As one of the most hotly anticipated Pop releases of the year, all eyes -naturally- are on the commercial performance of Christina Aguilera‘s new album ‘Lotus’.
Preceded by the anthemic ‘Your Body’, the prelude to the set’s release has left both fans and critics somewhat puzzled. For, it was not until the day of release was a performance aired in support of the LP, with the existence of any more (beyond this Sunday’s American Music Awards) remaining an Unsolved Mystery.
Alas, the first week estimations of the LP, Aguilera’s first since 2010’s ‘Bionic’, make for an interesting read. See what we mean below…
According to the ever reliable Hits Daily Double, ‘Lotus’ is on-course to debut within the top ten of the Billboard 200 with sales of…
75,000 – 80,000
Ahead of her are Brit-Pop sensations One Direction whose sophomore set ‘Take Me Home’ is headed for the top spot with a whopping 525k-575k units shifted.
Interestingly, Aguilera is also being outsold by The Weeknd and his LP ‘Trilogy’ (95k-105k), as well as the soundtrack to ‘Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2′ (85k-90k).
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Oh the confusion.
It’s as clear as Cassie’s lack of talent that something is going on with Xtina’s campaign. Let’s keep it all the way 100. Where are the magazine covers, live performances, talk show rounds? And while all we can do is speculate at this point, we hope what ever issues are on-going can be ironed out with the swiftness. For, it’d be entirely unfortunate for ‘Lotus’ to not max out its commercial potential. As we signified in our review and as the iTunes charts show, the LP is packed with plausible chart-smashes; it’d be criminal if they were robbed of the chance to garner the shine they deserve.
Again, it’s important to stress that few (bar those close to the project) have an inkling as to what’s really going down. Hence finger pointing towards the label, management, or Christina herself is arguably futile. We just hope the masses aren’t left waiting for ions for either an answer or a resolution. Because, as Xtina’s estimates show: we’re in a recession – album don’t sell themselves. And sure don’t sell on the basis of name alone.