Katy Perry's chart-topper sparks new sales worries

[areyoureadytojump]

Katy Perry's chart-topper sparks new sales worries
By Ed Christman

NEW YORK (Billboard) – By most measures, Katy Perry's new album, "Teenage Dream," has been a resounding success.
The Capitol release bowed at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, thanks to first-week sales of 192,000 units in the United States, the ninth-best debut week so far this year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The album's first single, "California Gurls" (featuring Snoop Dogg), has scanned 3.6 million downloads, while all individual digital tracks from the album have sold a combined 5 million units, according to SoundScan. Put another way, sales of albums and track-equivalent albums (where 10 digital tracks equal an album) for "Teenage Dream" totaled 689,000, according to SoundScan.
"It's a thrilling accomplishment from our perspective," says EMI Music Services executive vice president Dominic Pandiscia, who oversees the company's North American sales operations. "The magnitude of the marketing plan is about driving overall revenue around the project, including track downloads, ringtones and video sales. Album scans is one component of it."

Yet "Teenage Dreams" fell short in one key area: It didn't meet first-week sales projections by industry insiders. And that, in turn, has sparked worries that the album's performance may affect retail orders for other superstar releases due later this year.

'WAKE-UP CALL'
Executives at other major labels say they expected Perry's sophomore album to debut with sales of anywhere from 300,000 to 700,000 units, with most figuring the album would scan about 400,000.

"I'd like to meet one industry executive last week who thought her album would do under 200,000 units, because I don't think that person exists," a senior executive at a rival major says.
"It was a wake-up call for some folks," the head of sales at another competing major says. "Some think the sky is falling. Others said, 'Wait a minute, she's a singles artist.' And still others said EMI should have put out the album six weeks ago and it would have sold more."

According to sources, EMI shipped 1 million units of the album before its U.S. release date of August 24, which indicates that big-box retail chains like Walmart, Target and Best Buy were expecting the album to post robust first-week sales, as was Starbucks, which featured the title in its stores.

It would also be roughly in line with the typical industry practice of shipping about twice as much product as anticipated first-week sales for a major album release. But prerelease shipments of "Teenage Dream" turned out to be about seven times debut-week sales.

Competing major-label executives say it wasn't EMI's fault that the album didn't meet sales expectations. "EMI did a tremendous job in setting up that record," one executive says.

Perry shot to pop stardom with her 2008 debut album, "One of the Boys" (Capitol), and a penchant for provocative lyrics and music videos.

IN THE LONG TERM
Carl Mello, head of purchasing for retail chain Newbury Comics, says he expects that "Teenage Dream" will sell well through the end of the year and be one of the holiday season's top titles. But he notes that the album's first-week sales "aren't as big as you would think for somebody who has become so omnipresent."
While anticipation for Taylor Swift's forthcoming album, "Speak Now" (Big Machine), had sparked debate over whether superstar artists will ever be capable of generating debut-week sales of 1 million units, "Teenage Dream" has shifted the conversation to whether labels should even consider shipping 1 million units before street date.

"I don't know how you ship a million units now," a major-label head of sales says. "Even if I was asked to ship a million units, you just can't do it anymore."

Some label executives say expectations were too high, noting that most female pop artists commonly sell a lot of track downloads but don't enjoy big debut-week album sales. "When I saw how Perry was doing, I was shocked," a senior sales executive at a competing major distribution company says. "But then I remembered that Fergie's 'The Dutchess' only did about 160,000 units in her first week in September (2006) and it took until December until the fans started buying her like an album artist."

EMI's marketing push for "Teenage Dream" and Perry's appealing stage persona will no doubt score high-profile TV appearances for her this fall, which should help boost sales of the album. "Mark my words: I will bet you 'Teenage Dream' will sell more than ("One of the Boys")," another senior label sales executive says. "'Teenage Dream' will be one of those 'at the end of the day' records."

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)

[cking33]

I think the article is interesting, but I think it's too early to project that this will fall on its face long term. Think of how well BEP have sold after a lackluster opening week last summer. We'll just have to see how well sales hold up over the next few months. I think she'll be OK.

[vandj4ever]

Eh...BEP keeps being tossed around as an example but they opened with over 300k. If Katy had done that I don't think we'd be having these stories about cutting back shipments for upcoming releases.

This just seems a little overblown to me. She had one prior album. We aren't talking of someone who had a history of record breaking album sales. Perhaps the industry just miscalculated her standing with the public that still purchases albums.

Yes you'd expect someone with 2 big hits to sale more then this album did it's opening week but given how other female pop acts have sold with hits it isn't entirely unpredictable. Now if Taylor or Beyonce open under 200k with or without a big hit that would signal trouble imo.

[BlueSwan]

She's a singles artist. The article says that "industry insiders" expected her to sell between 300k and 700k, but how many on this site thought that? I haven't followed any discussion on her album, since I find her thoroughly uninteresting, but I personally don't find 192k the least bit surprising for an act like her.

She still has a reasonable chance of selling that 1 million copies in the long run, but she needs one more big hit for that. I haven't heard her album, nor do I intend to, so I don't know if there is one more big hit on it, but there probably is.

[lugus15]

I said it before in the other thread, and I'll repeat it here: the shade she threw at GaGa easily cost her at least 50k albums sold, if not more.

I think that her label, seeing that she doesn't seem to be a very bright person, should instruct her to keep her trap shut when talking about her peers.

[SPRΞΞ]

^lol, that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

[neally]

Sept 4, 2010 0:46:23 GMT -5 lugus15 said:

I said it before in the other thread, and I'll repeat it here: the shade she threw at GaGa easily cost her at least 50k albums sold, if not more.

I think that her label, seeing that she doesn't seem to be a very bright person, should instruct her to keep her trap shut when talking about her peers.

I doubt that even 5% of the general public knows this. Heck, I'm a active Pulse member and this is the first I am reading about it. Thus, IMO, if that alleged "shade" at Gaga cost Katy some album sales, I would venture on the order of 5-10K tops....

[Diego]

Katy had a hit equally as huge as CG in 2008 yet sold under 50K. The fact that she was able to more than quadruple that amount this time around - whatever the circumstances - should make any record company proud. There are many reasons why she didn't pull off blockbuster numbers: the large time gap between the first single and the album, it being released at the end of summer, having too many purchasable promotional singles out, and the fact that she's a mainstream pop artist who doesn't appeal to a large album-buying demographic yet. So those industry experts obviously overlooked those facts when making their projections, but to the more sane and knowledgeable music followers like most people here, those sales were expected. So the crisis isn't Katy's low numbers, it's the failure of these industry people to understand the market they oversee.

[slicknickshady]

These industry insiders are dumb if they thought anywhere above 250K.

[jj99$ - - LeLe]

Exactly slicknick.
Come on now, i don't even think anyone on pulse was predicting over 300k

[singingsparrow]

Sept 4, 2010 1:49:11 GMT -5 slicknickshady said:

These industry insiders are dumb if they thought anywhere above 250K.

Whoever predicted 700K is off his/her rocker entirely.

Namaste,
Lisping Hibiscus

[Pappa-D!]

700K? She's no Taylor Swift.

[BrokenArrow]

Sept 4, 2010 3:44:38 GMT -5 @singingsparrow said:

Sept 4, 2010 1:49:11 GMT -5 slicknickshady said:

These industry insiders are dumb if they thought anywhere above 250K.

Whoever predicted 700K is off his/her rocker entirely.

Namaste,
Lisping Hibiscus

Well if you read that article she shifted the equivalent of nearly 700k albums in individual track downloads.

You have to blame Itunes or whoever for putting the tracks up for individual download.

[weaver]

I think making all those tracks available in advance probably hurt her first week. If you have, say, six key tracks from an album, are you necessarily going to go out and buy the album? Not likely.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Sept 4, 2010 1:05:29 GMT -5 SPRΞΞ said:

^lol, that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I might tend to disagree. It seems that some of my friends even still remember that she dissed GaGa on Twitter, some even saying they don't like Katy anymore because of it. Might be a big absurd but chances are, a lot of other people, and potential music buyers, have felt the same at one point.

[Deleted]

And some might have no idea what we are talking about or even care and buy the album anyway

[libri]

Sept 4, 2010 6:15:06 GMT -5 BrokenArrow said:

Sept 4, 2010 3:44:38 GMT -5 @singingsparrow said:

Whoever predicted 700K is off his/her rocker entirely.

Namaste,
Lisping Hibiscus

Well if you read that article she shifted the equivalent of nearly 700k albums in individual track downloads.

You have to blame Itunes or whoever for putting the tracks up for individual download.

The article actually said:

The album's first single, "California Gurls" (featuring Snoop Dogg), has scanned 3.6 million downloads, while all individual digital tracks from the album have sold a combined 5 million units, according to SoundScan. Put another way, sales of albums and track-equivalent albums (where 10 digital tracks equal an album) for "Teenage Dream" totaled 689,000, according to SoundScan.

^^That doesn't mean anything -- just a rather desperate spin to make her sales seem better. They equaled the ~5 mil tracks sold that included 3.6 m of CG and 1 mil of TD (the song) to ~500k albums and then added the actual albums sold (192k). By that logic, Gaga, for instance, has then sold 7.5 mil albums (5 mil actual albums sold + 2.5 mil track equivalent albums).

[BrokenArrow]

Sept 4, 2010 9:14:29 GMT -5 libri said:

Sept 4, 2010 6:15:06 GMT -5 BrokenArrow said:

Well if you read that article she shifted the equivalent of nearly 700k albums in individual track downloads.

You have to blame Itunes or whoever for putting the tracks up for individual download.

The article actually said:

The album's first single, "California Gurls" (featuring Snoop Dogg), has scanned 3.6 million downloads, while all individual digital tracks from the album have sold a combined 5 million units, according to SoundScan. Put another way, sales of albums and track-equivalent albums (where 10 digital tracks equal an album) for "Teenage Dream" totaled 689,000, according to SoundScan.

^^That doesn't mean anything -- just a rather desperate spin to make her sales seem better. They equaled the ~5 mil tracks sold that included 3.6 m of CG and 1 mil of TD (the song) to ~500k albums and then added the actual albums sold (192k). By that logic, Gaga, for instance, has then sold 7.5 mil albums (5 mil actual albums sold + 2.5 mil track equivalent albums).

Your absolutely right.

On second read through, it starts to look a lot like spin.

[SPRΞΞ]

Sept 4, 2010 7:03:46 GMT -5 Devil Marlena Nylund said:

Sept 4, 2010 1:05:29 GMT -5 SPRΞΞ said:

^lol, that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

she dissed GaGa on Twitter

lol, nobody cares about that crap. Trust.


i think it has more to do with nobody buys cds anymore. No one i know buys them. I know tons of people at work who love new Katy Perry stuff and i ask them if they bought the album or not, and they uninanimously say "no, i don't buy cds". Perhaps her audience is more of the illegal downloading audience. It certainly has nothing to do with Twitter, lol. Nobody has twitter in reality.

[worldwide]

Why on Earth did anyone think she could pull huge numbers?!
What kind of industry experts are they when they actually expected her to pull up to 700 k?! Which world do they live in? She fullfilled my expectations. She's like Rihanna; sells singles but not so well albums. Rihanna never reached 200k but no one was making such a buzz.
Just get over it, you are gettin boooring.

[Oɴʟуßoy®]

She opened with exactly what I think she would. I predicted 180 -225 k and so it came to pass.

[pnobelysk]

Sept 3, 2010 23:33:49 GMT -5 vandj4ever said:

Eh...BEP keeps being tossed around as an example but they opened with over 300k. If Katy had done that I don't think we'd be having these stories about cutting back shipments for upcoming releases.

This just seems a little overblown to me. She had one prior album. We aren't talking of someone who had a history of record breaking album sales. Perhaps the industry just miscalculated her standing with the public that still purchases albums.

Yes you'd expect someone with 2 big hits to sale more then this album did it's opening week but given how other female pop acts have sold with hits it isn't entirely unpredictable. Now if Taylor or Beyonce open under 200k with or without a big hit that would signal trouble imo.

Exactly. Boom Boom Pow was bigger than Cali Gurls and the peas were coming off a quadruple platnium and tiple platnium album and fergies solo career. Of course theyd do more than Katy. Katy's sales are solid they are a lot bigger than her first albums first week.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Sept 4, 2010 1:49:11 GMT -5 slicknickshady said:

These industry insiders are dumb if they thought anywhere above 250K.

The record execs totally should've went with our predictions. We were right on the money. I expected 120k. I knew that Katy wasn't going to scan big numbers the first week out. Her last album had a #1 single also and didn't scan very many copies.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I think the twitter thing was definitely blown out of proportion for people that actually use it as an excuse to not like Katy Perry but it's definitely there to a small degree.

I think having multiple songs available on iTunes before the album release can be a good idea depending on who it is. I don't think katy's record lost out on many sales numbers because of it. The people that got the few tracks on iTunes were likely just fans who couldn't wait for the album anyway or ones with no intention of getting it but just got a few tracks because they were available. I think in katy's case, it helped increase overall numbers. For someone like Coldplay, who are an album artist, it would more likely hurt their opening sales.

I also think her sales are rather low considering how big the two single are but then looking at the sales of those two singles, she is a singles artist at this point still but I think she could eventually turn into an album artist if she can maintain consistent success with her singles like Rihanna and Fergie both did. Not everyone has initial sales success.
I also think that the album was released too late but that it was a test worth trying. Release the record at the height of the second single's success rather than the beginning of it's release. I think having a delayed album release might result in better single success for the first two singles. So other singles-based artist can maybe look to this as an example.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Sept 4, 2010 12:41:38 GMT -5 Devil Marlena Nylund said:

I think the twitter thing was definitely blown out of proportion for people that actually use it as an excuse to not like Katy Perry but it's definitely there to a small degree.

I think having multiple songs available on iTunes before the album release can be a good idea depending on who it is. I don't think katy's record lost out on many sales numbers because of it. The people that got the few tracks on iTunes were likely just fans who couldn't wait for the album anyway or ones with no intention of getting it but just got a few tracks because they were available. I think in katy's case, it helped increase overall numbers. For someone like Coldplay, who are an album artist, it would more likely hurt their opening sales.

I also think her sales are rather low considering how big the two single are but then looking at the sales of those two singles, she is a singles artist at this point still but I think she could eventually turn into an album artist if she can maintain consistent success with her singles like Rihanna and Fergie both did. Not everyone has initial sales success.
I also think that the album was released too late but that it was a test worth trying. Release the record at the height of the second single's success rather than the beginning of it's release. I think having a delayed album release might result in better single success for the first two singles. So other singles-based artist can maybe look to this as an example.

Katy Perry released her album at the slowest time of the year for album sales. That was also certainly a factor. She probably should've waited until this week to release her album. This way she could get a big opening week....and capitalize on the fact that it's a holiday. In terms of overall album sales titles released in the winter tend to have bigger opening weeks. Katy Perry released her album on an off week. If they were looking for front loaded album sales they should've planned accordingly.

[Deleted]

She waited way too long to release the album. If Teenage Dream had been released during the last week of July (or a week before) she would have scanned around 300k. All the steam of Cali Gurls generated is gone by now.

[Fat Ass Kelly Price]

Sept 4, 2010 11:56:26 GMT -5 Oɴʟуßoy® said:

She opened with exactly what I think she would. I predicted 180 -225 k and so it came to pass.

This. I predicted 175000-225000. I don't know what 'Industry experts' were expecting, but they had unrealistic expectations.

[MaterialGirl]

HDD really predicted 800k? I thought that was a rumor/lie because there's just no way in the world.

[bibliotheque]

^ They posted an article a while back that said something along the lines of "some industry prognostics are predicting that Teenage Dream will beat Recovery for the #1 debut of the year".

[slicknickshady]

I actually over-estimated what Katy would sell week 1. I predicted between 200-250K. I should have made mine 200-225K but oh well.

I under estimated what Eminem did first week. I thought Recovery would do what Relapse did first week at around 608K. Some people thought i predicted too high with that.

Hey a lot of us could be record insiders. lol. Seriously some of these insiders as lisping said are off there rockers. I have followed record sales for a long time but i don't claim to be an insider. haha.