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Celeb News: Katy Perry's disappointing sales?
Banned
Member Since: 11/24/2009
Posts: 61,404
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Katy Perry's disappointing sales?
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No matter how they try to spin it, Katy Perry and her label are surely feeling a certain letdown this morning. After dominating airwaves for much of the summer, Perry was only able to move 192,000 copies of her sophomore album in its first week on sale. That’s enough to make Teenage Dream the country’s biggest album in this sleepy late-August frame. It’s much better than her previous album managed in its first week, and it’s obviously worlds away from an all-out, retire-in-shame flop. But it’s also nowhere near the kind of first-week numbers that other radio staples like Drake (447,000) and Usher (329,000), let alone Eminem (741,000), have put up in recent months. Perry’s “California Gurls” is widely considered a front-runner for this year’s Song of the Summer, with her own “Teenage Dream” single not far behind. How come those major hits didn’t translate into equally strong album sales?
The simple answer is that Perry is overexposed. By now, just about every member of the buying public has heard “California Gurls” enough times to commit it to memory. If you’ve grown tired of that song or you never liked it in the first place, of course you’re not going to buy Katy Perry’s album. But even if you love “California Gurls” with all your melted-popsicle heart, chances are you already bought it as an MP3 weeks or months ago. You probably went along and grabbed “Teenage Dream,” too. This week alone, that second single sold 259,000 digital copies. When Teenage Dream the album came out last Tuesday, you had to ask yourself, did you really need to own the whole thing? For 192,000 fans, the answer was yes. Still, it’s easy to see how that purchase might not make sense for everyone else.
Yet dismissing Perry as overexposed risks redundancy. Songs like “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream” are engineered for maximum exposure. That’s the whole point. Perry led an elite team of songwriters, producers, and assorted studio wizards whose job it was to make sure that hearing these songs once or twice wasn’t enough for most people. Radio programmers couldn’t resist putting these songs on the air over and over again. Kids walking down the street couldn’t help humming them for weeks on end. These songs were perfectly designed advertisements for themselves — and that’s where their pitch ended. In a sense, “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream” worked exactly as intended. They were too effective for the album’s own good.
This puts Perry in the dreaded “singles artist” category. Compare her first-week sales to those of Rihanna (181,000 last December) or Ke$ha (152,000 in January). This isn’t a category that most singers want to be placed in. They’re legitimate pop stars, with big hits and lots of fans — but not the kind of unconditional fans who will drop double-digit cash for an album out of loyalty. Is it sheer coincidence that so many (though not all) of these “singles artists” happen to be young women? Probably not. Some level of unacknowledged sexism may make consumers more likely to view the work of twenty-something female pop singers as disposable product instead of serious art.
That said, the “singles artist” label doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Rihanna, for example, spun off several more hits from Rated R and ended up going platinum. With the right follow-up singles, Perry might be able to accomplish the same in time. Today, Teenage Dream is looking like a commercial disappointment, but the long game is just beginning.
Why do you think Katy Perry’s album didn’t sell more copies? Do you think there’s another smash hit lurking within that track list? Sound off in the comments section.
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http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/09/01/k...es/#more-20388
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Member Since: 9/5/2009
Posts: 11,946
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Banned
Member Since: 11/24/2009
Posts: 61,404
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I think she did fine and she'll keep selling very well, but it's clear that she, her label, and the industry were geared up for TD to make an explosive debut.
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Member Since: 5/22/2010
Posts: 9,633
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Member Since: 12/9/2009
Posts: 13,069
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I think the most stupid thing she did was releasing Circle the Drain, Not Like The Movies, and E.T for no damn reason on iTunes.
Teenage Dream and California Gurls were big enough Promo.
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Member Since: 11/12/2009
Posts: 13,575
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I don't think it's bad to be a single artist these days considering how poor album sales are.
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Member Since: 6/7/2009
Posts: 15,638
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haus_of_Nicole
I think she did fine and she'll keep selling very well, but it's clear that she, her label, and the industry were geared up for TD to make an explosive debut.
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That's what I think too.
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Member Since: 11/13/2009
Posts: 25,902
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Did I catch some Christina shade?
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Member Since: 6/20/2010
Posts: 15,376
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Quote:
Originally posted by Newt45
I think the most stupid thing she did was releasing Circle the Drain, Not Like The Movies, and E.T for no damn reason on iTunes.
Teenage Dream and California Gurls were big enough Promo.
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THIS.
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Member Since: 11/7/2009
Posts: 9,863
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Quote:
Originally posted by Newt45
I think the most stupid thing she did was releasing Circle the Drain, Not Like The Movies, and E.T for no damn reason on iTunes.
Teenage Dream and California Gurls were big enough Promo.
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Agreed, excluding E.T., the other two suck, so people thought: Damn, this album will be really bad...
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/24/2001
Posts: 5,400
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I completely agree with this article. Katy, unfortunately, IS a singles artist. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if she's trying to make bigger album sales happen, she needs to maybe change her image to something more people can relate to instead of being just another generic pop star.
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Member Since: 3/25/2009
Posts: 13,550
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I think that the problem lies more in the fact that the music is rather generic than her being overexposed. I mean I'm not sick of Katy, but I am sick of California Gurls.
She really lost that little rock chic spark she had in OOTB :-/
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Member Since: 5/4/2010
Posts: 2,598
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Her last album was barely top 10, we don't know how it will sell after it's opening (when she gets a couple more successful singles out of it). It's not exactly a flop...
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Member Since: 2/17/2010
Posts: 21,811
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TL;DR, but OH COME ON!
GGGB opened with less than TD, and look at it now. TD did great for a Pop album.
Though it could have sold more if it was released a month ago.
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Member Since: 6/7/2009
Posts: 15,638
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Quote:
Originally posted by Vini
Agreed, excluding E.T., the other two suck, so people thought: Damn, this album will be really bad...
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Exactly.
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Member Since: 2/6/2010
Posts: 27,892
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OMG, these people at EW must be on drugs. She didn't sell well because she is a FEMALE POP STAR IN 2010.
Album sales suck for pop albums normally, and plus the industry keeps declining.
Fail, EW. Fail.
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Member Since: 5/28/2010
Posts: 29,225
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Its funny how the "singles artist" hang together Rihanna, Ke$ha, Katy
And of course this album isn't a flop... its too early to call it a flop.
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Member Since: 2/6/2010
Posts: 27,892
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jurred
I completely agree with this article. Katy, unfortunately, IS a singles artist. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if she's trying to make bigger album sales happen, she needs to maybe change her image to something more people can relate to instead of being just another generic pop star.
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No. Taio Cruz, Jay Sean, and Jason Derulo are singles artists.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/24/2001
Posts: 5,400
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Quote:
Originally posted by GaGaFan
No. Taio Cruz, Jay Sean, and Jason Derulo are singles artists.
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No, you're completely right. But she definitely hangs more on the single sales side of things
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Member Since: 5/28/2010
Posts: 29,225
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Quote:
Originally posted by GaGaFan
No. Taio Cruz, Jay Sean, and Jason Derulo are singles artists.
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Don't forget BoB
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