Is Lady Luck beefing with Nicole Scherzinger? Because, we’re here wondering when the former Pussycat Doll will catch a break. If ever.
As reported at the tail of last year, the talented star inked a lucrative global deal with Sony Music – which sees her signed to their subsidiaries RCA and Epic in the UK and US respectively.
The first album offering from the partnership, ‘Big Fat Lie’, was released in the UK this week and it was hoped The-Dream and Tricky Stewart produced set would deliver commercially.
However, when the Official UK Album Chart was revealed today it brought with it the news that the LP only scrapped a position in the lower level of the top 20.
Details below…
According to the Official Chart Company, ‘Lie’ limped in at #17 on the British based tally.
Worse still, it’s believed as at writing the album’s total first week sales were below 5,000. For, mid week figures (as of Tuesday) reportedly had the set at just over 2000 copies sold and in the #15 position.
With a full week’s counting and in light of the final position reached, an educated estimate would have the LP having doubled its midweek number or thereabout.
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While it’s important to spotlight the politics at play (see: next to no radio play and a reliance on TV promo alone), there’s no denying…
The album is terrible.
Back to front, it’s just dreadful. We had been silently watching how things would pick up after the so-so singles (‘Your Love’, ‘On The Rocks’) and it turns out both songs are somewhat the best of a bad bunch.
How does one go in with The-Dream and Tricky on every track and still come out with an album sounding like it was produced and written by amateurs?
From our vantage point, the only decent songs are ‘Electric Blue’ and ‘First Time’. Yet, even they lack kick and are produced so…cheaply.
Longtime readers will know that we actually appreciate the wealth of talent Nicole brings to the table. However, she’s so frustrating because she’s a solo star waiting to happen but she seems to have the worst luck and/or ear for hits. More than anything, there is a clear disconnect between the artist she wants to be (earthy and left-field) and what the masses would receive well from her (see: solo PCD).
As it stands, she’s had so many chances; as such her next move is crucial.
We say, scrap the US release of this project (it’d be D.O.A in its current shape and form anyway) and quickly record a new album on US budget and release it there by mid-next year. She could work it in Europe as a new EP or retooled version of ‘Lie’ (ala Iggy’s ‘Reclassified’) – keeping the one or two decent songs and surrounding them with (much) better material.
Just thinking out aloud.