Eagles Wal-Mart Exclusive, Not So Exclusive.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone

When the Eagles announced that they would exclusively sell their new double album Long Road Out of Eden for an entire year at Wal-Mart (and their own Web site), fans across the nation — especially those in Wal-Mart-less
towns like New York City and Los Angeles — wondered how they’d get
their hands on copy without journeying to the retail giant. But then we
heard whispers that people were finding the new “exclusive” album at
small mom-and-pop record stores and, remarkably, big chains like Virgin
Megastore. We investigated these claims and discovered that the CDs are indeed being sold outside of Wal-Mart. Not only that, it didn’t
take speakeasy tactics to secure a copy; some stores were boasting the
album by the dozen in front display cases, where new releases are
usually showcased (see above, a shot from a New York City VirginMegastore boasting a price sticker of $18.99). “We’re aware of that — I’ve heard that some stores here are selling imports,” Billboard charts editor Geoff Mayfield
tells Rolling Stone. “Someone told me it was the third-best seller for
Virgin.” Gander On for the rest.

We called eight Virgin Megastores
in five different states, and discovered seven had Long Road in stock,
although none of them had the album prominently listed in their
in-store inventory directories. Of the Virgins carrying the album, most
started selling it today, one week after the album’s release, while two
said they started selling theCDs on October 30th, the same day as the “exclusive” Wal
-Mart on-sale date, with one store even “selling out” their fairly
large stock. The fact that the albums were selling out came as a
surprise, considering the CD at Virgin came with price tags ranging
from $18.99 to $24.99. While it is a double CD, the price is strikingly
higher thanWal -Mart’s tag of $11.88. When we asked one clerk why the
album was so expensive at Virgin, and whether the discs might be
imports, he whispered into the phone that he “thinks they were hard to
get.” A small record store in Nebraska told us they were re-selling
discs that were purchased atWal-Mart. The question now is, how did Virgin Megastore get their hands on the album, and did these sales contribute to the Eagles’ Billboard chart-topping 711,000 copies? Mayfield says, “SoundScan was [also] aware that this was happening. They audited the data to weed out double sales.” A comment from Virgin Megastore wasn’t available by press time.