Hits
Today’s “Hit & Flops” helps us talk about a change in trend in the model of the international music industry. Currently, there are certain types of superstars, Anglo-Saxon, media, who have a hard time reaching a million albums sold or its equivalent (I think of Lorde or Ed Sheeran, the exception is obviously Taylor Swift). And on the contrary, we find K-pop or Latin artists, adding stratospheric figures, without having any type of media attention.
This is the case of Fuerza Regida or another artist who is much more familiar to us in Spain: Beéle. If the Force Regida numbers come mostly from Mexico and the United States; Beéle is achieving numbers almost as high as those of Fuerza Regida, but spread across more countries: different cities in Colombia (his country), Spain, Chile, Mexico and Peru are the ones that listen to him the most.
Mediatraffic estimates that Beéle’s ‘Borondo’ will surpass one million copies these days, 20 weeks after being released. Of them, about 60,000 come from Spain, since it is a platinum record (40,000), but approaching double platinum by leaps and bounds (80,000).
To its success in Spain and Latin American countries, sometimes difficult to calculate on a weekly basis, we must add that Beéle’s album has entered lists in Portugal (top 5), Switzerland (top 20), Italy (top 40) and the United States (top 56). Furthermore, its success is not a matter of a temporary entry, but in all cases it has remained stable over the months. For example, the album continued last week on the Billboard 200, having lasted 19 weeks. Something that is no longer within the reach of certain Anglo-Saxon stars, as we said.
Beéle’s album does not include ‘La plena’, his big hit this summer with Ovy on the Drums, but it does include many other songs with countless streams. Among others, ‘it doesn’t make sense’, ‘if I caught you’, ‘my ref’, ‘top diesel’ or ‘sobe love’. Songs that all swarm between dembow, afrobeat and reggaeton, and each add up to more than 100 million streams on Spotify. In fact, 9 songs from Beéle’s album exceed 100 million streams, only on Spotify.
Flops
A different rooster would be crowing to Miley Cyrus if her latest album had 9 songs over 100 million streams. But that number is reduced to one in their case, the single ‘End of the World’, which has just surpassed them by a hair’s breadth. The impact of other promoted singles such as ‘More to Lose’, ‘Easy Lover’, ‘Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved’ or more recently ‘Secrets’ featuring two members of Fleetwood Mac has been none. There has been no luck either for the relaunch with 2 new tracks.
‘Something Beautiful’ spent a total of 2 weeks in the British top 100: one at number 3 and the next at number 76. It also lasted 2 weeks on the Billboard 200: one at number 4 and another at number 102. Needless to say, we are talking about what were its two main markets.
Mediatraffic estimated that ‘Something Beautiful’ sold 73,000 copies worldwide in its week of release, and given its plummet on the charts in the 2nd week never to return, it’s hard to think it reached much further than 200,000.
