|
Post by katycat18 on Dec 20, 2014 22:21:39 GMT -5
I love Katy. Loved her ever since I Kissed a Girl became my drunk girl anthem back in 08 and then Hot N Cold, Waking Up in Vegas solidified her as an all time pop great. And Teenage Dream dominated the chart, she slayed with 5 #1s on the Hot 100. But then Unconditonally flopped, it bombed so badly. And dark horse should have redeemed the era. But even though that slayed, Birthday flopped. Hard. And so did This IS How we Do. they barely reached top 30 on Hot 100.
why is Katy flopping so hard this time around? It just seems so unfair. It doesn't make sense, the music isn't any unfriendler than it was 3 years ago. You would think that that with how huge she was during Teenage Dream, everything she touched would have automatically shot up to #1. But it didn't, and as a long time Stan, that makes me sad. Was she just unlucky, or does the public have a vendetta against her?
i think it's because she was unlucky, no artist goes from owning the scene to flopping in just 2 years. Why wouldn't the public want to hear more Katy when they wanted more of her in 2011-12? There is nothing different about these than Firework, The One That Got Away, etc.
|
|
|
Post by FreakyFlyBry on Dec 20, 2014 22:28:22 GMT -5
IMO she didn't flop. "Roar" and "Dark Horse" were still #1's, and she had two additional top 10's on mainstream top 40 radio: "Unconditionally" and "Birthday".
Not everyone can hit #1 every single time, it's a very rare occurrence. IMO she wasn't unlucky this era, she was just very lucky in the "Teenage Dream" era to have no flops and a lot of #1's. The "Prism" era would still be a huge success for any other artist.
|
|
Julian
Daydreamer
Posts: 2,037
|
Post by Julian on Dec 20, 2014 22:31:05 GMT -5
As much as it pains me to say this, I don't think she flopped but rather had a slight decline.
PRISM was a bad CD. This Is How We Do is honestly her worst song to date. Her shtick is getting old and she needs to work on creating stronger songs. The only good songs on the album IMO were Dark Horse, Walking On Air and Birthday. Legendary Lovers was tolerable, the rest was trash.
|
|
|
Post by katycat18 on Dec 20, 2014 22:32:12 GMT -5
IMO she didn't flop. "Roar" and "Dark Horse" were still #1's, and she had two additional top 10's on mainstream top 40 radio: "Unconditionally" and "Birthday". Not everyone can hit #1 every single time, it's a very rare occurrence. IMO she wasn't unlucky this era, she was just very lucky in the "Teenage Dream" era to have no flops and a lot of #1's. The "Prism" era would still be a huge success for any other artist. Unconditionally only hit #14, and Birthday #17.
|
|
Julian
Daydreamer
Posts: 2,037
|
Post by Julian on Dec 20, 2014 22:36:02 GMT -5
Unconditionally only hit #14, and Birthday #17. He was referring to pop radio but yes, those are her hot 100 peaks. This Is How We Do is her first single since Thinking of You that did not crack the top 10 on pop and the top 20 on the hot 100.
|
|
|
Post by JessieLou on Dec 20, 2014 23:13:28 GMT -5
I think overexposure might've had to do with it. All her songs from Teenage Dream are STILL played regularly except for Part Of Me, plus Roar and Dark Horse are still played all the time as well.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2014 0:25:15 GMT -5
Unconditionally only hit #14, and Birthday #17. I think you're way overreacting here. Do you realize how blown-out-of-proportion you're coming across when you say a song "only hit #14" or "only hit #17"? Since when is a top twenty placing considered "a hard flop"? OK, so they didn't go top ten on the Hot 100; however, that doesn't mean top 20 is "a hard flop." Both tracks did well on mainstream radio and on the Billboard Club Play chart, for that matter. I also don't see Katy suddenly hurting from lack of ticket sales or merchandise, etc. I also think JessieLou is onto something with the idea that overexposure can be a biotch. It's hard to get a new single in high rotation when the previous single is hanging on and on... yet the record company insists on pushing out a new single before the public wants it. Anyway... my two cents' worth. Merry Christmas!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2014 3:32:41 GMT -5
Honestly, in my opinion, it's bad single choices and bad timing.
For instance, Unconditionally could've become a big hit, however she rushed the music video, and made it a single while Dark Horse was gaining popularity, and everyone was more focused on it, had she have waited to release Unconditionally after Dark Horse, it surely would've been at least a top 5 hit, and honestly, I think that it's the better song, plus it would've been coming after the album's 2 #1's so there's a good chance that it could've reached #1 as well. Birthday was a good single choice, but probably not the best, with songs like Legendary Lovers and Walking On Air, and the music video didn't help, with the lyric video having 70 Million views, and the actual video having only 45 Million. This Is How We Do was the opposite, it was a great music video, and had 190 Million views, however the song was just speech, and definitely not her best, and was a bad single choice.
If the album was marketed correctly, I think that it could've been almost as successful as Teenage Dream.
|
|
|
Post by Jason on Dec 21, 2014 10:40:41 GMT -5
I agree with FreakyFlyBry, JessieLou, and @cdennisfan. I don't think you can call an album that spawned two #1 singles and two other Top 20 hits a "flop." Sure, Prism wasn't as successful as Teenage Dream was. In the music industry in general, it's hard for anyone to sustain that level of success for a long time. But in the Pop genre, it's even harder. There's always some other female artist waiting to take your spot. And with an audience that seems to have an ever shortening attention span, it's not easy to sustain a hardcore fan base. If you don't do something to keep a certain portion of your fans constantly hooked, some of them will invariably drift off and latch on to some other female singer. To JessieLou 's point about overexposure, that's the double edged sword that comes along with Pop success. People like Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera, who can wait 5 or 6 years in between releasing new albums, are the exception to the rule. Once you've proven that you can be marketed successfully and your music is well-liked, you're constantly being pressured to "get back in the studio and record the next album," when all you really want to do is take a deep breath and relax for a minute or two. Check the discographies of Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, and Rihanna. At the height of their respective popularity, they were averaging a new album every year or year and a half. Overexposure is the sad reality of the music industry these days. If there isn't a large chunk of the population that wishes you'd go away, your record label isn't doing a good enough job of promoting you and your music. To echo what @cdennisfan said, I wouldn't overreact about the performance of Prism. That's the ebb and flow of success and popularity in the music industry. Either she'll fade away and re-emerge for a "second act" to her career like Toni Braxton, Mariah Carey and others have, she'll continue having success for a while longer and then fade away, or this is the start of the end of her huge popularity. With the music industry, it's hard to tell.
|
|
|
Post by Cody on Dec 21, 2014 15:17:03 GMT -5
This is the kinda thread which makes me wish Dr. Indie from Pulse was on M4B. Because his response to this question would be this:
"Well, the radio stations did not want to play her as much because her songs weren't doing as well on the Hot 100, and pop radio reflects the Hot 100. Billboard is trying to make it so that only rap and country songs can ever do well, and that's why the Hot 100 is so rigged and doesn't represent everyone's tastes equally. Roar was always going to succeed since it's a lead single, but it's no coincidence that the only other huge single was the one with a rapper, because that follows Billboard's formula. You're just going to see her get phased out of the Hot 100 in favor of more rap and country songs, so get used to it."
|
|
MIKEB
The King Of Rationality
Posts: 4,536
|
Post by MIKEB on Dec 21, 2014 17:09:42 GMT -5
the music isn't any unfriendler than it was 3 years ago. This line was the one to jump most at me because it's precisely the reason why I think she underperformed this era. She didn't really change anything and where pop music as a whole has shifted pretty significantly since 2011, Katy really hasn't. Most of the songs on Prism could have been on Teenage Dream and they wouldn't sound out of place. To use another line: Why wouldn't the public want to hear more Katy when they wanted more of her in 2011-12? There is nothing different about these than Firework, The One That Got Away, etc. Over saturation. If Katy has did what Rihanna did and offered up a new sound, there's a good chance she'd have continued her string of hits. Prior to Roar dropping, she was teasing a darker almost sinister image and many people thought it would be reflected in her music but then along came Roar, which was in no way dark or interesting. It became a hit but also became just another song from Katy Perry. If any artist sticks with the same sound for too long, people move on. Despite all of this, Katy didn't flop with her album. She still had 2 huge hits from it and even though the other three singles under-performed, I wouldn't call them "flops". (ok. This Is How We Do I'd probably call a flop). I think it's just because Katy overdid it with her good girl bubblegum image and this era she was put on standby. As in, if she wants to keep being an A-list pop star, she needs to change it up a bit. Plus, there's also the fact that Teenage Dream was an unusually huge success that in itself is rare so anything she put out afterward was going to look like a flop. Just watch Adele's next album. When that era is done, people will call her a flop but the odds of her making anything as big as 21 was is pretty much impossible. It's probably the one downfall to having a huge successful era.
|
|
|
Post by katycat18 on Dec 23, 2014 16:14:55 GMT -5
How do you think her next album will do?
|
|
|
Post by Courage on Dec 27, 2014 22:31:51 GMT -5
Calling Prism a flop would be like calling Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" a flop. It still did solidly well, spawned 2 #1 hits and 2 more top 10s. The problem is that Teenage Dream scored 5 #1s on the Hot 100 and people think anything less is a "flop." I think any artist would kill to have an album spawn 2 #1 hits (except Kanye who expects 10, but that's a different story).
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2015 9:36:54 GMT -5
Interesting topic. I remember thinking when the Teenage Dream era was wrapping up that she had nowhere to go but down. Most people never get an era anywhere close to that huge, and practically nobody gets it two albums in a row.
Plus, as others said, she failed to evolve with current music trends. It's the same reason Bonnie McKee failed IMO: releasing an album with 2010 style production in 2013 isn't a great idea for anyone.
|
|
|
Post by Dylan Blue on Jan 27, 2015 17:06:26 GMT -5
It's extremely difficult to repeat the massive success of her prior Teenage Dream and subsequent re-release eras. She was fortunate to not have had any underperformers or flops with that era.
"Roar" was an out-of-the-box smash and "Dark Horse" was an undeniable smash waiting to happen.
"Unconditionally" was a riskier choice as it was serious and not at all light-hearted and playful as some of her other singles. All things considered, it performed moderately well.
"Birthday" and "This Is How We Do" were really odd choices for singles. Neither had that quality to them that made some of her other fun singles had. They felt like filler. The video for the former was unusual, but it had many collectively thinking that she had lost the plot. "This Is How We Do" was campy with its lyrics and accompanying video.
"Legendary Lovers" and "Walking On Air" were the great potential singles that never were. One or both would have been better choices than "Birthday" and "This Is How We Do."
There is still a chance that Katy could release another single from the album and coordinate it with her Superbowl performance next week. Stranger things have happened. Months after Christina Aguilera's last album Lotus underperformed and two singles had already been released with little success, her label randomly did a club release for "Let There Be Love."
|
|