It was a bad week for record sales with no big releases. Johnny Cash entered the top 200 with sales of 88,336. Hmmmm….
Let’s pick on Hawthorne Heights who broke the rock n roll code by bragging about the possibility of entering the top 200 with the #1 position. Victory shipped 850K and they sold less than 400k. Learning lesson? Be humble and thankful for every record bought in today’s climate.

According to Coolfer Clive Davis signed fourth-place “American Idol” finisher Chris Doughtry. His record is due out by years end.

Nielsen Soundscan numbers for the first half of 2006 came out last week and much of the press focused on the upward slope of the digital sales curve and the downward slope of CD sales. Album sales went down from 282.6 million this time last year to 270.6 million for the midpoint of 2006, while downloaded tracks soared 77% to 281 million in the first 26 weeks of 2006.

The new Deftones album will be titled Saturday Night Wrist and will be out in October.

Goodbye Tomorrow, who features former Terminal frontman, Travis Bryant, has inked a deal with Equal Vision. (Decoy)