The fourth single/hit!

[Janice Johnson]

I have a confession to make. I consider an album successful when it hits it's fourth single/hit. Like, I consider Destiny Fulfilled a BIG success, because it has 5 singles/hits. I consider Emancipation Of Mimi successful because it has four singles/hits, I consider Gwen Stefani's Love Angel Music Baby a BIG success because it has 5 singles/hits, Kelly's Breakaway succesful because it has 4 singles/hits, and I consider Monkey Business(Black Eyed Peas) succesful because it has fourl singles/hits. Whenever an artist comes out with a hot album, I always count how many hits the radio plays, until they play the fourth sinlge/hit from the album. Then I consider the CD succesful. One album had a whopping 6 hits(out of nine songs on the album) in 1986 and was about to have seven,, but her company didn't want her to be overexposed! (BIG succesful album)! Then she hit it big again with an album in 1989 again, this time 7 hits out of 12 songs on the album, still a BIG success)

[SBTB Geek]

3 or less singles

TLC, Fanmail [6x platinum]
---"Silly Ho" (radio only)
---"No Scrubs"
---"Unpretty"

NSYNC, No Strings Attached [11x]
---"Bye, Bye, Bye"
---"It's Gonna Be Me"
---"This I Promise You

Ashlee Simpson, Autobiography [3x]
---"Pieces of Me"
---"Shadow"
---"La La"

Hilary Duff, Metamorphosis [3x]
---"So Yesterday"
---"Come Clean"

Backstreet Boys, Millennium [13x]
---"I Want It That Way"
---"Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely"
---"Larger Than Life"

Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP [9x]
---"The Real Slim Shady"
---"Stan"
---"The Way I Am"

50 Cent, The Massacre [2x]
---"Disco Inferno" (radio only)
---"Candy Shop"
---"Just a Lil Bit"

Destiny's Child, Survivor [4x]
---"Survivor"
---"Bootylicious"
---"Emotion"


----

4 or more singles

Destiny's Child, Destiny Fulfilled [3x]
---"Lose My Breath"
---"Soldier"
---"Girl"
---"Cater 2 U"

Kelly Clarkson, Breakaway [4x]
---"Since U Been Gone"
---"Behind These Hazel Eyes"
---"Because of You"
---"Walk Away"

Black Eyed Peas, Monkey Business [3x]
---"Don't Phunk With My Heart"
---"Don't Lie"
---"My Humps"
---"Gone Going" (radio only)
---"Like That"
---"Bebot" (club single)
---"Pump It" (planned


Mariah Carey, The Emancipation of Mimi [5x]
---"It's Like That"
---"We Belong Together"
---"Shake It Off"
---"Get Your Number"
---"Mine Again" (radio only)
---"Don't Forget About Us"
---"Stay the Night" (planned
---"So Loney (One & Only Pt. II)"

Green Day, American Idiot [4x]
---"American Idiot"
---"Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
---"Holiday"
---"Wake Me Up When September Ends"
---"St. Jimmy"
---"Jesus of Suburbia" (radio only as of 1/06 - video planned)



It seems to me that most albums w/ less singles are actually more successful. Labels invest less but still manage to get GREAT profit.

LOL, Hollywood Rec. only allowed 2 singles (with cheap videos, btw) to promote Hilary's debut and the album still sold 3 million!!! Mariah and Green Day needed 6 and 8 singles with MULTIMILLION budget videos just to sell 4 million.

TLC sold 6 mil with technically only 2 singles. With 7 singles, BEP has only sold 3 mil.

[lockdown06]

I try not to judge a singer on how they get played on the radio. While a lot of it is great, most of it is garbage which should be used to torture Iraqis with.

[Dean Winchester]

Originally Posted by SBTB Geek

3 or less singles

Backstreet Boys, Millennium [13x]
---"I Want It That Way"
---"Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely"
---"Larger Than Life"

you forgot "The One"

[Dean Winchester]

one thing you forget tho is that except for Eminem, the examples you used of big cd's that petered out with 3 or less singles are not exactly big catalog sellers these years later. In 2005, "No Strings Attached" scanned 8,000 copies and "Millennium" scanned 12,000. Yet at the same time, "Come On Over", an album that almost plays as a Shania Twain Greatest Hits cd scanned 77,000 and "Jagged Little Pill" managed to sell 100,000... a decade after its release. The fact that those cd's were loaded with so many hits has kept people buying them years later, maybe even replacing worn out copies of it, yet sales of No Strings Attached and Millennium (and this was even helped with the fact that BSB had a new cd in 2005, when the artist has new product out, catalog sales go up) are practically dead now. I wonder if N'Sync had released one or two more singles if it'd given the album enough familiarity that people would still be picking it up the way COO and JLP still sell well.


Take a look at the Catalog charts, I saw a website that listed the top pre-1990 sellers of the Soundscan era, and outside of the obligatory "Greatest Hits" albums, it's albums such as Thriller, Purple Rain, Born In The U.S.A., Appetite For Destruction, Hysteria, Rumours, Grease, Saturday Night Fever... (as well as literally every Beatles title) that are the ones that have managed to sell in the millions in the Soundscan era, all of those albums were milked dry with hit singles, and people are still buying them in reasonable numbers because those albums all serve as practical "hits collections" as well because there is so much familiarity with those albums even from people buying them the first time.

Considering BEP's Monkey Business has only been out of the top 10 about four weeks in the past seven months, I don't think it's fair for you to label the album a flop. I really cannot believe you called Breakaway a flop either. It is not fair to compare 2005 sales to 1999 sales because the industry is completely different now. Albums like Breakaway, American Idiot, Monkey Business, L.A.M.B., The Massacre and Mimi ARE the blockbusters of the present-time. You almost remind me of the person who called "Come Away With Me" a flop because it didn't sell as well as "Baby One More Time", seriously. Plus, when you talk about how great 1999 sales were... "Fanmail" didn't sell as well as "CrazySexyCool", a cd that had four smash hits off it.