MONDAY AFTERNOON 12/24: Icarus fell right off the top 200 iTunes chart today. Gone.
EARLIER: It’s been a bad week for Zayn Malik, and I can only wonder what he’s thinking.
The One Direction star’s second album was released one week ago. Today it’s at number 171 on the iTunes chart. With 27 tracks, and two years of work, “Icarus Falls” is basically dead on arrival.
No one bought it, not one One Direction fan, not one Zayn fan. Total sales are fewer than 2,000, with a second total of 5,500 that includes streaming of individual tracks. A physical CD may have been released today– who knows?
Of course, six of the tracks had already been released as singles. Three more were pushed out haphazardly with the album’s release. They ALL died.
Zayn fans keep reposting something called an iTunes World Wide Chart, claiming “Icarus Falls” is number 1. I don’t know where they’re getting this from. There is no such chart. “Icarus Falls” is a bust in every country.
The album had no marketing or pre-sale, no build up. Zayn did nothing to promote it. His label, RCA, undoubtedly heard no singles, and just let Zayn put it out without fighting him. And now it’s dead.
What a week! What a shame.
