The Numbers Are In: ‘Britney Jean’ Performed Even Worse Than Expected

There’s no nice way to say this. Britney Spears‘ most personal album is chart poison. With sales significantly lower than expected, Britney Jean looks set to debut around #5 on the Billboard 200 with an early, very modest first-week number of just 108,461 copies coming in — making it the worst opening bow of the superstar’s career.

To put things into perspective, no Britney album has debuted lower than #2 on the Billboard 200, and even that only happened once (2007’s Blackout). It gets worse. Britney Jean also had the diva’s lowest first week sales tally, “beating” …Baby One More Time‘s 121,000 copies in 1999.

Can this era be salvaged? It would seem unlikely. The 32-year-old’s Las Vegas stint makes promotion harder — if she even agreed to do some — and the material just isn’t up to her usual standard. One alternative might be reissuing the album with new tracks, particularly if that Lady Gaga duet eventuates.

EDIT: Britney Jean actually landed at number four when Billboard announced official chart positions this morning (December 11) with slightly lower sales of 107,000 copies. Congrats?

Did you expect Britney Jean to perform this badly? Can she turn things around? Have your say in the comments below.

[Via HITS Daily Double].

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