September 30th Album Releases Battle For Supremacy

It's going to be along week ahead. With 8 major releases hitting physical and digital shelves this week, it's anyone's guess as to who comes out as the weekly bestseller. Will it be Tove Lo, Blake Shelton, Lady Antebellum, Prince, 3RDEYEGIRL, The Script, Steve Aoki or Colbie Caillat?  Okay maybe I've overstating it, but there are at least two albums that have their eye on the top slot. At least two. Let's take a look at the contenders. Be sure to read through the whole list before reading my overview at the end of the post.

Bringing Back the Sunshine
Blake Shelton
Download on iTunes
While Blake Shelton has been a Country genre superstar since his 2001 debut, it wasn't until the 2010's decade that his work became widely appreciated by mainstream audiences. Bolstered by a taut release date, his 2011 album, Red River Blue, debuted at #1 in the United States on sales of 116,000. By standards, that would have been pretty grim start on any other frame in 2011. Just a few weeks before, Born This Way debuted at #1 on sales of 1 million copies.

When the end of 2012 rolled around, another new album from Shelton had emerged. Cheers, it's Christmas, while failing to reach the United States top 5, sold over 500,000 and remained popular with Christmas album purchasers over a year after its release. Early 2013 brought his most popular album to date and the 9th most popular album of 2013 in the United States: Based On A True Story... While failing to reach #1, it produced a string of 4 #1 Country singles.

Unfortunately, Bringing Back the Sunshine failed to create a mainstream hit with its lead single ("Neon Light"), unlike his last album, which could weaken sales. However, being the most popular coach on the hit United States television show The Voice (which helped propel sales of his last album), could give Shelton's Bringing Back the Sunshine the push it needs to become the frame's top seller.

Queen of the Clouds
Tove Lo
Download on iTunes
Little known. Sorry. Scratch that. Previously little known Swedish artist Tove Lo has seemingly sprouted in popularity over night. Her track, "Habits (Stay High)", which has been available since the end of 2013, recently skyrocketed into success stateside. It recently landed in the top 20 of the Radio songs chart in the United States and the top 10 of the Digital songs chart.

A September 30th release date for her debut album seemed almost perfect, except for the fact that "Habits" still hasn't climaxed in popularity. That makes the US release Queen of the Clouds seem a little pre-mature. Still, this could end up being a good thing. Maybe the continued popularity of "Habits" could keep album sales steady for several weeks? It'll be hard to tell but all I can assure you of is that Queen of the Clouds won't be the week's best seller.

No Sound Without Silence
The Script
Download on iTunes
The Script has had varying 'degrees' of success in the United States (pun intended for hardcore fans), with their second and third albums  starting with sales between 25,000-50,000 copies sold. Their first had sales too low to compare. However, with No Sound Without Silence, the band has taken a completely different path in terms of promotion.

"Superheroes", the first single from No Sound Without Silence, has been vigorously promoted to Adult Pop and Contemporary radio formats, a style that caters to more matured audience (typically). That demographic in particular has been known to cling on to specific songs and groups, which have led to some albums or singles staying popular for a significant period of time. In a case like Pharrell's "Happy", the track became so popular on traditional Mainstream/Top 40 radio that it started getting adds at genre specific stations as well. That led to an extended chart run and pushed sales of the song's parent album (GIRL) forward. While the success of "Superheroes" doesn't really compare to that of "Happy", it is possible that a much more contained version of the story is repeated. In other words, No Sound Without Silence should be able to become the band's most popular record to date (in terms of first week sales in the United States), but will a huge amount of competition stunt its growth?

747
Lady Antebellum
Download on iTunes
Other than Prince, of course, Lady Antebellum has been a powerhouse when it comes to album sales. After breaking out with the singles "I Run to You" and "Need You Now" in 2009, the group's second album (Need You Now) shifted over 450,000 copies in its first week of being on sale. Their third album, released 20 months later, saw sales of approximately 350,000 a still large sum. The group's Holiday album (released in late 2012), while failing to reach #1, became a staple in the long list of Christmas releases and has since been sold over 500,000 (note figures for the other two releases were first week only). 2013's Golden opened with sales of 160,000 copies, a fabulous start given that album sales in general were down significantly since the group had last released a proper, non-Holiday album.

With even more erosion and the presence of a lone Mainstream/Top 40 single ("Bartender"), 747 could have a bit of trouble with reaching 100,000 (which would be a sharp drop from Golden). Still, 747 has a decent shot at claiming the top position.

ART OFFICIAL AGE
Prince
Download on iTunes
Almost everyone has heard of Prince (also known as at least 20 other names), whether it be through his standard discography or his contributions to the Purple Rain soundtrack (one of the 20 most successful albums in the United States). He has released countless...  34 studio albums, almost all of which ended up being somewhat successful, making him (along with Tony Bennett and Madonna) one of the longest lasting artists in the game. His last big album sold over 160,000 copies in its first week alone. If you've got that type of longevity, you're a legend to me (even if I'm not a huge fan of your work) as well as to most of the rest of the world.

With that being said, the release date and promotion for ART OFFICIAL AGE seemingly popped out of nowhere. With no supported singles or any sort of high profile appearances, it is hard to imagine this breaking first week sales of 80,000 in the United States. On the worldwide front, however, ART OFFICIAL AGE is the best selling album (at the moment), with the next biggest selling new release also being delivered by Prince. What? Yep. You read it correctly.

PLECTRUMELECTRUM
Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL
Download on iTunes
While it might be extremely rare for an artist to drop two separate albums on the same day (two you can't buy together), this sort of practice seems to be somewhat normal for Prince. He's the sort of artist that would release half a dozen albums in a single year just to get out of a record contract.

The lower profile album of the two he is releasing this week, PLECTRUMELECTRUM, created in collaboration with his all female band 3RDEYEGIRL, is bound to start with a much lower weekly total. Maybe 40,000? We'll have to wait and see.

Neon Future 1
Steve Aoki
Download on iTunes
Let's face it. Steve Aoki could never end up reaching #1 in the United States. He appears to be too extreme with his DJ techniques and while some of his material is fun and solid, there's a substantial amount of people who clearly dislike his tracks (notably "Delirious").

Either way, Neon Future 1 is an interesting case. It's poised to be one of the world's most popular new releases (behind only the new albums from Prince), but should underwhelm in the United States. I'm conservatively expecting 45,000 to 55,000 copies in the United States.

Gypsy Heart
Colbie Caillat
Download on iTunes
Colbie Caillat used to be a massive album seller. Keywords used to be. Unfortunately, the odd promotion of her new album will likely cause her winning streak to come to a screeching halt. It looks like Gypsy Heart could wind up as one of the week's worst performing new releases, currently barely holding within the top 20 on the tracking chart. To compare, her three prior studio albums all became massive successes, all reaching the top 10 in the United States. My guess is that Gypsy Heart will wind up with 45,000 copies sold in its first week, but that itself might be asking a little too much.

Analysis
Based on my quick looks and data above, it seems that Blake Shelton's Bringing Back the Sunshine will rival Lady Antebellum's 747 to claim this week's top debut. Both should open past sales of 110,000 copies, and like last week, the race could come down to the wire, with the winner of the week being determined by just a few hundred copies.

Prince's ART OFFICIAL AGE should easily wind up in 3rd place with maybe 80,000-90,000 copies sold. Tove Lo's Queen of the Clouds should wind up in 4th place with perhaps 60,000 copies sold. The Script's No Sound Without Silence could place 5th with 50,000. Steve Aoki, Colbie Caillat and 3RDEYEGIRL will probably scramble for 6th, 7th and 8th place.

Update: 
New predictions are saying that Blake Shelton's album is expected to sell 85,000-100,000 copies (less than 50% of the sales level that his last album did). Lady Antebellum is expected to sell 65,000-80,000 with their new album. Therefore, all sales prediction for the other albums are down at least 15,000 copies.

Come back for more posts and check this post later this week to see where the albums finally rank!

Social Songs 100 Forecast: The Script Leads

 

It's that time of week again! The mid week numbers are finally through, and there's some interesting chemistry going on. Here's my mid week analysis of tracks duking it out on the Social Songs 100. It's going to be one wild week, so remember to keep it here for more news, and don't forget to vote for your favorites of the week by clicking here! See the biggest climbers and highest entries through the mid week point just below.


First led by The Madden Brothers' "We Are Done", this week's Social Songs 100 opened with a faulting start. Last week's top 5 all plummeted downward, most of them landing below #20. Then, things started to get a bit more interesting. Though it had barely missed the top 10 on the Social Songs 100 in the previous frame, Usher's "She Came to Give It To You" quickly dethroned "We Are Done" to reign on the Social Songs 100. Approximately 20 hours later, The Script's "Superheroes" moved 2-1 thanks to a large drive in votes from the Twitter community. On Wednesday things were about even, with Mandy Rain's "Riot" (which ranked at #3 last week) and Sia's "Chandelier" (which held #3 last week) posting the biggest drop offs and R3HAB's collaboration with Nervo and Ayah Marar ("Ready For the Weekend") soaring to #11 just hours after being added. It wasn't until approximately 3 P.M. PST on Thursday afternoon that things got a major turn around.

The Script's "Superheroes" (which was about to drop to #2) posted a huge increase in overall points, bolstered by a massive Twitter frenzy that erupted at around 11 P.M. in Britain (where a majority of the votes came from). The frenzy spurred over 30 retweets and over 40 favorites. That translated into a positive score of 100 (105 up votes and 5 negative votes), the highest for a song to date in the 13 week history of the Social Songs 100. At this point, any given song would need 101 positive votes (and no negatives) to dethrone The Script's song. That is nearly impossible. The current runner up (Maroon 5's "Maps") has a positive score of 0 (19 up votes and 19 down votes), with only 4 songs having scores of 0 or higher this week.

Nick Jonas' "Chains" (which was a mid week debut) is off to an incredibly slow start, currently ranking at #50. It opened at #13 and dropped out of the top 10 as soon as its third vote was cast.

It's also worth noting that lots of European acts tallied large position strides following the outburst of "Superheroes" (a song by a European band). At press time, 7 songs are sung (or partly sung) by a European artist.

Here's the current top 10 and percent index (Red denotes a drop and green denotes increase).

1. "Superheroes" by The Script 1.000
2. "Maps" by Maroon 5 0.000
3. "Boom Clap" by Charli XCX 0.000
4. "I'm Not the Only One" by Sam Smith 0.000
5. "Sing" by Ed Sheeran -0.010
6. "Chandelier" by Sia 0.010 (Positive, so should be #2 but only 7 votes have been cast)
7. "Flashlight" by DJ Fresh and Ellie Goulding -0.010
8. "No Mediocre (feat. Iggy Azalea)" by T.I. -0.010
9. "Strange Enough" by VÉRITÉ -0.010
10. "Black Widow (feat. Rita Ora)" by Iggy Azalea -0.030

Songs Debuting On the Social Songs 100 Next Week
- "Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj
- "Fireball (feat. John Ryan)" by Pitbull
- "Chasing the Sun" by Hillary Duff
- "Bang Bang (feat. Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande)" by Jessie J
- "Wait On Me" by Rixton
- "Ordinary Human" by OneRepublic
- "It Was Always You" by Maroon 5
and select others!

Come back on Friday for the highlights, on Sunday night for the full chart and early Monday morning to vote in week 14. More posts released randomly throughout.

Any questions? Tweet me here -------> Tweet to @cdschart

CDS Picks: Kiesza, Weezer, The Script & More

Welcome back to another installment in the wildly popular CDS Picks feature. This time, I'm focusing on new recordings by Kiesza, Weezer, The Script and more. 6 more songs will be covered in part 2 of this week's CDS Picks series. Have more picks for this week? Just tweet me them and I'll give them a spin? Maybe they'll be make next week's rundown.

Sam Smith - "I'm Not the Only One"

While I critically panned one of his prior singles for being completely hypocritical ("Leave Your Lover"), Sam Smith proves that he's still a strong musician with "I'm Not the Only One". While his styles are completely haphazard and occasionally horribly confusing, he's still able to write decent material. "I'm Not the Only One" is one of the brightest highlights from his debut album In The Lonely Hour. See my original comments below.

"There's no denying that Sam Smith can tell a vibrant, passionate, heart-wrenching story, but when you compare the bold and downright ridiculousness of "Leave Your Lover" to what you hear on "I'm Not the Only One", you get a sense of confusion. For those criticizing "Leave Your Lover" for being hypocritical, it's hard to still call Sam Smith a hypocrite by the time the end of strings and chords come to a bitter end in "I'm Not the Only One". Why? Because you've already forgotten about the previous track, and are engrossed at the possibilities of what's next to come.

I'll give Sam Smith one thing: he's surprisingly good at telling a type of story that he hasn't had much experience with."

Kiesza - "So Deep"

While she's still riding high on the waves of "Hideaway" and "Giant In My Heart", there's a few other styles to be explored on her debut extended play, Hideaway. "So Deep" offers up a whole new image to the young budding singer. On this track, she swaps electronic deep house beats for a sexy r&b thump beat that still has some hints of progressed rhythm while feeling like a brand new experience. It's not as instantly captivating as her other works, but it works on a different level, and is a subtle grower. In a review for her Hideaway EP, I briefly touched on "So Deep". Here's a snippet of my original thoughts:

"..."So Deep" displays a trace/dance quality that feels so unique and glamorous all together..." 

Drake - "0 to 100 / The Catch Up"

Approximately a full year after his "Hold On, We're Going Home" became a massive hit on the CDS Music Chart Hot 50 (reaching #5 on the tally), Drake is back with a darker single to lead off his highly anticipated 4th studio album Views From the 6. "0 to 100 / The Catch Up" is a two part song that smoothes out from start to finish. It's a whole lot more grainy and really reminiscent of his early 2013 release "Started From the Bottom" (which ended up becoming my 2nd least favorite mainstream release of 2013), which leads me to believe that "0 to 100" will also become one of my least favorites of the year. Thankfully, it's not nearly as terrible. It's worth at least a listen or two.

Weezer - "Back to the Shack"

After 4 years of silence, American band Weezer is finally back with a brand new set of music.

The Script - "Superheroes"

During the last album cycle, British band The Script failed to impress me on many occasions, with "Hall of Fame" falling short of the CDS Music Chart Hot 50 back in 2012. Thankfully, The Script is back with a fresher sound. While "Superheroes" sounds a lot like the stuff on their last album, it's ripe with a new form of energy. 

Alexandra Stan - "Dance"
Stan's last effort ("Cherry Pop") got off to a less than pleasant start back in May, and barely missed inclusion on the CDS Music Chart Hot 50 on numerous occasions. Despite the mixed success of "Cherry Pop", Alexandra Stan's new single "Dance" could reverse her course.

Come back for more posts soon!