What now constitutes a flop?
dodger0703
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Having seen threads on here over last few weeks asking 'Is this single a flop?' 'Is this person flopping?' I have begun to wonder what a 'flop' actually is!
Do people not just buy music they like anymore, has it got to be a so called commercial success to buy something.
Surely with the proliferation of songs on youtube and illegal downloading there is very little reason to buy singles especially.
Do people not just buy music they like anymore, has it got to be a so called commercial success to buy something.
Surely with the proliferation of songs on youtube and illegal downloading there is very little reason to buy singles especially.
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Like when a film doesn't make it's budget at the box office.
I personally can't see how Christina Aguilera has made her label any money with the flops that have been Bionic and Lotus. Both albums have failed to give her a hit.
Well if it sells 6 million its most certainly not a flop, in your opinion you may not like or it doesn't rank alongside other stuff they have released, but 6 million people will have disagreed with you
Totally disagree with this. If something sells huge amounts of copies it is not a flop.
hahaha :D
depends whether the measure is art or commerce;)
It gets particularly bad with singles. Apparently a single is only a success if it gets #1 to some. Pretty funny really when you can get a #1 with next to no sales here and plummet the next week.
The quality of Art is indefinable therefore un-measurable
so if Adele only sold 20m of her next album that would be a flop ???
I don't know about that. 'Shawshank Redemption', 'Blues Brothers' and 'Bladerunner' were all commercially unsuccessful on their first releases but you would not call them flops now!
Probably true, but there are songs that do bounce about the lower end of the singles chart and have a degree of stickability. Emile Sande's 'Read All About It?
Albums can stick around even longer in this way as they gradually begin to sell outside the fanbase (or not?)
That's not completely true. Critical success can be measured by the number of favourable reviews an album gets. Nicola Roberts' 'Cinderella's Eyes' for example was critically well received and had a number of excellent tracks but didn't sell all that many.
Good point..consider Michael Jackson's 'Bad', the follow up to 'Thriller', 'Bad' didn't sell as many but it was definitely not a flop!
It is the perennial question of what does the pop in pop music and pop culture mean? Does it describe a type of music or is it just about the numbers?
It wouldn't be a flop, but people would claim it's a flop. People even claim Skyfall is a flop.
You know what I mean! And also, how long would it take her to reach 20m with her next album???
I agree, but unlike films its harder to find out how much an album cost to record.
Guns N' Roses 'Chinese Democracy' is reported to be the most expensive album ever recorded at a cost of $14million, following years of re-writes, delays, abandoned recording sessions...it then only sold modestly.
Young was a success and Live It Up was a flop. But if Sight For You enters around the same position as Live It Up then it is not a flop as these two singles would 'represent' how well she normally charts. If her fourth single enters the top 25 then it can't be called a flop because the album is out and singles normally chart lower if the album is out. If it fails to enter the top 40 then it's a flop. Her album is a flop because it's had large amounts of promotion and airplay and isn't in the top 15. If she was a new artist then this would not be a flop because this would be 'her debut' but her previous releases with N-Dubz have gone top ten and all have gone platinum (the first double platinum), her fellow band mate also managed a top 10 placing for he's album so a top 15 placement changes so despite this, technically being her debut she has expectations
So to sum it up a flop consists of many things, Christina Aguleria and Alanis Morissette's new albums will end up with pretty much the same amount of sales but Christina's is a flop and Alanis's is not.
It's a rather woolly, naff, weak verb that implies something not very impressive. So by my logic, it is difficult to "flop spectacularly" because that is less "flopping" to failure as smashing into it at 90 mph
i suppose if an project makes money back even if it just breaks even i see that as sort of success tbh