Albums that bombed

[Tramp The Dirt Down]

Albums that bombed

Didn't it take almost 40 years for the Ramones debut album to go gold?

[delicatemoth]

Albums that bombed

I thought the big one of these was the Dexy's Midnight Runners album, Don't Stand Me Down. They were mercilessly mocked for the 'office junior' look they adopted and for the talking bits on the record, and it flopped. Now generally recognised as a classic by most people who own a copy.

The other one I remember from my childhood was Nik Kershaw's third album, 'Radio Musicola'. No-one told my local Woolys that taste had moved on, so they ended up with tons of copies that were swiftly reduced to £1.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Albums that bombed

zbiginho wrote: Kaiser chiefs was the first band I thought of when I saw the thread title. Think their first album outsold the second more than 10 to 1.

Surely the big bomb of 1967 was not forever changes, but smiley smile?

Smiley Smile got to 41 in Billboard and 9 on the British charts.

[gavc23]

Albums that bombed

Kiss - Music From The Elder is/was a notorious disaster.

Though they didn't help themselves by being Kiss, putting it in a brown sleeve and trying to be clever.

[Jah Womble]

Albums that bombed

Kaiser chiefs was the first band I thought of when I saw the thread title. Think their first album outsold the second more than 10 to 1.

Nope - Employment sold two million in the UK (180,000 in the US), while Yours Truly, Angry Mob did just under a million (125,000 US). The latter also housed the band's only number one single (Ruby).

The drop-off seems to have begun with Off With Their Heads (2008), which still shifted a quarter of a million copies here, while The Future is Mediaeval (2011) didn't get out of five figures. The latest, Education (x3) and War, returned the Kaisers to number one in March, but I've no idea of figures.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Albums that bombed

Walt Flanagans Dog wrote: Neither Fish nor Flesh (nor Any Fucking Good, to give it its unofficial subtitle at the time) by Terence Trent D'Arby was a big drop in sales from his debut album, although Wiki reckons it still went gold in the UK so not that spectacular (but probably rarely played if it's as bad as people made out at the time).

Neither Fish nor Flesh isn't a bad album. And the single, This Side of Love, was pretty good.

[Jah Womble]

Albums that bombed

But the main point is that nobody bought it. According to Wiki, that single peaked at UK #83 - which presumably means it sold around seven copies.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Albums that bombed

Wasn’t Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s second album Liverpool considered an anticlimactic flop, coming as it did after the 3 million plus selling behemoth Welcome To The Pleasuredome?

[Gangster Octopus]

Albums that bombed

Jah Womble wrote: But the main point is that nobody bought it [Neither Fish Nor Fowl]. According to Wiki, that single peaked at UK #83 - which presumably means it sold around seven copies.

Which, equally presumably, means that I'm the only person on earth who bought it without buying the first album...

[Jah Womble]

Albums that bombed

Well, it was the single Stumpy mentioned that only sold to TTd'A's immediate family. But, probably, yes.

[Jah Womble]

Albums that bombed

Wasn’t Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s second album Liverpool considered an anticlimactic flop, coming as it did after the 3 million plus selling behemoth Welcome To The Pleasuredome?

To me, that record was no more an anti-climax than the first album - which was little more than the singles (which everybody had bought anyway) and a whole load of covers and filler material.

(But in terms of sales, you're right of course...)

[Auntie Beryl]

Albums that bombed

Jah Womble wrote:

Kaiser chiefs was the first band I thought of when I saw the thread title. Think their first album outsold the second more than 10 to 1.

Nope - Employment sold two million in the UK (180,000 in the US), while Yours Truly, Angry Mob did just under a million (125,000 US). The latter also housed the band's only number one single (Ruby).

The drop-off seems to have begun with Off With Their Heads (2008), which still shifted a quarter of a million copies here, while The Future is Mediaeval (2011) didn't get out of five figures. The latest, Education (x3) and War, returned the Kaisers to number one in March, but I've no idea of figures.

The current Kaiser Chiefs album has sold 100k year to date. It's one of the top 40 best sellers of the year, which is quite some comeback.

[Auntie Beryl]

Albums that bombed

Of more recent artists the Lady Gaga sales curve is quite something. Certifications are from Wikipedia so take care:

The Fame/Fame Monster reissue: 9x platinum (at least 2.7 million UK sales)
Born This Way: 3x platinum (upwards of 900k)
Artpop: Gold (100-300k)
A duets album with Tony Bennett: lord alone knows

[Lucia Lanigan]

Albums that bombed

Recent members of successful groups who've gone solo and tanked harder than Don Henley in his desert hideout: Tulisa out of the N Dubs (low four figures, despite major fame) and Gormo out of The Razorlights (triple figures despite being Gormo out of the Razorlights).

[Bored Of Education]

Albums that bombed

Selected Ambient Works 85-92 wrote: I'm talking about big-name artists putting out albums that completely stiffed and sold a tiny fraction of what might have been expected.

Ah, ok. That stops me listing my musical output then.

[ralf hooter]

Albums that bombed

I remember working in a record shop back in the day with many boxes of Stevie Wonder's Secret Life of Plants that people chose not to buy.

[My Name Is Ian]

Albums that bombed

Those Lady Gaga numbers are extraordinary, if true.

It's a very graceful downward curve, mind. 2.7m, 900k, 300k, 100k. To complete it perfectly, that duets album seems destined to sell no copies whatsoever.

[George]

Albums that bombed

The sales figures for Born This Way were (artificially) boosted by a cut-price download deal on Amazon iirc. The sleeve to that record was so comically shit that it deserved to sell almost two million copies less than it's predecessor anyway. There are some fantastical numbers kicking around regarding the amount of money Interscope pissed up the wall for ArtPop as well.

[WOM]

Albums that bombed

Still pretty good for lukewarm remakes of 30 year old Madonna songs.

[Andy C]

Albums that bombed

It might have recovered a bit wit the passage of time for all I know, bud didn't Mick Jagger's She's the Boss struggle to shift double figures in the first year or so of release?