Did Bon Jovi And Lady Gaga Suffer Huge Sales Drops Because Of Hillary Clinton Performances?
Both Bon Jovi and Lady Gaga have suffered significant sales drops since performing for Hillary Clinton. According to Hits Daily Double, whose chart is very similar to Billboard‘s (their new album chart comes out on Monday), Bon Jovi’s This House Is Not for Sale drops from No. 1 to No. 41, with a 91 percent drop in sales. This means that the band could likely break a record, and it’s one that they may not be proud of: the largest second-week sales decline from a No. 1 hit in music history.
The artist who previously held the record was Madonna. In 2012, Billboard reported the disastrous news for the MDNA singer.
“This week, Madonna’s MDNA earns the distinction of the largest second-week percentage sales drop for a No. 1-debuting album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. The album slides from No. 1 to No. 8 on the Billboard 200 with a 86.7% sales decline (falling from 359,000 to 48,000 according to SoundScan).”
The article adds that Madonna beat Lady Gaga’s record of having an 84.27 percent sales drop after the first week with Born This Way (more on Gaga in a little bit). As Madonna’s fans pointed out, the big drop was expected since the album’s first week sales included two months of a promotion where fans who bought concert tickets could also opt for a copy of the MDNA album, which was included in the price of the ticket.
Bon Jovi also used this type of promotion, which helped his first week sales (which includes streaming) set at 129,000. However, the amazingly huge drop in sales (although the concert ticket/album promotion is still being used) has many scratching their heads and speculating that Bon Jovi turned off a lot of fans by performing for Hillary Clinton, who lost the election and remains an extremely unpopular political figure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4tRTlS3nF0
Many fans bashed Bon Jovi on Twitter.
Lady Gaga’s album sales have also taken a dive since she performed for Hillary Clinton in what many considered “Nazi” attire (even though she was clearly wearing a jacket worn by Michael Jackson). The Sun first reported on the PR disaster a couple hours after Gaga appeared at a rally singing for and standing with Hillary Clinton.
“POP icon Lady Gaga has been slammed for her bizarre outfit while speaking at a Hillary Clinton rally, as social media users likened it to a Nazi uniform. The singer addressed supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate in North Carolina ahead of today’s election, urging them to get out and vote while also calling for reconciliation between Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s supporters.”
On this week’s current Billboard 200 album chart (which was calculated last weekend), Lady Gaga’s Joanne dropped 60 percent in sales and fell from No. 5 to No. 11. Hits Daily Double‘s latest chart has Lady Gaga falling all the way from No. 11 to No. 20 in its fourth week with a 38 percent drop — this is not good for the fourth week, but it’s not a disaster either.
However, Lady Gaga’s Joanne has performed well for an album that has no hit single. Radio was not swayed by the first single “Perfect Illusion,” and early indications show that the new single “Million Reasons” will not take off either, although the song hit No. 1 on iTunes after a 69 cent discount. Gaga’s higher-than-expected album sales are also fueled by several NFL commercials. And the fact that she’ll be playing the 2017 Super Bowl Halftime Show almost guarantees that the album will rise back up the charts.
Besides Bon Jovi and Lady Gaga, many other performers and celebrities have faced an online backlash from their fans, even those who consider themselves liberal. Perhaps Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga, and others may not want to align themselves with such an unpopular political figure in the future.
[Featured Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
