Hits
Olivia Rodrigo has added another million copies in albums with great ease, in less than a month. ‘You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’ will be, once again, one of the best-selling albums of the year, just like her first two works achieved.
That this time the album is not leaving an international number 1 in singles as clear as ‘Vampire’ in ‘GUTS’ or ‘drivers license’ or ‘good 4 u’ in ‘SOUR’ is not leaving any feeling of failure, since Olivia’s new album is working together. Among its 13 tracks, only ‘purple’ and ‘cigarette smoke’ are a bit off. The rest are about to exceed 100 million streams on Spotify.
‘You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’ has been number 1 in every major market in the world except Japan. That means that it secured the top 1 in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Holland, Canada, Australia and a long etcetera. In fact, it has already been certified gold in four markets: the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain and New Zealand.
But the best thing is how strong it remains in its 6th week: still top 3 in the UK, still top 2 in the United States. Although it is true that this time the songs will take a little longer to reach 1,000 million streams on Spotify (the 3 singles have been top 1 on Spotify Global, but for a very short time), up to 7 songs from the album continue in the daily Global top 200 a month and a half after its release.
The good reception of ‘stupid song’ (top 15 right now on Spotify’s daily Global), ‘the cure’ (top 16) and ‘drop dead’ (top 23) guarantee good sales for the rest of the year. Furthermore, ‘honeybee’ (top 76) could make the jump at any time and other songs like ‘maggots for brains’, ‘less’ or ‘expectations’ usually appear in the top 200.
Flops
Is rock in fashion? Are electric guitars back? It depends on who makes the rock and it depends on the type of rock we are talking about. Muse were after grunge, they never understood lo-fi and have nothing to do with Olivia Rodrigo’s sound.
Of course we cannot establish any relationship between the two to conclude that the guitar has returned to the foreground. The public has completely ignored the British band’s latest release, which has disappeared from the top 100 in the United Kingdom, its country of origin and main market, just after 3 weeks. The first week they were number 1, yes, but the second week they dropped to the top 32; the third they dropped to the top 94; and the fourth has not existed. Never has a Muse studio album lasted so short in the top 100.
Even worse was the performance in the United States, where the album entered at number 41 and then disappeared from the Billboard 200 after just one week. Additionally, a top 41 is Muse’s worst entry in the North American country since 2003.
Muse’s album has managed to be number 1 in Holland or France, number 2 in Australia and number 3 in Germany, but longevity will not be its strong point. A long ordeal awaits him to repeat the gold record that his predecessor ‘Will of the People’ did achieve in the United Kingdom and the platinum record that it achieved in France. In fact, if things don’t change, it could be the first album in Muse’s history to be left without any type of certification. A shame, because artistically, it’s their best album in a decade or two.
