Cold Fact

Cold Fact
Studio album by
ReleasedMarch 1970
RecordedAugust–September 1969
StudioTera Shirma Studios, Detroit
Genre
Length32:23
LabelSussex
Producer
Rodriguez chronology
Cold Fact
(1970)
Coming from Reality
(1971)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
The Austin Chronicle[3]
Pitchfork8.0[4]
The New Zealand Herald[5]
PopMatters8/10[6]
Rolling Stone Germany[7]

Cold Fact is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Rodriguez, released in the United States by Sussex Records in March 1970. The album sold poorly in the United States, but performed better in South Africa and Australia,[8] with Rodriguez touring Australia in 1979.[9]

In 1971 the album was released in South Africa by A&M Records. In 1976, several thousand copies of Cold Fact were found in a New York warehouse and sold out in Australia in a few weeks. It went to No. 23 on the Australian album charts in 1978, staying on the charts for fifty-five weeks. In 1998 Cold Fact was awarded a platinum disc in South Africa, and was five-times platinum in Australia. Rodriguez has since toured South Africa and Australia with much success, but remained relatively unknown in his native country of the US.[8] This began to change after the reissues of his albums in the US by Light in the Attic Records in 2008 and 2009, and even further in 2012 with the Academy Award winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man, which soon led to appearances on major American television shows like 60 Minutes and The Late Show with David Letterman.

Cold Fact has sold 201,000 since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking in 1991, 173,000 of those after the film opened, 98,000 in the wake of the Oscar win. Coming from Reality has moved 105,000 albums, 99,000 since the movie hit, 60,000 post-Academy Awards. And the soundtrack album (which was picked up by Sony's Legacy catalog division) boasts 152,000 in sales.[10]

Sugar Man audio sample
Hate Street Dialogue audio sample
  1. ^ a b Delingpole, James (August 11, 2009). "Sixto Rodriguez interview: the rock'n'roll Lord Lucan". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved May 13, 2017.
  2. ^ Allmusic review
  3. ^ "Rodriguez: Cold Fact Album Review". www.austinchronicle.com.
  4. ^ "Cold Fact". Pitchfork Media. September 17, 2008.
  5. ^ - Cold Fact. The New Zealand Herald review
  6. ^ "Rodriguez: Cold Fact". PopMatters. September 18, 2008.
  7. ^ "Rodriguez: Cold Fact". Rolling Stone.
  8. ^ a b "The Official Rodriguez Website: Cold Fact". Sugarman.org. Retrieved February 10, 2012.
  9. ^ Watt, Andrew (February 28, 2013). "International man of mystery". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  10. ^ "Rodriguez Label Chief: 'Our Dealings with Clarence Avant Were Always Positive'". Billboard. June 13, 2014. Retrieved April 19, 2018.