Latest Site News

[Ne Plus Ultra]

From The Guardian...

Before Blurred Lines became the biggest selling and most controversial single of last year, Robin Thicke didn’t really sell that many records in the UK. Last week's release of Paula, a “concept album” in which he tries to win back his estranged wife, swiftly propelled him back into sales obscurity, shifting a meagre 530 copies in its first week in the UK. Thicke is not the first artist to experience such a dramatic fall from grace, so perhaps he can take some comfort from the list below and know that – apart from in his marriage, of course – he is not alone after all.

Mariah Carey – Glitter (2001)

Total UK sales = 55,080
At the time of release, Carey was the biggest solo artist in the world, so an album tied into a film in which she starred was, on paper at least, a banker. Unfortunately, the film was one of the biggest turkeys ever, and sales-wise the album tanked. For her eighth album, Carey left Sony, the label that had nurtured her into multimillion sales in the 1990s, and went to Virgin, a move no doubt helped by a five-album deal estimated at $80m. Glitter came out on September 11, which has retrospectively been used to justify why it sold so badly, but the relationship with Virgin was problematic and strained from the beginning, and five months later the label reportedly paid her $28m to sever the contract. In 2002 she signed to Island and released Charmbracelet which set her back on the road to sales recovery. Her next album, 2005’s The Emancipation of Mimi, sold 12m copies globally, her most successful album in a decade.


Duffy – Endlessly (2010)

Total UK sales = 203,234
Most acts today would kill to sell 200,000 albums, but it’s the scale of the drop that is significant here. Rockferry, Duffy's debut album in 2008, sold 2.2m. Things were initially rosy. She came second in the BBC’s Sound Of 2008, just behind Adele, but soon left her English rival choking on her sales dust as Rockferry cornered the market for faux-60s albums about heartache. But things changed radically when both artists released their second albums, just two months apart. Duffy’s album withered like a balloon, as 21 set its sights on world domination, selling over 30m copies globally. Duffy’s prospects for further success were not helped when, during the making of her second album, she sacked her manager Jeannette Lee and binned key songwriters like Bernard Butler.


Guns N' Roses – Chinese Democracy (2008)

Total UK sales = 365,899
Much like in Duffy's case, Guns N' Roses' sales of Chinese Democracy were the kind that an average band in 2014 would welcome, but the problem with this release was how much money it had taken to create it in the 17 years since GNR had last released original material (1991’s indulgent Use Your Illusion I and II). The studio spend has been estimated at $13m, so the album was never going to recoup. All original members of the band had long been eviscerated as singer Axl Rose became the all-powerful Kim Jong-il of hair metal. Replacement members joined and left with rapidity, while the album seemingly came no closer to completion. The band sporadically played shows to road-test material, but soon retreated to their studio bunker, hinting at release dates and then cancelling them. In the time they had been locked away, grunge, Britpop, nu-metal, drum'n'bass, speed garage, grime and TV talent-show pop had all come and (for the most part) gone, meaning the “most dangerous band in the world” had become the most unheeded band in the world.


Mick Jagger – Goddess in the Doorway (2001)

Total UK sales = 80,778
Released at a time when the public were barely interested in a new Rolling Stones album, Mick's fourth solo venture was a classic case of hubris (yes, amazingly he was allowed to make four). The warning signs were there from the start, when collaborators such as Lenny Kravitz and the guy from Matchbox Twenty got involved, and the situation was further compounded by Bono and Pete Townshend sticking their oars in. In his autobiography Life, Keith Richards compares the album to Mein Kampf: "Everyone had it, but no one read it." Sadly, Goddess in the Doorway didn't even scrape into the UK top 40. Jagger finally realised who was buttering his bread and threw his efforts into new Stones compilations and tours and – aside from the indulgences of the SuperHeavy “project” – a solo life for Jagger seems, thankfully, on ice.


Glasvegas – Euphoric /// Heartbreak \\\ (2011)

UK sales to date = 30,417
Their self-titled 2008 debut album sold more than 300,000 copies, reached No 2 in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury prize. But with so much hype surrounding them, after a gap of three years and overthinking concepts, the public had moved on. Aware that their schtick – essentially Rab C Nesbitt at a Fonzie fancy dress party – would wear thin very quickly, they opted for a “change in direction”. This meant original drummer Caroline McKay, uniforms of black and their moody Jesus & Mary Chain guitars were all out, and synths and white jeans were in. Lead singer James Allan eventually went public on the issues that dogged the album, which was made in sunny Santa Monica, California, blaming megalomania powered by cocaine and a breakdown while on tour with Kings of Leon. Columbia dropped them and last year’s Later...When the TV Turns to Static (a miserable 6,248 sales to date) did nothing to stop the rot.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog...roses-glasvegas

Poor Mariah and Duffy. Both albums were pretty good.