I generally dont enjoy the huge falls that so many albums experience on the album chart, for so many albums they are literally dead after week 1 so in that way Kylie is doing alright and i still think it will bounce back a bit at some point

Hands Slaps!!!! Soooo Good!

The chorus of 'Hands' is really catchy, I just wish the rest of the song was as good.

I like ‘Hands’ (although to be honest there is nothing on the album that I really dislike), not sure I’m getting the call for it to be a single though, not that it matters too much as whatever is released post album won’t have a huge impact unless we get another viral moment.

^ or if there is a feature. Hands is the one most likely but surely HOTN is promoted next with a video.

 

Who knows they might just move on to a tour or a reissue sometime next year.

Hands is a chorus too short for me and that kills the buzz.

I generally dont enjoy the huge falls that so many albums experience on the album chart, for so many albums they are literally dead after week 1 so in that way Kylie is doing alright and i still think it will bounce back a bit at some point

Seeing Jay's great analysis, the Ellie Goulding chart "run" was the biggest shocker of them all!

The circular argument about the level of success for this album is for me a result of you can never truly have a properly successful album these days without good streaming numbers which it doesn't have.

 

So whilst Tension has done well on physical sales first week (which we know is in a big part thanks to fans buying multiple copies), the album has in no way broken through to the general public and they aren't listening to it on mass.

 

Padam padam maybe gave false hope this might happen but it just hasn't. So it is a success in terms of garnering as many physical sales from her fans as possible but in terms of success outside of that its streaming numbers show it has been largely ignored.

Well, for any album to hold up and be competitive in today's market you need at least 3 tracks on it that are big legitimate hits (on streaming)

 

We all know Kylie isn't a big streaming artist. I won't lie, I did hope for a bit better but I completely get it.

Yep she needs almost more singles and remixes and get songs on as many playlists as possible

^^ As mentioned 1-2 hits don’t create a hit album in the streaming era as Doja Cat has just proved with her album.

 

Joel Corry is a great example whos album is basically a greatest hits, he went 24-27-29-34-32-26-24-21-27-35-32-37 as a streaming release only before the downloads and physicals pushed it to #5 followed by a slump to 28.

Edited October 24, 20231 yr by ___∆___

https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/music/news/k...-awesome-33720/

^^ As mentioned 1-2 hits don’t create a hit album in the streaming era as Doja Cat has just proved with her album.

 

Joel Corry is a great example whos album is basically a greatest hits, he went 24-27-29-34-32-26-24-21-27-35-32-37 as a streaming release only before the downloads and physicals pushed it to #5 followed by a slump to 28.

 

But in 2 years his album will have sold a fair bit more than Tension.

 

That is the point Kylie's physicals are short term success and many albums behind her on the year to date chart will likely be ahead of her in 3 years time as they keep selling through streaming.

 

Kylie can flog 50k physicals to her fans through multi fornats if it was just 12 tracks of her burping, the true test and measure of success for her has to be trying to up her streaming numbers and sales. Jay pointed put it was actually doing less streaming sales than Disco week two.

Getting her streaming numbers up is gonna be an uphill battle, 'Padam' was a fluke success and 'Tension' did well for her but the only way I can see any meaningful boost in this album's streaming sales happening is if for example a current dance act wanted her to feature on their track off the back of this, it's a hit and they add it to the album as a bonus track on streaming platforms (which I'd like to think isn't completely outside the realms of possibility)

Edited October 24, 20231 yr by Jessie Where

It's very difficult for new albums to do well in terms of streaming sales (via Official Charts Company's methodology) particularly when the artist isn't hugely in favour with Spotify, and that applies to Kylie for sure.

 

A lot of the albums that keep selling consistently because of streaming, do so because there's numerous tracks from the album that are littered across countless playlists. Now of course there'll be plenty of people listening to, say, Olivia Rodrigo's latest album from start to finish (or a selection of the tracks they want to hear). However, to quite a large extent, it's also an album which will have a significant proportion of its streaming sales accumulate from a mass of people who aren't truly consuming it as an album. Tens of thousands (or maybe hundreds of thousands) of people in the UK may stream 3 or 4 songs from it, perhaps. Many will be passively. Yet this'll convert to thousands of sales in streaming. Olivia's one of the biggest artists in the world and her songs are guaranteed to get a huge amount of exposure on streaming playlists. That's what really helps make an album become a streaming hit with impact that lasts for weeks, months, even years.

 

There's little to no chance of that happening with Kylie. Padam Padam was something of a fluke in terms of support. Tension received mild support. You're not going to find the rest of the album on a large amount of playlists. I don't have the stats, I'm speculating, but I would assume that what the album achieves in streaming sales is predominently down to the few who are still accessing the album as an album, they specifically want to hear it. But that's not going to convert to many thousands of streaming sales.

 

The thing is, in Apple Music's album chart, Tension is still as high as #22 currently - or 11th when you only consider albums released in 2023. So people on that platform are consuming the album, in a chart which I'm led to believe is focused on the album actually being listened to as an album. 5 weeks in, there's clearly still some interest on Apple. But Official Charts don't weight things in favour of that. Which is why the album chart is in the state it's in, with Greatest Hits and old studio albums dominating in abundance. Is Katy Perry - Teenage Dream in the Apple Music Top 200 currently? No. Is it at #55 in the OCC album chart, almost thirty places higher than Tension? Yes. All thanks to it having 8 smash hit singles, which in OCC's methodology goes hugely in its favour.

 

Attaining consistently high streaming sales isn't just a problem for Kylie, of course. As we can see from this thread I posted earlier that a huge proportion of new albums released in 2023 fade away after the first week. Pushed under numerous Greatest Hits and old albums. The "Year to Date Top 200 albums of 2023" list barely represents music released in 2023...

 

With Kylie, I don't think it's fair to suggest that it's not a properly successful album because it's not able to break the glass ceiling of streaming, which at the end of the day is one consumption method. Its pure sales may be frontloaded, but convincing thousands of people to part with ~£25 for a vinyl is not something every artist can do as successfully as Kylie can. It's the 5th best selling vinyl of 2023 with approaching 20,000 of them sold over pre-order and first week. If you look at the list it's interesting to see which artists she's ahead of. I won't name names because it tends to open up a can of worms. :kink: There's undoubtedly way more value in selling 20,000 vinyl than getting 20,000 streaming units.

I think BMG and Kylie know what they are doing.

 

They have been sat on those pre-orders for months and probably have more lined up for the promo/Xmas market.

 

Album tracks won't get on playlists. However 10 out of 10 has actually done very well in longevity since March and its getting 30-40k of streams a day still.

 

She needs remixes by big DJs Calvin, Tiesto, Alok etc to get on playlists, for that they will have to pay

Obviously albums with multiple hits will get better streaming thus sales. Streaming has made this much more important but it was always the case that an album with 5 hits on it would sell more and for longer than an album with one hit. That is why artists kept releasing single after single long after albums were released back in the day.

 

Now it just needs to be the other way round, if Kylie or her team truly wanted to do the best streaming wise surely 4 or 5 pre album singles would have been the best bet, minimum of three.

 

As I said Kylie can get 50k physical sales no matter what so why they didn't wait and get multiple singles out is anyone's guess. Random album tracks wont often get playlisted for any artist but singles will even on smaller playlists.

I think they could've at least done with having a 3rd promo track out before the album, a bit like Golden and Disco had.

As I said Kylie can get 50k physical sales no matter what so why they didn't wait and get multiple singles out is anyone's guess.

Because it would have cost them more, and the financial investment wouldn't have been worth it.

 

I think there'll be one more single and then they will move on to promoting a re-issue with new tracks.

I think the biggest shock for me is that in the last 6 months (maybe more?) streaming seems to have really accelerated its impact on the album chart.

 

In terms of chart weeks Kylie had 27 (Golden), 20 (SBIT), 17 (Disco) and is now struggling for a 5th week with Tension.

 

Rick Astley 42 weeks (50), Beautiful Life (19), Best Of Me (10) and is likely to be out after 2 weeks with his new album.

 

There seems to be no chance for artists that have dominance in physicals and downloads to complete and the bottom end of the charts feels more clogged up than normal with collections by Phil Collins, Pitbull, Killers, Billy Joel, Smiths and old albums by the likes of Bruno Mars, 50 Cent and Rihanna.

 

As has been mentioned there are so many albums that I doubt many are listening to all the way through or seeking out but contain multiple big hits that are playlisted (not convinced large numbers of people are searching for Pitbulls Greatest Hits in 2023).

 

Not sure what the OCC can do to rectify as ultimately the album is fast becoming a defunct format and they want sales to look as good as possible which is why they turn a blind eye to 20+ formats being released for albums every week and double counting of streams etc.,