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How The Grateful Dead Rode Its Savvy Archival Strategy to a Billboard 200 Record
Grateful Dead's winning archive strategy explained by Dave's Picks archivist David Lemieux, Rhino president Mark Pinkus and Activist's Bernie Cahill.
On Monday, with the release of Dave’s Picks Volume 49, the Dead broke a chart record held by Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley for the most albums to chart in the top 40 on the Billboard 200 (59), largely propelled by the success of its current archival series, named after Lemieux, which is complemented by periodic reissues of Dead studio albums, an annual box set featuring multiple complete live shows, and twice-yearly vinyl-only Record Store Day sets. Dave’s Picks follows some important criteria: inventory is limited (though it has grown from 12,000 per installment in 2012 to 25,000 today) and sold exclusively on dead.net; the releases are CD-only; and, crucially, the shows billed on the cover are contained in full on the discs within (though Lemieux happily adds in “bonus” material from other performances when space allows). While volumes are available in small quantities a la carte, sales are driven by the series’ annual subscription, which is sold the preceding fall and offers subscribers a mild discount and a bonus disc, shipped with a given year’s second installment and typically featuring material related to that release.
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