November 20, 2013
Billboard reported today that Lady Gaga has scored her second career #1 album on the company’s Billboard 200 album sales chart with her new album “ARTPOP.”
Lady Gaga is only the third female in 2013 to sell more than 200,000 copies of an album in one week. She managed to do this despite an onslaught of negative and generally untrue media coverage.
Lady Gaga’s “ARTPOP” sold nearly 260,000 copies in its first week of sales in the United States and managed to reach the #1 spot on charts in 89 countries worldwide. This was done without any type of bundling trick with concert tickets, which is a common ploy used by veteran artists like Madonna and Prince to force their new albums on older fans of their 80s hits.
“ARTPOP” also managed to beat the first week sales of Lady Gaga’s “The Fame” and “The Fame Monster.”
Some reports have claimed Interscope stands to lose $25 million on “ARTPOP,” but that claim is in no way backed up by fact. “ARTPOP” was profitable for Interscope before it was even released thanks to Gaga’s many corporate sponsorships, which more than paid for all promotional costs for the album. For example, the album launching “artRave” sure cost $3 million to stage, but those costs were entirely paid for by Amex.
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ntertainment Weekly attempted to slander Gaga with their report misleading readers into thinking all artists receive huge sales boosts after appearing on “Saturday Night Live.” Industry watchers were quick to note that the only artists who receive such bumps are unknowns like Of Mice & Men and that Gaga’s sales were in line with other artists of her popularity.
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nother report claimed the only reason Lady Gaga’s “Dope” managed to chart so high last week was because somehow Billboard rigged it so that Gaga got credit for anyone tuning into the YouTube Video Awards. That is simply untrue. Lady Gaga’s performance of “Dope” was the most watched performance from that event. More people have watched the video of just her performance than any other from the show. To say otherwise is simply a lie.
These reporters generally spread their misinformation by constantly changing what facts they use in their reporting. In the United States Billboard is the only official charting agency. iTunes charts are not used as a standard for anything as they represent one retailer out of thousands and their numbers change many times a day. You will notice anti-Gaga articles sink to using whatever inconsequential chart info they can grasp onto to try and paint a negative picture of the mother monster. Sure, her single might drop a few numbers today and tomorrow it will rise. Things fluctuate. That is why the industry uses Billboard as the one and only reliable source for sales information.
Fact is “ARTPOP” is a worldwide hit. Fact is Lady Gaga remains and will remain one of the most influential figures in the music industry. It is purely ridiculous to say something is a failure because even though it will outsell 99.9% of albums in 2013 that it did not outsell a previous mega-hit by the same artist.
When it all comes down to it the fact also remains that as far as Lady Gaga is concerned none of this matters. She does not care about money and has in the past even said she doesn’t care if fans illegally download her album. Lady Gaga makes music because her dream has always been to make music and to touch the lives of her fans. Her dream was never to be a billionaire queen reigning over the masses.
http://www.examiner.com/article/lady...nslaught-video
