Beyonce’s “The Gift” has been returned. It’s unclear if that’s for store credit or cash.
Seriously, Beyonce is supposed to be the top of the current heap of pop stars, right? Queen of something or other.
But “The Lion King: The Gift” has sold just 50,000 copies in its first week, and most of those were streaming. Only around 10,000 were physical sales.
On top of that, no singles have emerged despite many possibilities from the album. The first track released, “Spirit,” went nowhere immediately. “Brown Skin Girl” has plateaued at 37 on iTunes. No other singles have surfaced on iTunes. Basically, a new Beyonce album has been met with a meh response from her fans.
Even though “The Lion King” movie has made $300 million so far, the music side has certainly collapsed. The biggest issue would be marketing– there hasn’t been any. Beyonce hasn’t appeared on any TV shows singing these songs. There’s a kind of hubris attached to just dropping new music and not promoting it.
Plus there all kinds of issues with Beyonce on the business side. I told you last week that Beyonce’s music advisor and A&R person of 28 years, Theresa LaBarbera Whites, was stupidly severed from Beyonce’s company by the new CEO. Sony Music is also said not to be thrilled with Beyonce and her team right now.
If “The Gift” really does stiff– and it looks like it now–that will raise a lot of questions for the direction of the Beyhive.
