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Did Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ Album Flop? Low First-Week Sales Despite ‘Formation’ Social Media Hype

By Maurice Cassidy
Published on: 06:29 PST, May 2, 2016

Did Beyoncé’s decision to talk about her marital problems with Jay Z backfire as far as her music is concerned? It appears so.

After HBO hyped up the mysterious TV special of what became Beyoncé’s album release in the form of a televised movie, it appeared as if everybody couldn’t hide their excitement for some new music from Queen Bey herself.

But despite having caused all this controversy with the divorce-inspired songs, the HBO special, and a devoted fanbase (who helped keep the hashtag #Lemonade trending for several days), when the album’s first-week sales were officially confirmed, they weren’t that groundbreaking, to say the least.

Beyonce’s Lemonade only managed to sell 653,000 copies in its first week — 485,000 when you exclude the Tidal streaming numbers, which is puzzling considering all the work Beyoncé put into the project in order to see it follow in the footsteps of her previous self-titled record.

Beyoncé, her fifth studio album, managed to sell 617,000 copies in its first week, and one needs to keep in mind that Beyoncé only made the record available via iTunes, meaning that if you weren’t a fan of downloading albums digitally, you would’ve had to wait an additional week.

But with all that being said, let’s not forget about the entire album being about her relationship with Jay-Z and how he supposedly cheated on her, she stuck with him, took him back, and assures herself he’ll never step out of their marriage again.

Talking about heartbreak, marital problems and relationship issues have worked for other artists in the past, such as Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood, who always have exceptional numbers when it comes to first-week sales, so why didn’t it work for Beyoncé this time around?

Well, some think that Beyonce simply got carried away with the fact that she managed to do well with the previous album, which she unexpectedly dropped on December 13, 2013.

485,000 copies are significantly less from what you would expect someone on Beyoncé’s level to sell, especially when you also consider the fact that her Super Bowl performance in February was watched by over 100 million people worldwide.

Still, it didn’t translate the ways she hoped — at least one could assume.

Rihanna’s fanbase have ridiculed Beyoncé for her low sales, comparing her first-week numbers to a video of rapper Drake telling his fans he has already sold 630,000 copies in one day with his latest album Views, which is also a one-week iTunes exclusive.

Then again, Rihanna’s fanbase, who call themselves the Navy, can’t really be laughing over other people’s first-week numbers when the “Work” hitmaker’s album, Anti, has reportedly stalled at just 350,000 copies worldwide.

All in all, Beyoncé has pulled through with another solid effort as far as production and music are concerned. The numbers for the sales of her album are unimpressive when considering everything that went into promoting the record for maximum exposure, but she’s probably not too bothered.

After all, her Formation World Tour is sold out everywhere, and the album still went No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 200.

What do you make of Beyoncé’s first-week sales with her album, Lemonade? Do you think the numbers were less than impressive considering all the hype behind it?

[Photo by Frank Micelotta/Getty Images]

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