The King is Dead, The Decemberest’s most recent album, was released at number one on Billboard’s album chart. This marks the first time one of their albums reached number one and also broke record sales for the group as well. This is their sixth album, and of the first five, The Hazards of Love reached a high mark of 14 and a then-record of 19,000 copies sold. Already, The King is Dead has sold 93,567 units in only the first week.

Many of these copies were sold on the Internet as digital downloads were responsible for 65% of the copies that were sold. It is not known as of yet how many copies were sold by each seller (Amazon, iTunes, others). However, it should be mentioned that The King is Dead was marked down to $3.99 by Amazon.

Even so, the band has taken steps to appeal to fans by using the traditional method of releasing great songs and touring all the time. The band has received a lot of attention by the media as well. They received high accolades from critics and appeared on both the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Conan.

Moreover, The King is Dead’s incredible popularity can be explained by the fact that it appeals to a much wider audience than either one of their other two albums. Even though The Crane Wife, which released in 2006, and The Hazards of Love were both well written and well received by critics, the newest offering is full of folk pop songs that fans seem to love.

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