Cognizant

Ariana has yet to garner a 3,5, 6 or 7 peak on the UK Singles Chart.

new number nine peak for Ariana!

Surprised at Holy's longevity.

Hoping Ariana cleared 30k in the albums.. interested to see the final sales for the albums this week. Sweet Melody has held up fantastically well and hopefully it can get a new peak (top-five?) next week.

Yikes.

Poor sales for Ariana.. might not even clear 30k. Without wanting to get attacked, this is a huge disappointment. The same goes for Samuel.

You ‘don’t appreciate being told what can and can’t happen’ yet you continuously clamp down on opinions that differ to your own? The irony! Like others have said, Joseph you do not own this forum, please stop acting like you do. Im not going to add anymore to the discourse here.

He is right. And to be quite frank Joseph, we are allowed to call an album an underperformance if we wish. This is a forum where we are allowed to scrutinise everything. Sorry but 30k is absolutely disappointing. Ariana Grande had a huge hit this year with Lady Gaga, and a minor one with Justin Bieber. She should be doing 40k minimum, even more in quarter four. It’s also disappointing to see positive opinions about female artists voiced without any resistance on this forum when if we were talking about a hypothetical underperformance from Lewis Capaldi’s second album, everyone would be more likely to brand it an underperformance off the bat. FYI Ariana is also underperforming in the States too; Positions is currently projected to do 260k, a drop of 100k from Thank U, Next. Also we are not branding the album a flop, merely an underperformance, please understand the nuance!

I agree with you Joseph but 30k is still disappointing considering Ariana has quite the name now and has hype from her name alone!

I mean Bruce did it last week? I would have thought Ariana would have been the artist to knock it out of the park tbh.

If Positions clears 30k by the end of the week, I’m sure her camp would take that as a disappointing result... a near enough 50% drop from Thank U, Next, released just 20 months ago. I’m an Ariana fan by the way, and have mellowed to the album after some initial resistance. I’m just analysing the stats and 30k in quarter four is for sure disappointing for an artist of her calibre. All of the above also applies to Sam Smith as well considering The Thrill Of It All opened with close to 100k three years ago, with just one big hit preceding it. Also, any idea where King Harry is with Golden?

Does anyone know what Dangerous Woman, Sweetner and Thank U, Next opened with?

Exactly!

Have you heard of paragraphs! That was a chore to read.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting Ariana is flopping, more so that the album is, so far, underperforming in comparison to the juggernaut that is Thank U, Next. I personally think she should have taken a longer break from music to recharge her batteries and come up with a better album. She already had two hits this year and I think looking in retrospect, Ariana will realise that releasing her sixth studio album now wasn’t strategically sound.

Without sounding too premature, it’s safe to say that the Positions era is a slight underperformance in comparison to Thank U, Next.

Jesus Christ I wasn’t expecting such low sales for Ari and Sam. Echoing what others have said and hoping it’s just a ‘things haven’t shipped yet’ and ‘streaming hasn’t been accounted for’ situation.

Not ‘pitting female artists against each other’ at all! We’re comparing Ariana to her peers... there is a nuanced difference.

Agreed!! I can’t wait until Plastic Hearts (Miley Cyrus’ forthcoming record) is released on November 27th.

How has little mix dropped that much??? I’m so confused!

Miley!

Cohesive, yes. Or maybe a nice way of calling it bland haha.

For all the Golden fans, it debuted at 44. Hopefully it will climb next week.

Positions (song) is great. As for the album....

Looking forward to seeing the sales...