Katy Perry has always been quite the creative and now she’s flexing said skill in a bid to sell her new album ‘Witness.’
Announced early this morning, confirmation of the Pop starlet’s fourth set sent her fans into a frenzy.
Yet, amidst the excitement, one interesting detail seems to be slipping through the radar. But we caught it.
In a press release touting the LP and accompanying tour, it was revealed that every ticket from the North American trek will come with a FREE copy of ‘Witness.’
This clearly is a move designed to auto-broaden reach of the new music and one arguably employed to combat the questionable levels of interest in the project.
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Jury’s out on whether this will be allowed to count towards the first week sales of ‘Witness.’ Because artists who’ve drawn on similar practices have instead offered their LPs as an optional and discounted add-on to ticket purchases. Rather than making it entirely free.
We’re torn as to where we stand on the matter.
On the one hand, it’s a smart means of ensuring those who attend are familiar with the new material in the absence of a smash hit preceding the album’s release.
Yet, on the other, if it will count towards sales, then it’s the latest example of a high-profile Pop act effectively being rescued by a clever loophole. Just like Rihanna‘s Samsung/‘ANTI’ episode from last year.
Either way, it’s clear Team Perry won’t let their prized possession go down without a fight. Even if it has to get a little dirty.
‘Witness’ hits stores June 9th.
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I was going to say just because they buy a ticket doesn’t necessarily mean they want an album. BUT as fans, surely they would want the new album? So in that case idk whether this is sneaky or not…
Tragic.
Do what you gotta do girl to go platinum lol
These stunts inevitably backfire. Sure, tactics may “save” them from technically flopping (on paper), but everyone knows what they did and why they did it. It’ll take YEARS for people to stop talking about and forget the stunt. It took years for people to stop quickly bringing up how Mariah Carey got the bulk of her number 1 singles by selling them for 49¢… and people still snicker about Gaga’s Born This Way Amazon scheme. When you gotta resort to things like this to compel an otherwise disinterested GP into checking for what they otherwise wouldn’t, then something is wrong and your career is probably in trouble.
What terrible examples. There was plenty of interest in Mariah in the 90s and in Lady Gaga´s huge opening for Born This Way. And both things would have been big without any tricks too. The comparison you are looking for is Katy´s friend Rihanna from last year. It´s the most similar thing.
There was plenty of interest in “Loverboy” and “Thank God I Found You?” I don’t think so. And for an album that supposedly sold a million copies first week, it’s kind of odd how it would up selling less than the one before it and was largely deemed as having failed to live up to commercial expectation. If Mariah’s singles had cost $2.99-3.49 like the average CD singles from that period, and if BTW had cost #13.99, like the average full CD, much of those sales wouldn’t have happened. It was the cheap sales price (stunt) that greased the wheel and made people who wouldn’t have otherwise bothered go ahead and buy it because it was so priced so low.
AdrianL Your comprehension skills leave much to be desired. How the hell can you compare this Katy Perry (no less) new album any Born this Way (which still sold like 700k copies first week) or Mariah in general in the 90s??? That was teh pucking point. This Katy Perry situation is a Bionic type of situation, or Rihanna´s Ratd R or Anti situation if anything.
Nobody has denied some tricks were done with Mariah´s singles (although it wasn´t always or anything). It was something that she or her team or her label were clearly chasing (to break singles records). Pretty much what Rihanna has been trying to do. But there´s a monumental difference: they made it and built it around Mariah´s TALENT. And all the songs were hers. AND she had ALBUM sales to MATCH. Rihanna has been trying to make it by having a trillion features and by releasing 7 singles per year (apart from the already mentioned commercial tricks). So just educate yourself and stop the pbullshit. There´s nothing about Born This Way anticipationa nd epic debut in Katy perry´s new album. And definitely THERE IS nothing about 90s Mariah in anything regarding KATY PERRY! (for crying out loud, it hurts to even put them in the same sentence lol).
THIS IS FAKE NEWS! The Majority of Mariahs singles were NOT sold for 49 cents. The majority of her number one singles happened in the days when physical singles were being bought on DC’s in stores and they were NOT sold for 49 cents.
Don’t even try to deny it. I don’t know if all of her singles were sold for .49, but I do know that a significant number of them were. I remember seeing Mariah single displays on record store counters that had big, red 49cent stickers placed right on the middle of the cassette/cd jackets. Cashiers would use them as an upsale. If you weren’t necessarily a fan of hers, but thought the song was ok enough, then you might go ahead and throw her cheaply priced single on top of whatever else you were buying. Her fans kill me trying to fake amnesia about this. Everyone old enough to remember Mariah’s first run at Sony knows that she was NOTORIOUS for this and that her discounted singles used to be a huge talking about about her in the 90’s.
Kikiki..Times are indeed hard. Where are them kats at though??
Taylor honey just release a single and the album the following week and end her….
This is actually such a funny post. Rihanna’s deal with Samsung for Anti did not contribute to her BB200 sale, they expressly said it wouldn’t. The ONLY place it counted was with Neilson Soundscan, which is why Anti is at almost 700k in PHYSICAL SALES rather than 1.7 mil in the US. Also if rihanna was flopping this hard sam would be REVELING because at to keep it al the way honest FFS did better numbers than CTTR though they had the same peak ranking, but we know BBHM did way better than Bon Voyage. BBHM actually peaked at 16 on the Hot100 and was #1 on iTunes for TWO days, unlike Bon Voyage. Had Rihanna been utilizing this tour bundle bs, you would say she’s Desperate, but katy is smart. I just hate this trash site, honestly.
Calm your tits. Both artists are basic and heavily depend on hits. That´s because it is an easy comparison. Rihanna ended getting one with Work, and saved the era in the end (not that it was huge or anything). Katy… it doesn´t look like she´s going to find a hit (at the end of the day she doesn´t ask for songs at a rate of… every month frpm every possible hot writer, just in case 🙂 ) so this may be kind of her end. It is surprising to em how quickly it is happening though. But I won´t miss her. Maisntream has suffered from basicness enough already.
It’s a smart move didn’t Madonna do something similar with one of her eras…..in this era to sell albums ya gotta be creative so kudos to her! Still not a fan lol
This is Katy’s Bionic era
so sabotaged by the press lol
Lol she’s still gonna flop tho.
Nah, Prince did this a while ago, so Billboard have stopped these types of album promotions from counting towards the charts 🙂
Floppy Perry
Sam remains the only persons stressed about first week sales.
In an industry where Beyonce’s most critically acclaimed album can only sell 3 million copies worldwide, it is obvious that the money is in the tour.
By attaching the album to the tour, you get the sale of the more expensive of the two products! Hell maybe a 10 dollar is added unto each ticket to account for the sale of the album in any event.
Either which way its a win win especially if the tour sells well.
Sam unfortunately constantly tries to look for ways to shade other female acts like Rihanna and Katy just in order to make himself feel better about his faves DJ Khaled feature Shining FLOPPING on the Billboard 100 whilst the second single from the Khaled album debuted at #1!
How about he makes a post about that!?
Shining is s great song & I like it so I purchased it!! ?✅
@Michael LOL Yeah right the only person stressed about first week sales is Sam iyo…. because Rihanna has always been so poor at that, right? 🙂 Let the bias continue! 🙂
Wow, rih’s powuh!
I’m not supporting anything she does anymore in terms of entertainment. She tried it with the whole “woke” era!
Poor thing at least it is true that people DO need to wake up on many fronts. The brainwashing is serious. Starting with what you eat and what needs to be done for you to eat your crappy food. Or how economy and markets work. Just two examples.
Truly her artpop era, except nowhere as funny because she’s so boring. Her short hair ages her 10 years (with the long cornrows she still looks good) and her new attempt at looking “edgy” comes off as extremely childish. Sad.
She is just copying off of Prince
he did this first a long time ago
#copycat
When are the cds shipping out I haven’t gotten mine yet?
It my daughter’s birthday and she is a big fan fo your music