Unsigned Artists

2007-01-31

Story by: Lee Bains and Kenny Herzog

Katy, bar the door, put out the trough for those homebound cows and hand the devil a parka, because the impossible has just happened: The Shins' Wincing The Night Away (Sub Pop) has debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart. The indie rock superstars' third full-length moved an astonishing 118,000 copies this past week, 36,000 of which came from digital sales. Not surprisingly, Wincing has also taken the top spot on the Alliance Of Independent Media Stores chart.

"We here at Sub Pop couldn't be more excited about all the great things that have happened for the band and the label," says Steve Manning, publicity director for Sub Pop. "It comes via a lot of hard work by everyone involved and we are privileged to work with such an amazing band and record."

Or to articulate the label's feelings another way, the band's A&R rep, Stuart Meyer, tells CMJ his reaction was basically, "Holy crap."

To give the record’s virtually unprecedented chart performance some context, its debut has either outshone or competed closely with those of recent indie heavyweights like Taking Back Sunday, whose Where You Want To Be (Victory) debuted at No. 3 in August 2004 with 164,000 copies; Lil' Jon, who saw Crunk Juice (TVT) land at No. 3 (although in a shortened sales week, so its debut totals are a bit more amorphous, according to Nielsen SoundScan) in November of that year; and Hawthorne Heights, whose If Only You Were Lonely (Victory) also bowed in the third spot in March 2006, moving 114,000 units (mainly, we suspect, because that cool album title was cribbed from an old Replacements' 7-inch).

Of course, it could be argued that the Shins' feat is wholly unique. As is the case with a majority of chart-topping independent acts, the aforementioned hip-hop and hard rock (hey, we never said screamo) bands are technically independent, but generally benefit from a major label-worthy push from radio and video outlets. Wincing's success is one of the first true instances of a band with a conventionally indie rock aesthetic (nevermind on the ultimate indie rock label) leaving such a massive footprint on mainstream sales.

"We knew our setup was pretty perfect," says Meyer. "We realized every cylinder was firing, so we kind of thought it would do well, but I don't think any of us thought it would do that well." He adds that they considered Death Cab For Cutie's Transatlanticism the relative benchmark, confessing, "We were all gonna be super excited by 90-something."

But marketing smarts aside, the Shins' clearly have a more intangible quality that led to such startling chart success. "There's tons of goodwill for this band," opines Meyer. "James [Mercer] has this way of writing songs that you don't get tired of."

Well, that and an old friend named Zach Braff. "I think the wildcard a little bit was the Garden State thing," Meyer laughs. "It probably helped push us to this number."

www.subpop.com

www.theshins.com