I heard from a storeowner that the first week of album sales for a newly released album really mattered, and that prices for newer albums in this week were usually lower. Is this true, and what do these sales gauge exactly? Any other info about how the metal/music market works would also be appreciated.

These figures just gauge really commercial stuff that's promoted on radio and TV, not underground stuff, which just builds up as more people get into it.

Even underground stuff usually has its biggest sales in its first week of release.

This I highly doubt. Cradle of Filth being your gauge of "underground"?

If by "Underground" you mean up-and-coming bands that haven't broken into mainstream (or scene) success, then you are in fact accurate. But I'd say bands like Darkthrone or Bolt Thrower probably follow about the same sales curves as mainstream acts, albeit with a slight stretch due to awareness of the album.

No, I was thinking of stuff like Darkthrone and Vader. Even those acts have their biggest sales in the first week.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that although albums like master of puppets were popular, that the albums didn't really sell big until the band got really popular, same with slayer.

That's true but that was a different era. A scene was developing and it gained more and more attention from the mainstream.

Yeaaah... But the thing is, Darkthrone and Vader are far from underground. Maybe once upon a time, but not now. I wouldn't even call bands like Drudkh underground, certainly not in the realm of metal anyway.

Arafel is a band I would call underground. And an example of one that certainly has made most of it's money beyond the first week post-release (when it caught on and more people found it and thus it became more popular than in it's days of complete obscurity) is lifelover, which while debatable whether or not still underground, I am going to make an educated guess and say that their albums have picked up in sales more as they've gone along. With no real establishment to start (well in this case Kim from reknowned Hypothermia and Life is Pain, and Nattdal from Ondskapt, but still) they didn't exactly get a rush of customers immediately following their release apart from perhaps locals, and as a few people stumbled upon it and tried it and realized what a gem they were, word of mouth spread (the internet does wonders for underground music these days especially) and they gained more of a cult following.

Well, the first day or so of the release date is when fans buy an album and when its going to sell the most. However, I think most people listening to metal buy albums online or at independent stores. Thats how I am at least, since Best Buy sucks for music now. Usually big stores have sale prices on all new releases.

I guess you could call Darkthrone and Vader popular underground bands. But even then, their sales aren't even close to acts like Nile, Cannibal Corpse, Gojira etc. Let's not even mention the bigger names!

I think you'll find that, if Arafel continues to get more popular (to the level of Cannibal Corpse for example), their biggest sales will be in the first week when all the fans rush out to buy it.

I dunno, but no sense on getting caught up with terms/definitions. =) And naw I realize Vader wouldn't outsell Cannibal Corpse of anything, and that Vader's most important sales time is the days following the release. And if Arafel for instance became very popular I am certain that with future releases it would go that way, but the point I meant was that when a band hasn't previously been made a hot commodity like wormphlegm for instance made a few earthquakes for some people with their demo, which on it's on was virtually unattainable, their following full-length release benefitted greatly in quick sales from the exposure of the demo. But that demo being their first release and from an underground act, the attention it got came some time after it's original release. The same isn't said about bands in the popular mainstream that're signed to major labels, because even their first ever release is first advertised with a single and often accompanying video or radio-play, banners/posters, commercials, all that sort of thing promoting the band's first album release date. The same of course doesn't happen to potentially great bands who no one has ever heard of. But if their music is good enough, it usually starts picking up in popularity and thus potential sales (assuming it's not long out of print) far later than their commercialized counter-part.