No one wants Robin Thicke’s album “Paula.” And very few people want any other CDs out there either physically or digitally.
In his second week, Thicke sold just 7,205 copies of “Paula,” bringing his total to maybe 30,000. The whole thing is a bust, a wash, it’s a goner, worse even than JLO and Mariah Carey’s new releases.
But the whole chart is a disaster. The number one album, by singer songwriter Sia, sold only 52,000 copies. That’s a new scary low for a debut number 1. The whole top 10 sold only about 300,000 copies. The whole top 10!
If this were the auto business, people would be jumping out of buildings. There is absolutely no way record companies as they exist now can survive on those sales figures. It’s not like they’re selling something else besides music. Are they?
I did tell you that all CD and digital sales were down for the first half of 2014. Only streaming is up. But it’s not up that much. Where are the releases? Why is there no exciting music, no songs of the summer of 2014? The situation is quite sad. The record companies have encouraged so much sampling, and cannibalizing, that original music has all but been stamped out.
And back to Mariah and JLO. We’re not done with those stories. Those albums should have generated hits. Mariah had them on the CD. What happened? The other album that didn’t produce was Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP. We’re still counting on Gaga’s jazz duets with Tony Bennett to light a fire under sales this fall.
