These days a six week industry hiatus runs risk of folk forgetting you; hence a six year break is arguably asking for it.
Case, point Nelly Furtado, who’ll need to channel the title of her new album ‘The Spirit Indestructible’ to get over its shocking chart performance this week.
Preceded by singles ‘Big Hoops’, ‘Parking Lot’, and its title track, the LP (which is Furtado’s first traditional release since 2006’s super-seller ‘Loose’) is on course to debut with shocking numbers.
Details after the jump…
According to Hits Daily Double, ‘Indestructible’ is set to debut outside of the top 50 of the Billboard 200 with sales of less an 7000 copies. Yes, you read right. To put it into perspective, the sales represent approximately 3% of the first-week figures for ‘Loose’ – which opened at #1 with sales of 219,000 in June 2006.
And as if not bad enough, the LP’s fortunes aren’t any better in Britain where it debuted at #46 on the Official UK Album Chart after selling just 2637 units.
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Needless to say, shocking stuff. But after picking our jaws up from the floor, we’re left wondering…is it really that surprising?
Radio has paid dust to all of the album’s singles, while the tracks have resonated with few beyond Furtado’s hardcore fan-base.
Many of those fans are drawing on the ever-employed “bad promo” excuse. Yet, sales this terrible indicate a problem much deeper; a problem we see as blamable on Nelly’s lengthy hiatus, yet more so the material. It just wasn’t good – especially for a comeback album. Indeed, its best moments were often “too left-field”, while the vast majority of it was a muddled mess.
The whole episode is all sorts of sad given the success of her last outing and how long she spent piecing this one together. If she’s to salvage what was once a flourishing career, she’ll need to deconstruct her approach pronto and re-think her game-plan. Because, as it is, she’s served up one of the year’s biggest bombs – one that’ll call many things into question, including her record deal.
Here’s hoping everything works out, as Nelly is super-talented.