It’s been 90 days of hell for the record business.
The last album to debut at number 1 with over 100,000 copies sold was Madonna’s “Confessions II” — 133K, to be exact.
That was on July 10th, when the latest Olivia Rodrigo album also debuted, with 100,000 copies.
Since then it’s been almost three months of nothing. Barely a pulse.
This week, a deluxe 20th anniversary edition of My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade” finished first with 70,000 sold.
Congrats to the group for the number 1 debut but that’s about half what new number 1 albums were selling 18 months ago.
The road to a gold album — half a million — is pretty long when you’re starting that low.
“The Black Parade” run won’t last long. It’s already number 8 on the iTunes chart– real time downloading. It’s launched no singles onto that chart.
The business is stagnant to the point of real fear. Most of the dependable pop acts are on hiatus, like Lady Gaga who just welcome a baby, or Adele, who works as little as possible.
The older stars, conversely, are more prolific — like the Stones and McCartney. But their new albums have come and gone. U2 releases November 16th, but that’s not going to do much.
Surprisingly this week, there was no heat around a new release around Lisa, the K Pop star. Her record finished at number 36 with 17,000 copies.
Even worse– much worse — was John legend’s new album, “Muse,” produced by and featuring Pharrell Williams. I had high hopes for that one, but it came in at number 49 with 15.5 THOUSAND copies paid for. It had no media attention, as little as Miley Cyrus’s recent disaster.
And newer releases by legacy act like Neil Young and Chaka Khan — also relegated to the abyss.
You wonder how all the high flying record execs mentioned in hitsdailydouble and Billboard can afford their lavish lifestyles.
There must be great potential superstars out there somewhere — now is the time to find them!
