Signposted by the softer than expected reception to lead single “Smoke Break” — and a general downturn in album sales — Carrie Underwood’s “Storyteller” will post the lowest opening week sales total of her career.
Based on opening day sales data, Hits Daily Double projects that Underwood’s new studio album will sell 150-160,000 pure US copies during the October 23-29 tracking week.
Such a total would likely earn “Storyteller” #2 on the weekly sales chart. 5 Seconds of Summer’s “Sounds Good Feels Good,” which is on track for a 175-185,000 first week total, is set to take #1.
“Storyteller” is the follow-up to Underwood’s 2012 album “Blown Away,” which debuted to a first-week total of 267,000 copies. At the time, the 267K figure represented the lowest for an Underwood album.
If the aforementioned projection proves accurate, “Storyteller” will be the first album since Underwood’s 2005 debut “Some Hearts” to miss #1 on the album sales chart.
While that album too settled for the runner-up spot, it sold a considerably greater 315,000 first-week copies. In ultimately going 7x platinum — and reaching a current US sales total of roughly 7.4 million — it also demonstrated a degree of longevity that will be essentially impossible for “Storyteller” to match.