Release and Promotion
The band announced on 28 April 2008 that the single would be released on the official Coldplay website on 29 April 2008 for free for one week before the paid download on 6 May. The song was downloaded for free by over 600,000 people in the 24 hours since it was made available at 12:15 p.m. on 29 April. In the subsequent week, the single was downloaded 2 million times from the Coldplay website.
Coldplay released "Violet Hill" in the US on 9 May 2008 as the album's first single. A promotional 7" vinyl release of the single was given away free in the 10 May issue of NME, including non-album track "A Spell a Rebel Yell" on the B-side. On subsequent physical releases, "Lost?", an acoustic recording of album track "Lost!" serves as "Violet Hill"'s B-side instead.
The single debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 on 24 May 2008 at number 40. The song stayed in the peak position from its release. Three weeks after its release, the track entered at the number nine position on Hot Modern Rock Tracks. The song peaked at number six in Canada Singles Chart and number eight in the UK Singles Chart, making it the second single to reach the Top 10 to have not having a single released physically. "Violet Hill" was certified Platinum by Associação Brasileira dos Produtores de Discos (ABPD).
Read more about this topic: Violet Hill (song)
Famous quotes containing the words release and, release and/or promotion:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)