There is no sensible justification for considering her a "flop", sorry.

You can't measure someones success or failure by falling short or surpassing what you or anyone else expected to happen. It involves far too much opinion.

Oh, and for the record; BTW (album) has topped the UK chart on a few separate occasions and BTW (single) has sold more than the majority of #1's the year, which has it in the top 10 songs of 2011. Incidentally, there's one Rihanna song two spots ahead of her and Katy Perry is nowhere to be seen above or below. On the album front, BTW is in the top 5 of the year, with Rihanna one spot ahead. Interestingly, The Fame is only a couple of thousand behind Katy's Teenage Dream (no. 17).


Sorry, using facts to counteract detractors opinions is somehow ill-advised?

The 99c deal was Amazon, not Lady Gaga or Interscope. We can question whether they knew or not (Amazon bought the album full price from them in order to sell for 99c), but there is no evidence to suggest it was their decision. On the contrary, evidence points to it being Amazon's (selecting a major album release, using a promotion to gain a greater market share over iTunes). And the deal was only for 2 days not a week. 1.5, technically, because demand crashed the servers so they gave people another shot.

If I remember correctly, the Amazon deal accounted for around 400k of her sales. Sizeable, but dwarfed by full priced purchases.

This is true. It wasn't just Amy saying it either. I believe the quotes thrown around were that Gaga would sell more in 4 weeks than Adele has sold in four months.. this was the period of Jan to April..

The reality however was slightly different in hindsight!

Sorry to derail your theory but amazon ran exactly the same deal on Rated R upon release. Just didn't do as well.

And Taylor Swift's Speak Now.

She's not that big, c'mon. Sorry I forgot the album had reached #1 but she's just over hyped, and I never actually said she'd flopped. I was simply giving my interpretation of why she's considered a flop, of course 5.0m WW sales isn't a flop, but when you consider what she was expected to reach it ain't that great, and Rihanna & Perry have sold similar amount but their fans are going around proclaiming they're the best thing since sliced bread.

Her singles haven't sold that well in the UK, You & I didn't even make the top 30, and only Born This Way reached the top 5. Once again I'm not saying she's flopped, or she sales are terrible, all I'm saying is she hasn't reached dizzying heights she was expected to..

Her singles have sold well, BTW has sold more than most #1's this year and EoG is at #27 on iTunes still after being a single since May...

Oh and speaking of Katy Perry album sales between her and Gaga are very different in the UK.

The Edge of Glory peaked at #6 on it's first week of sales.

What about You & I or Judas, in my opinion EOG is her only decent song of off the album so I would expect it to sell well.

Loud sold 1.7m
Teenage dream sold just over 700k
Born This Way has sold just over 500k

So yes Katy Perry & Rihanna have outsold Lady G in the UK, and to be fair Katy Perry's new album is 10x better.

Let's talk about when they we're released then. Katy's album is over a year old, this year it's sold less than 250k.. TFM has sold more than TD this year in the UK.

At what point did I even comment on how "big" she was or not?

You didn't directly say she flopped, nor did I directly say you were wrong for saying so. You were attempting to justify why some would think that, and I was discrediting the mere premise because it's ridiculous.

As I said, using people's expectations isn't a valid measurement of success or failure. Doesn't matter what you or anyone else thought would happen, that's a separate discussion. You can only judge success/failure on what did actually happen, and we have both established that she hasn't flopped.

Exaggerating and generalising her fanbase to prove your own point automatically weakens any valid argument, by the way.


Uhhuh. When exactly were those albums released? Pretty sure the first two have upwards of a year head start. BTW has only been out for 4/5 months. Invalid comparison.

Well, you just need to make a little visit to Mediatraffic to see what professional critics say about that. And I think you know there must be a reason why they are professional critics...

The person who said that is delusional. There was no way in the world that she sold 5 million in 2 moths. If TF only sold around 6 million in more than one year without its rerelease with TFM, there was simply no way in which 5 million in two months could happen. BTW, without the need of a rerelease will most likely outsell TF (without the rerelease) and TFM.

They sound like more realistic sales

I have heard unofficial reports saying at like 8 million.
5 million is good. I am sure by the end of the year with this apparent re-release, it's bound to sell another 2/3 million copies.

It's not being re-released it's a repackaging of the same CD.

That user is right.

Loads of Gaga fans on here were saying it at the time. I was one of the people saying it wouldn't happen so remember it well.

Yeah you can't compare sales from an album out since last November, though i don't think Gaga will be outsellling Loud without a big re release.

Born this way (single) registered the biggest sales this year over a 7 day period. 1d sold 153,000, gaga sold about 160,000 +. it may not have been in 1 charting week but it still sold what it sold in 7 days. and you & i will make top 30 this week

Comparing Gaga to past phenomenons it's quite underwhelming..

eg

According to 'BP4Lthe2nd'

The Fame/The Fame Monster sold 11,798,700
Born This Way has so far sold 5,001,200.

Whereas The Spice Girls first two records, according to the Times and the BBC...

Spice sold over 23,000,000 (If we're to believe Rolling Stone it's over 33 Million. I doubt this.)
Spice World sold over 20,000,000

It will be almost impossible for any artist today to reach those numbers because the industry has changed too much. People just don't buy records in those quantities anymore so of course Gaga's sells will be way below the level of the older artists who didn't have to compete with rampant piracy and the iTunes singles culture.

That said for the time that she is selling in Gaga's record sales are fantastic and I can't believe that anyone would consider BTW commercially disappointing in any way.

Different time with different sales.

Even Adele's magnificent sales will be nothing special when compared with artists from the past.

Backstreet Boys - Millennium sold 40 million copies in 1990's and If you could time travel back to then and tell them that the biggest album selling artist in the world in 2011 is only expected to sell 13m copies they would just laugh.

If you consider that the highest selling albums of the last few years have been selling 5-6m (way bellow Adele - which makes her feat even more incredible) and compare that to the 20m's of Britney's heyday, in 10 years time if sales keep decreasing we could even see the highest selling album of 2021 only selling 3m.

I know physical album sales are in decline but....at the same time, back in the day acts like The Spice Girls, BSB, Mariah, Celine, MJ, Madonna etc managed to get to that huge level of global domination without the aid of the internet, youtube, social networking etc. It could be argued that acts before all this had to work 10x harder to achieve the kind attention needed to garner these huge sales.

Gaga wears a meat dress to the VMAs.. all over twitter, cyber-word of mouth, millions of people who otherwise might not have seen it go and re-watch on youtube - instant snowballing promotion. The same with Adele's Brits performance. Times have changed in may ways..

if you like generic, feel good bubblegum pop, yeah.

Oh Cool. Thanks! - Interesting figure though. Would have really thought she sold much more in the US.

And obviously GaGa and her record company were forced at gun point to let Amazon make the deal - I admit I didn't get my facts right about the 99c Amazon deal story but C'mon! She's a smart cookie when it comes to business and promotion and she certainly saw her interest. And she didn't waste a minute to go on about how her new album is worth only 99c - so even though it's not her decision, I bet if she or her record company didn't see anything lucrative in it they would have found a way to call the deal off...So to me it has to do with the way BTW sold this year.
And I don't agree with you about expectations being invalid arguments to measure a flop. That'd apply to anybody who had an initial success with hype around it not only GaGa. The phenomenon she's become and the success she had with her first albums/singles have created a hype and naturally you'd expect she exceeds herself with BTW, instead her sales are not that much bigger than TF/M. It is obviously not a flop but that's something not to undermine in GaGa's saga.

I doubt it - It's 38 in midweek which means it'll be out of the Top 40 this week or next.