How the so called 'Goodbye Lullaby Flop' is only relative.

[Opinionated Brit]

So, after hearing some news from another user on here about how there are a lot of artists with declining album sales I decided to take a look into it and compare it to the 'horrible collapse' of Goodbye Lullaby that some people have been describing.

To do this I have made some line graphs of album successes from other prominent female artists who have been around for quite a long time.



(Note: Based on US sales figures only)
I may do the worldwide album sales soon but I know how you guys tend to judge stuff based on US sales.

Now, to analyse each chart individually.

Avril Lavinge
Avril had a very strong start with Let Go as we all know very well. Racking up almost 7 million US sales (From my source).

UMS sold less than half of that figure in the US.

TBDT around half again

and Goodbye Lullaby about a 5th of TBDT

One thing to note though is the gradient of the graph. The steepest decline was indeed from Let Go to UMS and from there on the graph has kept the same gradient, indicating a proportionate decline for the last 2 albums.

Christina Aguilera
Again, starts with a massive debut album sales figure yet suffers an equally massive decline in sales from her 1st to 2nd album with 'Stripped' selling less than 25% of her debut album.

From there on her performance dropped slightly more for 'Back to Basics' and then dropped again for Bionic, selling fewer albums than Goodbye Lullaby. Strange that this wasn't brought up more!

Beyonce
Beyonce had shown a more steady decline over her first 3 studio albums. Yet her fourth album '4' sold just over a third of what 'I am...Sasha Fierce' managed.

Britney
Seemingly not as invincible as some make her out to be. After two massive hit albums she started a very quick decline. Her current sales figures for her past 3 albums tend to be around the 1 million mark for the US. A far cry from her early 12 and 10 million sales.

Lady Gaga
A bit of an odd one out in this line up, being a more recent artist who hasn't been on the scene for too long. I just thought that I would highlight that she seems to be following the same trend already. With a 50% decline from one album to the next.

Madonna
She's been around for a very long time so I couldn't include all of her albums but for reference I included her biggest selling album and her 5 most recent. Her last 5 albums aren't even close to the sales figures of her first and her last 2 albums have had around the same sales figures as Goodbye Lullaby.



I could go on...

This trend seems to be occurring in almost all music artists with more than 2 albums now and I think it clearly shows that Avril was not the only one to suffer from lower album sales. Gone are the days when you can expect artist after artist to manage sales figures of nearing 10 million. With very few exceptions that doesn't really happen much any more and I hope this makes that clear.

O B

[Aven]

Thank u for putting so much effort into this! U did great.
Finally, other people will see that Avril is not the only one.

[Miles890]

Based only in the USA, Avril really had a great decline, just look from Let Go and UMS how big is the difference, almost 3 millions! TBDT one million and GL only 325.000! So in total she sold about 10 millions with 4 albums.
Beyoncè i svery steady, her decline was about one million or less per each album
DIL: 4,825,000
B-day: 3,300,000
IASF 2,900,000
4 :1,169,492 and she hadn't one single hit, at least Avril had WTH(peak 11) and a great longevity..but Bee has a very solid american fanbase!

Christina suffered and still suffers like Avril, she wasn't able to create a solid fanbase due to her long hiatus per each album and the completly change of style..as for Avril we all know the story!
Britney declined yes, but she is like Beyoncè: she can always count with a solid(former) fanbase.

Well Madonna, i don't think it's right to put her in this list since she has a 30years of career and she sold very much when internet still was an idea! And i think it's incredibile that she stills sold even if the music world is dominated by the youngers..


With Avril was a very delusional thing like it was with Christina's Bionic..2 massive artists with few hits and millions of copies sold,they only sold which was about to be their firts week. I thought that Avril would have sold 300-400 000 copies in her first week, not 87.000. I was shocked, SHOCKED!

[Opinionated Brit]

Thank u for putting so much effort into this! U did great.
Finally, other people will see that Avril is not the only one.

I know! It seemed like an unfair judgement to me.

Based only in the USA, Avril really had a great decline, just look from Let Go and UMS how big is the difference, almost 3 millions! TBDT one million and GL only 325.000! So in total she sold about 10 millions with 4 albums.
Beyoncè i svery steady, her decline was about one million or less per each album
DIL: 4,825,000
B-day: 3,300,000
IASF 2,900,000
4 :1,169,492 and she hadn't one single hit, at least Avril had WTH(peak 11) and a great longevity..but Bee has a very solid american fanbase!

Christina suffered and still suffers like Avril, she wasn't able to create a solid fanbase due to her long hiatus per each album and the completly change of style..as for Avril we all know the story!
Britney declined yes, but she is like Beyoncè: she can always count with a solid(former) fanbase.

Well Madonna, i don't think it's right to put her in this list since she has a 30years of career and she sold very much when internet still was an idea! And i think it's incredibile that she stills sold even if the music world is dominated by the youngers..


With Avril was a very delusional thing like it was with Christina's Bionic..2 massive artists with few hits and millions of copies sold,they only sold which was about to be their firts week. I thought that Avril would have sold 300-400 000 copies in her first week, not 87.000. I was shocked, SHOCKED!

I did mention Beyonce had a more steady decline:

Beyonce had shown a more steady decline over her first 3 studio albums.

The point I made though, which still stands is that almost all of the top artists are making a steady decline. I included Madonna as a reference from the past generation of female artists. Even in the years following her first 2 or 3 albums she started showing a decline.

You're right about Avril having a 3 million drop but she's not the only one.

Britney had a 5 million+ drop from 'Oops I did it again' to Britney. Albeit from a very high starting number.

But in more recent terms Christina dropped around 7 million from album 1 to album 2, Lady Gaga 2.2 Million from a lower starting figure and Taylor Swift suffered a 2.5 million drop from 'Fearless' to 'Speak Now' (Please don't kill me )

[Blue Jeans]

I think the album can only be considered a slump if you compare it with her other albums. The singles did worse than the album itself.

[Opinionated Brit]

I think the album can only be considered a slump if you compare it with her other albums. The singles did worse than the album itself.

True, but as Miles just said, the singles did much better than Beyonce's from the last album yet nobody really made much of a fuss about that!

[Blue Jeans]

True, but as Miles just said, the singles did much better than Beyonce's from the last album yet nobody really made much of a fuss about that!

I think the lead single makes a big impact. If the lead single is shit, then the public tend to ignore the next few singles. For example, "What the Hell" and "Run The World (Girls)" were awful lead single choices, and after they were released all the following singles charted poorly.

[Miles890]

Aahahah i don't kill you don't worry! I know that Speak Now sold 2 millions less than Fearless, but more than 4 millions soley in the USA nowdays is impressive! With only 3 albums Swfit surpassed Beyoncè and Avril in terms of US sales!
It's obvious that even Adele would have a large decline with the new album, not only in the States but WW too


But my point was: Run The World was a flop and 4 sold one million, WTH was a hit and GL sold 325.000.
And none of them represented the album..

[marliz.]

Beyoncè i svery steady, her decline was about one million or less per each album
DIL: 4,825,000
B-day: 3,300,000
IASF 2,900,000
4 :1,169,492 and she hadn't one single hit, at least Avril had WTH(peak 11) and a great longevity..but Bee has a very solid american fanbase!

Actually Run The World was a hit. It was a bigger hit than WTH in the Netherlands. Also Beyonce's other singles were really well known here. Instead of Avril's other singles..

[Opinionated Brit]

Aahahah i don't kill you don't worry! I know that Speak Now sold 2 millions less than Fearless, but more than 4 millions soley in the USA nowdays is impressive! With only 3 albums Swfit surpassed Beyoncè and Avril in terms of US sales!
It's obvious that even Adele would have a large decline with the new album, not only in the States but WW too

It would be very difficult for Adele to match it. As you say, 4 million is impressive. Adele's 9.2 million is almost unheard of. A 7 million jump from her first album.

She also jumped 15.5 million from album 1 to 2 in terms of worldwide sales. I chose to leave her out for a reason

[Katyy]

Yeah I agree, sales wise i've never considered it a 'flop', in fact I think it performed pretty well seeing as the whole era was a huge fiasco and imo the album is pretty poor.

[Miles890]

Actually Run The World was a hit. It was a bigger hit than WTH in the Netherlands. Also Beyonce's other singles were really well known here. Instead of Avril's other singles..

Yeah i know, even here here singles(Love On Top and Best Thing I Never Had) were hit compared to Smile and WWYH which i never saw in the tv..and Beyoncè is not that famous in Italy like Avril LOL.
But the whole discussion is about the US sales in America RTW only peaked at 29 which is a flop for Bee's standard!