Where Have All The Divas Gone? Their Album Sales Are Increasingly Troublesome

[lexus97]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/diva-album-sales_n_5500960.html

[janetDAYZ]

Ugh.. we don't do links round here dnt have the strength

[lexus97]

sorry i cant post the article. its kinda long and has an interesting chart

included janet, mariah, jennifer, katy,bee etc

[lexus97]

Ugh.. we don't do links round here dnt have the strength

 

u do wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much

[Aquaria]

u do wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much

[Aquaria]

It's because they're old

lol @ Gaga's penis chart

[lexus97]

In just a few short weeks, the rebuke "Don't be a diva!" has taken on new meaning. While we champion the increased presence of women on television, album sales for the ladies who define pop music are suffering.

That realization comes in the wake of recent releases from Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez, both of which have resulted in meager showings. Less than a month after sales of Carey's "Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse" proved to be just as fickle as the album's title, selling a dismal 58,000 copies in its first week, industry forecasts expect Lopez's "A.K.A." won't sell even half of that.

The fact that Carey and Lopez -- who, in their mid-40s, are seeing a more than 50-percent decline from their previous albums -- can't hit the once-reliable 100,000 marker in first-week sales says something not only about the decaying interest in full-length records, but also about the dwindling stamina of established female singers. Now don't misunderstand: There are plenty of women making wonderful music and seizing the zeitgeist in big ways. In general, the conversation about the music industry's strain has little, if anything, to do with gender. In 2013, Lorde's debut album ended its inaugural week with 129,000 copies sold, while Miley Cyrus' "Bangerz" moved 270,000. In 2012, Adele's "21" spent 10 consecutive weeks at No. 1, Taylor Swift's "Red" premiered to a whopping 1.21 million, and Rihanna's "Unapologetic" held its own with 253,000 sold. None of those numbers are worth scoffing at, in part because we can't pretend it's still 2000, when an album debuting to seven-digit figures wasn't almost unimaginable. But for two of the biggest female singers to find career lows within the same few weeks at least calls into question the resilience of the so-called traditional diva, she of the grand, once-indomitable force in pop music.

Funeral dirges for album sales have been played ad nauseam for the better part of a decade, but if there's one group that seems to have endured the hardest hit it's the divas. In considering sales figures that correspond to the past 10 years of releases from Lopez, Carey, Britney Spears, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Christina Aguilera, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Beyonce, each singer -- except Perry -- has suffered something of a dip from one album to the next. Only three of them -- Madonna, Beyonce and Perry -- can claim recent albums ("MDNA," "Beyoncé," and "Prism," respectively) as their highest-selling of the past decade. A couple of caveats, though: "MDNA" arrived on the heels of Madonna's record-breaking Super Bowl performance, and "Beyoncé" was extra buzzy because it was a surprise. Only Perry has seen a veritable increase in sales, but even her highest charter (2013's "Prism") couldn't hit the 300,000 stamp.

Even if fading record sales are the norm, other genres have at least surpassed expectations, no matter how mediocre those expectations were. Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Drake, Coldplay, Luke Bryan, Jay Z, Arcade Fire and John Mayer all outsold many of the aforementioned divas with their recent releases.

"The Elusive Chanteuse" is by far a career low for Carey. Not since her 1990 debut has one of her albums failed to eclipse 100,000 copies during its first week. Lopez's descent has been much more gradual, as she hasn't managed 100,000 in initial sales since 2005's "Rebirth" anyway. But for "A.K.A." to sell 30,000 copies is a new nadir for all of these women. That means Carey's and Lopez's seats at the "American Idol" judges' table did nothing to bolster mass appeal and their well-publicized personal lives didn't translate to acclaim for their music.

We're mourning the divas' decline. Thankfully no one outside of the industry is so fixated on Billboard results in 2014 that either of their overall careers will suffer in excess, but we'd hate to think that the day of the diva -- having been so dependable throughout the '90s and early 2000s -- may be inching toward death. If anything, we should at least bemoan the fact that the "Frozen" soundtrack was selling six-figure tallies months after it was released, yet fans who raced to buy Carey's and Lopez's albums 10 or 15 years ago are now thrusting a cold, hard "no, thanks" their way.

The Diva Decline | Create Infographics

Albums mentioned in above graphic:

Janet Jackson:

"Damita Jo" (2004), "20 Y.O." (2006), "Discipline" (2008)

Jennifer Lopez:

"Rebirth" (2005), "Brave" (2007), "Love?" (2011), "A.K.A." (2014)

Mariah Carey:

"The Emancipation of Mimi" (2005), "E=MC2" (2008), "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel" (2009), "Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse" (2014)

Madonna:

"Confessions on a Dance Floor" (2005), "Hard Candy" (2008), "MDNA" (2012)

Christina Aguilera:

"Back to Basics" (2006), "Bionic" (2010), "Lotus" (2012)

Beyonce:

"B'Day" (2006), "I Am... Sasha Fierce" (2008), "4" (2011), "Beyoncé" (2013)

Britney Spears:

"Blackout" (2007), "Circus" (2008), "Femme Fetale" (2011), "Britney Jean" (2013)

Katy Perry:

"One of the Boys" (2008), "Teenage Dream" (2010), "Prism" (2013)

Lady Gaga:

"The Fame" (2008), "Born This Way" (2011), "Artpop" (2013)

 

Also on HuffPost:

[Rock & Roll Hall of Game]

Kiiiii at John Mayer being named about outselling majority of the divas

Where Mimi?!

That means Carey's and Lopez's seats at the "American Idol" judges' table did nothing to bolster mass appeal and their well-publicized personal lives didn't translate to acclaim for their music.

[lexus97]

http://e.infogr.am/the-diva-decline

 

if anyone can post the chart please do

[Bailey]

the chart is pretty cool it's interactive you can scroll over a bar in the graph and it displays sales for that album's first week. Problem is though what they do not include in their data is the longevity of an album, many of those albums sold what they did first week based on that artist's fan base, Madonna first week sales should always be predictable to reach 100k, her die hard fans alone will come out, to some degree Janet can count on the same. What they don't speak about is Madonna's historical drop in sales the second week of MDNA and the fall it took right outta the charts. Damito Jo did go platinum

[trackboy]

 

Well Mariah had this weird marketing-but-no-marketing-campaign and J-Lo had I Love You Papi. Not necessarily instant classics that make me want to run and go buy their albums.

[T.C]

It's piracy

[DasSad]

Sade sold very well. It's about the music and the timing

[Kishi]

Sade did 500k in the first week with Soldier Of Love in the USA and ended with 1.5 million. That's decent, but not amazing.

[Rock & Roll Hall of Game]

Sade did 500k in the first week with Soldier Of Love in the USA and ended with 1.5 million. That's decent, but not amazing.

That's amazing in 2010

Katy Perry struggled to get there

[Shawn1814]

Sade sold very well. It's about the music and the timing

She was gone for damn near 10 years.. 

[janetDAYZ]

She was gone for damn near 10 years..

That's timing! She "preserved" ...building up anticipation. The public waiting for your return. It doesnt work for every artist tho.

[Kishi]

That's amazing in 2010

Katy Perry struggled to get there

 

But Teenage Dream has had great longevity...it charted for over 2 years and is at 2.8 million in the USA right now. SOL was front loaded.

[jarrylf]

That's decent, but not amazing.

That's what I call 100-200K. Anything beyond 300k is not just decent today.

[Rock & Roll Hall of Game]

That's what I call 100-200K. Anything beyond 300k is not just decent today.

0-450k is a flop

Decent is 500-750k

Good is 750k-1m

Great is beyond that

[Illi]

I ask this every now and then, but should the RIAA adjust its certifications to reflect the state of the industry more?

[janetDAYZ]

I ask this every now and then, but should the RIAA adjust its certifications to reflect the state of the industry more?

I truly don't understand why they haven't. It's a new day..its not yesteryears industry anymore.

[Bailey]

I ask this every now and then, but should the RIAA adjust its certifications to reflect the state of the industry more?

if they did what would be the incentive? Money drives the industry, in order to get certifications especially back catalog, artists have to have someone pay to get that done, If they change the system the only thing I could see happening is newer artists bragging about inflated certifications attempting to compare them against artists before them that actually did better. You wanna turn platinum status from a million sold to say 500k? Gold to 100K?

[janetDAYZ]

We're not even talkin about artists certifying their sales We're saying by adjusting it would be easier to measure what "success" is in today's industry. Cuz as you see...even on this board we debate if platinum is good or incredible today. We have come to our own assessment ..instead of their actually being a scale that fits the musical climate of sales in 2014

It's no different than how we use inflation to compare the gross of tours from years ago to today, to get a more accurate comparison.

[Rock & Roll Hall of Game]

The only difference is, certification is based solely on population

With 350M people.. I'm not sure how they would go about that. And just bc music sux today doesn't mean the States should award shitty artists

We as music consumers should measure how well an artist does individually.. And Not based on critics.. But based on how many units they can push...