Time to slag Bob Lefsetz again? I’d claim yes but I must admit I have no idea what the hell he is talking about yet again. It is like he has forgotten how the record business works.
Bobby claims that Katy Perry’s new album Prism, which sold respectably its first week, is a major disaster and he uses this statistic to batter the album into submission. I don’t necessarily disagree that the album is dying as the unit of musical currency concept, I do disagree that Katy Perry is the poster child for this.
Lefsetz writes: “The album is dying in front of our very eyes. In other words, what kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where Katy Perry’s new album “Prism” only sells 287,000 copies in its debut? One in which everybody’s interested in the single, and no one’s got time to sit and hear your hour plus statement. This is not emotion, this is statistics. The shelf life of news is shorter than ever. The shelf life of art… You blink and it’s done.”
Here’s the problem it assumes there are no more hit songs on the Prism album. I would assume nothing of the sort. I would assume that if the half baked “Roar” is a hit, “Birthday” and “Double Rainbow” at least will also be hits. Katy should be able to pull off three or four more songs on the album (I gave the album a “C+” but that isn’t the point).
The lesson here isn’t David Bowie’s The Next Day, it is Justin Timberlake’s two 2013 releases. Buoyed by two smash hits, 20/20 has been on the charts all year, whereas without a hit single in sight, 2 of2 disappeared.
While claiming to be in touch with the zeitgesist, Lefsetz keeps on getting tripped up on outdated concepts. He sees the charts as a lake and an album as a stone, it skips once, twice upon the lake, and then it sinks. But that isn’t what happens with pop albums, a successful album is more like a life buoy on a sea, it bobbles and sinks and then it comes back to the surface for awhile and it can drift on the charts for weeks, even months, if the artist can keep on pulling off songs. That’s what Katy did with Teenage Dream. It accumulated its power through singles and videos until it morphed into a greatest hits.
Maybe Prism will do the same, maybe it won’t, either way it won’t have a thing to do with the death of the album.