After selling 1.1M copies its first week, Lady Gaga's Born This Way dropped 84% in week two to 174,000.
Look at the numbers this way. Amazon accounted for 600,000 copies at 99 cents. Now, let's say Amazon didn't sell it at 99 cents… figure 150,000 would have been picked up any way. That makes the real sales something like 650,000. And the fall to 174,000, a 60% decline in sales. Still hefty, but when you think of the full title media blitz from Gaga, it kinda makes sense. They got to anybody who had the slightest interest in buying it.
The take in the street is, it is a major disappointment. That it proves there is no mainstream in the record business any more.
I don't think it does.
For one thing, there is a mainstream. Dance pop with producers like David Guetta, REDONE and Dr. Luke are the definition of the mainstream.: every other thing they have released since 2011 has been a hit. A handful of names dominate the mainstream and a producers craft is often at the back of it. BEP; Rihanna; Lady Gaga; Ke$ha; Pitbull; Katy Perry… These are interrelated pop performers. Unique in personality but similar in the high end mix of many layered digital sounds.
Lady Gaga, for all her attempts to market herself out of the mainstream is not MIA, she doesn't have MIA's courage or irreverence or pissed offness.
One half of the world says, Gaga's Born This Way has proven itself to be a major fucking disaster. In an attempt to release a summer blockbuster, she has ended up with X Men: First Class.
The other half of the world says it is part II of world domination, the album sales are just a part of multi platform fashion, concert, aroma, arena wham bam.
The problem is that the album isn't great. It is absolutely and undoubtedly good but that is all it is. A solid B+ and then on your bike. The title track hit, but "Judas" and "Hair" didn't much happen and "Edge Of Glory" while a hit isn't a spoon bender.
So all this proves is hit singles sell hit albums