Last week we marveled at the shit-tastic album sales of Robin Thicke’s Paula, which moved a whopping 530 units in the United Kingdom and less than 54 copies in Australia.
We all laughed.
Now a different kind of joke is about to enter the Billboard charts — right at the Number 1 slot.
Early sales reports project that Weird Al Yankovic’s comeback album Mandatory Fun, could give the comedic performer the first top-selling record of his career.
Sales have been aided by an aggressive and unique video campaign, where eight videos, released one per day and including parodies of Thicke’s own “Blurred Lines” and Pharrell’s “Happy,” have been debuted online. As of today, five of the videos have been released, with the final three arriving tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday — a strategy that could continue to push sales of Mandatory Fun.
According to Music News:
Early sales as analyzed by Hits Daily Double show Yankovic’s new album, Mandatory Fun, selling 80,000 to 85,000 copies in its first week of release, about seven to eight thousand more than its closest competitor, Jason Mraz’ YES!
If the numbers hold it will give Yankovic the first number 1 album of his career. The closes he has ever come is with his last album, 2011′s Alpocalypse, which went to number 9.
There is a very good chance that those numbers will hold, if not increase, as Al releases four new videos from the album over the next four days. The first four videos, released Monday through Thursday, have been viewed over ten million times on the four websites that received exclusives. His Tuesday video, Word Crimes (based on Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”) is already at 5.5 million views on YouTube.
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