If you’ve heard Eve‘s latest studio album ‘Lip Lock‘, you’ll know it marks one of her strongest studio efforts to date.
Sure, while it’s easy to romanticise commercially impotent albums by billing them winners on a critical tip, the project’s cohesiveness and effortless blend of Rap and Pop see her extend her lead as one of Hip Hop’s more versatile acts- unafraid to cross genre lines and sounding good while doing it.
Now, after watching its first week sales amount to 8,600 units in the US, the Rapper has taken to Kanya King‘s MOBO to share her thoughts on the release and its panned sales.
Her words below…
She revealed:
“I knew that in the States, I wasn’t ever focused on the first week sales. I knew this was an album that was going to grow and I believed in it that much, I wasn’t going to stop working for it.
I think it’s one of those words of the mouth albums; it was all about creating a conversation.”
She went on to share:
“Albums that create a conversation are the best to me; I’d rather that happen with loyalty, than people just being focused on the hype surrounding the first week sales.”
While first week sales shouldn’t always be used to judge an album’s success, there’s no doubt they are important when assessing how fruitful a campaign has been, as albums rarely sell more in the weeks that follow than they do in their launch window.
Well…that is unless your name is Adele.
Unfortunately, too many have been quick to label the MC ‘a flop’ for ‘Lock’s first week digits forgetting those numbers were pulled independently….without the machine that would have ensured her singles were kept on heavy radio rotation, or stocked the LP’s physical copies everywhere it needed to be.
With this in mind, it’s easier to understand why the album did what it did and how key the major label system is for acts who really want a fair shot at pulling in sweet numbers.