It’s all about sisterhood and teamwork and sticking together — until it looks like things are going badly that is.
Ariana Grande dropped the original soundtrack album to the Charlie’s Angels reboot last Friday, and the preliminary numbers aren’t looking good for the OST.
According to HITS Daily Double, the album has reportedly been projected to debut with sales of only 13-17k in the first week. And that includes the streaming numbers — pure album sales are estimated to end between 4-6k!
Ouch!
For reference, Ari’s previous album Thank U Next sold 360,000 copies in its first week, the best of her career, and before that Sweetener sold 231k in the first week. Last week, country quintet Old Dominion sold a total of 18,523.
(We’d never heard of Old Dominion before either, but there are also rumors they’re hooking up with Pete Davidson. LOLz!)
Photos: Pete Davidson’s *Actual* Dating History
As these numbers started to spread on social media, the Arianators circled the wagons to defend their queen: this wasn’t a solo release, no one buys movie soundtracks, that type of thing. All true, but also, you know… excuses. At the end of the day, Ari produced the album and sings on five tracks, including Don’t Call Me Angel with Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey (the music video of which is on Ariana’s YouTube channel).
If Beyoncé produced and sang on half the tracks on a soundtrack album, people would expect her star power to deliver some sales on that thing. Just sayin’.
Obviously one would expect the stans to defend the sales, but apparently Ari is doing the same — and distancing her personal cache from the disappointing numbers.
In a since-deleted tweet screen grabbed for posterity on Sunday evening, Ariana wrote:
“putting this back on the tl since y’all are already talking s**t about the numbers. 🙁 please stop treating this like a solo release / not a soundtrack / comparing it to ‘thank u next’. it’s ridiculous / makes me want to rip my eyes out with my bare hands. :’) love u.”
Yeesh!
That tweet was, as she said, to highlight an earlier sentiment in which she had responded to a fan, saying:
“you for putting the same pressure on it you do my own music ! y’all kill me sometimes i swear. it’s purpose is to add energy to and support the storytelling of a film. be excited ab it ! i’m so grateful you are ! but it’s ok for some things to just be different & explorative ?”
Oof.
Sorry, gurl, but how can we not compare your next release to your last? Even if it is a soundtrack and not the next big statement, it is kind of a statement.
But what kind of statement?
Frankly the more Ariana tries to distance herself from it, the more she sounds like she’s saying it’s just something she did because Sony paid her the big bucks in hopes she would generate interest in their reboot — and even sadder, that it didn’t work and she just doesn’t have that kind of four quarter movie audience appeal after all.
Anyway, that’s how we’re reading all this.
What do YOU think, Perezcious music execs??
[Image via BBC/WENN/Ariana Grande/YouTube.]
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