Fifth Harmony have been on quite the roll.
The sassy quintet earned praise aplenty for recent videos for ‘Angel’ and ‘He Like That’ and delivered a career-best performance at the 2017 MTV VMAs.
All of said moves were designed to amplify buzz for their self-titled third album.
Did it work, though? The numbers are in, so the answer awaits below…
According to Hits Daily Double, the ‘Down’ led set will debut at #5 on the Billboard 200 with the following numbers:
46,000 (Sales Plus Streaming)
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33,142 (Pure Sales)
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Echoing earlier sentiments, context matters.
Yes, the number represents a dip from the 80,000 SPS (62k pure) of their debut ‘Reflection’ and the 74,000 SPS (49k pure) opening of sophomore LP ‘7/27.’ Released in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
But the reality is that this project has had a fairly condensed launch window, when considering the short time between the release of sole [official] single ‘Down’ and the album’s August 25th arrival. It also doesn’t help that ‘Down’ was only performed twice on TV and consequently only managed a #42 peak on the Billboard Hot 100.
All things considered then, a top 5 isn’t “bad” – especially in this sales climate.
The ladies now have to come swinging to establish a successful face to the campaign – be that a smash single, tour, or steady album sales. All of which are definitely “doable” with persistence and a push.
For what it’s worth, they’ve only ever had out of the gate success with ‘Work From Home.’ Their next biggest win was with ‘Worth It,’ which was actually the third single from their debut.
Will history repeat itself this go round? Time will undoubtedly tell.
Sidenote: Had the tally been comprised of solely sales, the group would have been #2. Streaming, love or loathe, really has become not only “a” key variable – it is “the” key variable.