came in second that week with her new album Detours, which was also released that same week, and it sold only 92,000 albums. The other big new release that week was by Lenny Kravitz, and his latest album, It Is Time For A Love Revolution, only sold 73,000 units.

That first week sales number was big enough, but Sleep Through The Static wasn’t done. While most albums have dramatic sales drops in their second week, Johnson sold another 180,000 albums the week of February 12th. Yes, the album dropped by more than 50% of its sales, but let me tell you 180,000 is a monster week in this day and age of digital singles and illegal internet downloading of music. Most artists would kill to move 180,000 units in a week, and this was a down second week of sales for Johnson. I love Jack Johnson’s music, but I had no idea he had become such a big star. For an artist who gets relatively low air play and definitely fits a niche market, this volume of sales is almost Kanye size numbers.

What’s most impressive to me is that I don’t even necessarily love the album. It still has that classic Johnson sound, but I still prefer Johnson’s debut Brushfire Fairytales and his 2005 release In Between Dreams to Sleep Through The Static. I think I also prefer his 2006 release, the original soundtrack Curious George over his latest release. That isn’t to say it’s not a great album, it’s just a little darker and a little less pop-y than I would prefer. Check it out for yourself and let me know. Hopefully Jack Johnson will be announcing a U.S. tour shortly to coincide with his music festival dates so more people across the country can appreciate live his environmentally conscious music.