Lady Gaga Sales Boosted 1,000 Percent, But Fans Still Like Older Music Better
Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl performance has earned the pop singer heaps of praise and a healthy boost to her digital music sales as well.
According to ABC News, Lady Gaga sold around 150,000 digital songs and albums in the U.S. on Sunday, the day of the Super Bowl. That’s a 1,000 percent increase, compared to the 15,000 digital sales Gaga made the day before.
The surge in sales comes hardly as a surprise, given the attention and media coverage of the Super Bowl event. Nielsen estimates that 70% of U.S. homes with televisions tuned in for the game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots on Sunday night. Preliminary results from Nielsen show that the 51st Super Bowl drew approximately 111.3 million viewers and 190.8 million social media interactions across Facebook and Twitter.
Gaga herself also received a lot of attention on social media for her Super Bowl halftime performance. Vanity Fair reports that the singer was mentioned 2.1 million times on Twitter between 7:50 p.m. and 8:40 p.m. on Sunday night. Gaga began her performance with a rendition of “God Bless America” and “This Land is Your Land” and after “plunging” from the roof of the stadium, followed up with a medley of her greatest hits, including “Born This Way,” “Just Dance,” and “Bad Romance,” among others.
So!!!!!!??? What did you guys think of the #PepsiHalftime show? I love performing for you ?? #Gaga #SB51 #SuperBowl pic.twitter.com/e5MITHXKqf
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) February 6, 2017
Gaga’s kinetic performance during the Super Bowl has apparently paid off. Discounts on her music on iTunes, carefully timed to launch after the Super Bowl, also helped sales soar, according to Vanity Fair. “Million Reasons,” the only song from her latest album that was sung by Gaga during the halftime show, is currently the No.1 song on iTunes. “Born This Way,” “Poker Face,” “Bad Romance,” and “Just Dance,” all songs performed by the singer during the show, currently occupy the top 10 on iTunes.
Fans, however, still seem to hunger for Gaga’s music from the earlier days. On iTunes, Gaga’s The Fame Monster, released in 2009, sits as the No.2. top-selling album on iTunes. Her other earlier albums, Born This Way and The Fame are No.5 and No.7, respectively. By contrast, Gaga’s second-to-last album, Cheek to Cheek, a collaboration between her and Tony Bennett, is No.45 and the regular edition of her latest album, Joanne, currently sits as No. 47. That’s a steep drop for the album, which, according to Vanity Fair, was No.3 on Monday morning (the deluxe edition was even the top-selling album when the article was published).
A review from Variety points out that Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl performance felt dated as nearly all of the songs the singer performed were hits released before 2010. The more current “Million Reasons” is the only song in Gaga’s Super Bowl set to be released within the past five years.
“[T]hough the spectacle was appropriately breathtaking, Gaga’s 13-minute long performance lacked an iconic moment or emotional button; weirdest of all, it didn’t even feel contemporary.”
Fans’ enthusiasm for Gaga’s older music, as evidenced by the iTunes charts, may be problematic for the singer, who announced a world tour of Joanne shortly after the Super Bowl. Gaga’s world tour will commence in Vancouver on August 1 and will carry on all the way to December in various venues across North America and Europe.
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) February 6, 2017
But perhaps there’s no need for pessimism, as Gaga’s latest album reportedly sold over a million units in the first few months after the album was released, according to Mashable. And if the surge in Gaga’s music sales continues, she may finally make the list again of Forbes‘ top-earning music celebrities (she was the second highest-paid music artist in 2013, behind Madonna).
[Featured Image by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images]
