Ronan Keating’s new album hasn’t exactly set the charts alight, with the news it has, so far, shifted just 181 copies – according to midweek sales. The Indo are reporting that sales of the album are pretty much a disaster, and the former Boyzone singer may need to go back to the drawing board. In light of this, we’ve decided to take a look at five of the highest profile flop albums of all time.
U2 – POP – 1997
Any band that has been around as long U2 were bound to have some records that just didn’t click as well as the others. But when you stack the sales of this one (1.5 million) against that of, say, ‘The Joshua Tree’ (well over 10 million) then it’s pretty obvious.
The Spice Girls – Forever – 2000
Funnily enough they broke up pretty soon after this ironically-titled album shifted a measly 200,000 copies. Their first album, ‘Spice’, managed to sell 7.4 million units to some probably now pretty mortified teenage girls back in 1996.
Puff Daddy – Forever – 2000
Naming your album ‘Forever’ in the same year as a Spice Girls album of the same name seems silly – but when you’re a “tough” rapper, it’s f**king hilarious. This one sold so badly Sean Combs changed his stage name from Puff Daddy to P Diddy. Ouch. Or ‘Poppa Diddy Pop’ as Ben Stiller calls him
Vanilla Ice – Mind Blowin – 1994
Sure, it’s a bit like shooting mohawked fish in a barrel of shallow water pointing out how unsuccessful Vanilla Ice was after his huge selling debut album; but his story is a cautionary tale for every successful artist out there – don’t get lost up your own arse. ‘Mind Blowin’ shifted just 42,000 copies after his debut album sold 7.4 million.
Michael Jackson – History – 1995
Michael Jackson was firmly loo-laa at this point in the mid-90s, and this horribly self-aggrandising album and hilarious marketing campaign didn’t help. Giant statue of yourself and people worshipping you in your video? Er, OK then. When you consider that ‘Thriller’ sold 27 million copies and ‘History’ less than 10 % of that, it becomes clear that ego does not sell.
