Leona Lewis Gets Touched By An Oprah

noah | March 19, 2008 10:50 am
When I heard that next Brit thing Leona Lewis was on Oprah earlier this week–complete with Oprah proclaiming that “a star was born” after her performance of “Bleeding Love”–I was going to set up a post about how it might affect her album sales, only to find out that the domestic version of her debut album, Spirit, wouldn’t be available until April 8. Talk about striking while the iron is cooling off, Sony BMG!

The suits at Lewis’ label may not have decided to give the album the Gnarls Barkley rush-release treatment yet, but they might want to re-evaulate that strategy soon; looking at the page for the import version of the album on Amazon, where it costs $22.98 and has a 1-3 week shipping time, reveals that it’s currently No. 62 on the site’s music chart. (Preorders for the domestic version, which will only set Oprah watchers back $9.99 and will presumably ship shortly after its release date, have placed that edition at No. 25.) Sales spikes like this would lead me to believe that whoever’s left at the labels are once again lobbying Winfrey and her staff to set up an “Oprah’s Record Club,” and maybe we could even get some super-cranky rock dude to play the role of Jonathan Franzen and add “controversy” to the whole thing. (Jack White, perhaps?)

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