S. Samuel
While Kanye West's Yeezus album is not slated to hit store shelves until next week, industry insiders have already started speculating how many copies the LP should move in its opening week.
According to reports, Yeezus may have the potential to hit gold status in its first week.
Kanye West’s Yeezus, due Tuesday on Def Jam, is expected to sell 500,000 copies its first week. “That’s what industry forecasters suggest,” says Keith Caulfield, Billboard’s associate director of charts/retail. “It’s difficult to a degree to predict an album’s sales until it actually goes on sale, but the closer you to are to the release date, the better you can tell. It’s like a weather forecast.” (USA Today)
If Yeezus is able to sell at least 500,000 copies, it would mark his biggest week opener in recent years.
The half-million mark would put the rapper’s sixth studio album in the same ballpark as previous releases. Watch the Throne, 2011’s collaboration with Jay-Z, opened with 436,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. West’s two most recent solo albums enjoyed similar launches: 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with 496,000, and 2008’s 808s & Heartbreak with 450,000. Both were released during Thanksgiving week. (Ebony)
Pittsburgh rapper Mac Miller recently admitted his Watching Movies with the Sound Off would fall victim to Ye’s new LP come next week.
“Outselling the competition? Nah, I do not care at all,” he told show host Sway Calloway about next week’s release for his sophomore album, Watching Movies With the Sound Off. “I’ll tell you who’s gonna have the best first week: Kanye West. It’s Kanye. If some crazy thing happens, then maybe, but it’s Kanye West, bruh. He should have the best first week, but the first week isn’t really what matters. … I think we’re past that. What I’m looking to do with my album is trying to have it last 10, 20, 30, 40 years. That’s what I want to make. I want to make something that people can listen to for a while.” (MTV)
Coincidentally, Kanye revealed his lack of interest in sales earlier this week during a listening party.
“This is the part of the show when I start complaining about sh*t, justifying sh*t, but you know how it is,” he says as he let the menacing beat of “Clique” ride. ‘Ye continued to rant about the rollout of his album and his lack of care behind promotion and radio play: “With this album we ain’t drop no single to radio. We ain’t got no NBA campaign, nothing like that. Sh*t, we ain’t even got no cover. We just made some real music. Like, back when I used to make albums and sh*t, a couple years ago, we’d go away and work on the album for months or something. We’d always have to hold the album to like August, or September or till the perfect moment and sh*t. Because it mean that ‘I think would sell more if it get more audience and sh*t.’ But honestly at this point when I listen to radio, that ain’t where I want to be no more. Honestly at this point, I could give a f*ck about selling a million records as long as I put out an album for the summer that y’all can rock to for all f*ckin’ summer… At this point I don’t really give a f*ck about outside opinion.” (Billboard)
