A collective of recognizable pop stars released new albums this week, and while the sales figures are largely nothing at which to sneeze in 2011, some will suffer significant declines from their preceding releases.
According to opening week sales forecasts from Hits Daily Double, which made its projections by extending opening day sales data, Beyonce’s “4” will easily top the Billboard 200 Album Sales chart. But with a forecasted total of only 275-300,000, it will be down fairly sharply from predecessor “I Am…Sasha Fierce.” That album, fueled by hits like “Single Ladies” and “If I Were a Boy,” opened to a total just shy of 500,000.
Among new releases, Big Sean’s “Finally Famous: The Album” will follow in the 90-95,000 territory, while Selena Gomez and The Scene’s “When the Sun Goes Down” will land at 75-80,000. That marks an increase from her “A Year Without Rain,” which started at about 66,000. Gomez clearly has a consistent audience that is growing with her improving profile and consistently-reliable pop albums, but her stock as a singer still needs a legitimate hit single to truly explode.
While Gomez made improvements over her previous effort, David Cook felt the impact of time away from the limelight and limited pop success since his “Idol” victory. A popular “American Idol” contestant who won the seventh season, Cook’s self-titled, major label debut opened to 280,000 copies en route to platinum certification. Follow-up “This Loud Morning,” however, will only muster 45-50,000 sales in time for next week’s chart. One of the more vocally-talented “Idol” alumni, Cook has nonetheless faced difficulty from a branding standpoint. His songwriters and producers have thus far been unable to work with him on a sound that can make a lasting impact with Top 40 fans.
Other forecasts include Taking Back Sunday’s self-titled release (30,000), Scotty McCreery’s Walmart EP (30,000), Curren$y’s “Weekend at Burnie’s” (23-27,000) and Limp Bizkit’s “Gold Cobra” (23-27,000).
David Cook’s This Loud Morning is the best album of the year IMO. David.is never going to sell like them esp when HAC Top 40 keeps playing the same crap over and over again and never tries playing other artists. I stopped listening to radio regularly years ago… But he is a true artist and This Loud Morning is a masterpiece lyrically, musically, and vocally. The sales will come it just might be slow out of the gate
Always loved David Cook, but sadly his promo team did not do a good job of establishing him as a unique artist. At this point, he’s just another White Guy with Guitar. One of the best, certainly, and absolutely the best WGWG from Idol, but in a crowded musical landscape, he and his team aren’t doing anything at this point to make him stand out. I don’t know what the solution is since I’m not a pr person, but surely his label has a team of pr people on staff who should be able to figure this out.
I agree even the first CD I felt the same as you when it came to PR, a 5 yr old could promote David better
Cook’s career is cooked! He’s never been able to be established as a brand and he’s now proven that he has no legs as a star. This album should have been out 12-18 months ago, not over 3 years since he won.
He’s done.
You need to revise David Cook’s numbers. HDD has adjusted them upward.
Because you all didn’t get the information that you wanted”WHICH WAS her”BEYONCE” album would tank,you STILL decided to turn this article into something negative! Shame on all of you who wanted this talented young lady”BEYONCE” to fail. However, you did not get your wish and I am so happy for her. Because all of you jackasses cannot stop comparing this woman to everyone else and she is an individual who happens to be spiritual which beats out evil do’ers anyday.. HA>HA>HA!!! Get over it.. She is still going to be #one and there is nothing you can do about it but pout!!!
this is common sense, her album was leaked 3 weeks ago, of course it’s not gonna sell as much. She’s lucky it’s even gonna sell 275-300k first week. Nobody’s hating Beyoncé they just stated facts. You need to calm yourself down.