Last week saw Teyana Taylor unleash ‘The Album’ – much to the delight of her fans.
The set’s arrival served as the manifestation of her promise to not leave a lengthy gap between 2018’s ‘K.T.S.E’ project and new material.
Offering ample incentive ahead of ‘The Album’s’ release, Taylor rolled out a slew of singles such as ‘Morning (ft. Kehlani),’ ‘We Got Love (ft. Ms Lauryn Hill),’ and ‘How You Want It? (ft. King Combs)’.
While additional guests on the set include Missy Elliott, Future, Davido, and Rick Ross.
With ‘The Album’ finally out, attention now turns to its commercial performance.
Head below for info on its first week predictions…
Per Hits Daily Double, the LP is on-course to premiere with:
27,000-32,000
[Sales Plus Streaming]
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4,000 – 7,000
[Pure Sales]
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The numbers are somewhat congruent with the broader R&B spectrum and are also in-line with Taylor’s previous effort ‘K.T.S.E’ – which opened with 23k SPS (landing at #17 on the Billboard 200).
At this juncture, though, it’s a waiting game to ascertain which position ‘The Album’ will debut in.
Because, while the global health crisis has meant labels are holding back on new releases (which theoretically means less “new” competition), a number of existing projects are still steadily selling. As such, the difference between bagging a top 10 debut or a top 30 simply boils down to how voluminous sales are overall this week.
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Dialling into Taylor’s numbers a little more, the consistency is encouraging. And it’s clear there’s “an” audience there.
That said, having rooted for her for so long and observed the attention to detail in all corners of her artistry – we’d have loved for this to be more of a commercial “moment” for her.
There are variables that are no doubt out of her control (one of the most notable being the promotional limits of COVID-19). However, we continue to scratch our heads at her seeming aversion to turn up the tempo. For, once again, the lion-share of the album is slow-jam-on-slow-jam-on-yet-another-slow-jam. A choice that is kinda confusing given her social media popularity – which is very much a youth and tempo driven space (see: Instagram dance challenges and TikTok).
Put simply, she’d be well-served to drop club geared singles – even if only to still rope people into an album that flows at a slower pace. Sometimes it’s imperative to do what you have to do to put yourself in a position to do what you want to do.
Just thinking out aloud. Anyway, enough from us. What are…