Perry had his weakest sales of the first week with the project, which started with just over 50,000 copies.
Earlier this year Katy Perry announced that she was working on her sixth studio album, Smile, and in a surprise announcement, the album’s release was confirmed in August, making it her first major release since 2017 Witness .
Fans will recall how this latest project caused many dark moments for singer Roar, who later admitted how poor album sales had plunged her into depression for months, insisting that things went wrong. ‘were so degraded that she had even considered committing suicide.
Well, Smile was even worse than Witness as the album, despite releasing a string of catchy singles, not only started off with insanely low sales in the first week, but also surged significantly from the start. in its initial debut at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 200, dropping to a shocking No. 54 the following week.
Was Katy Perry’s smile a flop?
There’s no other way to say it, but yes – Perry had his weakest sales of week one with the project, which started out with just over 50,000 copies.
The sum seemed shocking in itself considering how Perry was once known to have some of the biggest sales of the first week of pop music: Teenage Dream of 2010 debuted with 192,000 units while 2013 soared with a whopping 286,000, becoming its best opening week to date.
Although he is considered a “flop” for not producing any memorable hits – and ultimately becoming his lowest-selling album before the release of his latest body of work – Witness of 2017, which featured songs such as Bon Appetit and Swish Swish, still sold an impressive 180,000 after its first seven days on sale in June 2017.
So what went wrong with her sixth studio album, which topped roughly 50,000 units?
Fans have been torn by the news of the extremely low album sales, which shouldn’t represent the quality of a singer’s album, but certainly indicate that the appeal for Perry’s songs appears to have waned in the past. over the years.
To make matters worse, 35,000 of those sales were attributed to merchandise bundles, meaning if fans had purchased an item that was part of the program from Perry’s official website, they would have received a copy of the album for free. .
Meanwhile, an additional 14,000 copies of Week 1 sales came from streaming numbers, with the album racking up 19 million streams in seven days, which technically meant that just over 1,000 copies were sold to those who bought the album directly, according to That Grape Juice.
And while Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift are pushing the boundaries again with their latest chart-dominating albums, Chromatica and Folklore, the 35-year-old Firework hitmaker hasn’t been able to maintain similar success with the music she has. recently put. outside.
Smile saw a huge drop on the Billboard Hot 200 the following week when it fell to No.54 after only racking up a total of 10,900 units in sales, leading many to question whether that meant Perry’s position as one of the current best-selling pop stars had ended.
While some mocked the album’s poor performance, others defended Perry, stressing that she shouldn’t be too bothered given that she still cashes in $ 25 million a season as a judge on American Idol and still earns a lot of money. from the songwriting credits she holds on some of her previous hits including Teenage Dream, Part Of Me, and Wide Awake, to name a few.
“Although he was called a flop, @katyperry made $ 75 million to sit in a chair, sold 362 million records with just 4 albums,” a defending fan wrote to the news that Smile had tanked on the Billboard Hot 200 in its second week.
Another fan said: “#KatyPerry was really trying to share a message of hope and her story with her new album ‘Smile’ and was very happy and excited about it. All of this hard work and effort on her part just to see it crumble break my heart
Smile’s shocking performance comes just two years after the new mum, who welcomed a baby girl – Daisy Bloom – in August revealed she was considering suicide after negative reception of her previous album, Witness.
She said Vogue Australia in July 2018: “I had bouts of situational depression and my heart was broken last year because, without knowing it, I put so much validity into the public reaction and the public didn’t reacted as I expected, which broke my heart. “
Speaking of her suicidal thoughts, the California native continued, “I wrote a song about it. I’m ashamed to have these thoughts, to feel so low and depressed. You can be right or you can be loved. I just want to be loved. “
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