Spare a thought for Lizzo. Her fifth album, Bitch, only came out three weeks ago and it’s already been branded a flop, and the subject of a feature in Rolling Stone that ponders what exactly went wrong?
The numbers don’t lie. Bitch only sold 2,649 copies in its first week and racked up just under 2.7 million streams. The next week saw a dramatic falling off – just 650 units and 900,000 streams. Whereas her previous album, 2022’s Special, debuted at Number Two on Billboard, Bitch has missed the chart entirely.
It’s a similar story in the UK. None of Bitch’s singles have reached the Top 100. Neither has the album.
Speaking to the Swiftologist Proto Pop podcast about the album's disappointing numbers, Lizzo said: “I was so excited, 'cause I met my pre-saves goal, and then it dropped, and I was like, ‘Oh, OK, this isn't what I thought it would be. I didn't think it would be crazy, but I also didn't think it would be this. And I think that there was 24 hours of my life where I based my success and my worth on a number. And I think that was soul-crushing.”
Rolling Stone doesn’t pinpoint a single reason for this spectacular descent in popularity, but one anonymous label executive suggests she never really had a core fanbase. "She was a very song-driven, radio-hits-driven artist who lacked a core fanbase, and that’s what you need today for career longevity,” is their thinking.
Lizzo herself said in a post on Twitter/X that she thinks it might be the decline in popularity of radio in the US. “The industry changed so much in the last 3 yrs streaming replaced radio & I was a radio darling. That’s how my fans discovered my music.”
Industry pundit Ray Daniels, charmingly, describes Lizzo’s excuse as “all BS to me... If you know that the industry is changing, you should be warning your fans ahead of time. Why are you not telling your fans to request your song on radio? They’re your fans, they’ll do what you ask them to do.”
Perhaps her fans aren’t quite so fervent any more? Lizzo has had a few PR problems in the last few years. She has been accused of sexual harassment and creating ‘a hostile work environment’ by former backing dancers.
“A big part of her brand was being the underdog and being very self-confident, I am who I am, I support everyone, body positivity,” the anonymous label executive suggested. “And when you’re called to task for the mistreatment of exactly what you held out as being your, quote-unquote, brand, then fans don’t wanna see you win anymore, and they desert you.”
Lizzo has alleged a lack of support from her label, Warners. This may have some truth to it, in that the team at the label who signed her has changed. “It was a fluke, her blowing up,” an anonymous ‘veteran’ industry executive interviewed by the magazine says. “Nobody went and put millions of dollars behind her.”
“She is positioned to really be more successful than a lot of artists, so it is baffling,” they continued. “But it also shows you a classic industry underbelly fact, which is that the music industry does not care about its legacy artists at all, actually. If you fall off, you’re literally like nothing to your labels, or to anything.”
So is it all over for the 38-year-old singer and rapper? Not necessarily. “I think there’s always hope for every artist. A hit cures all,” the ‘veteran’ exec says.
“I don’t think she’s done at all,” Daniels adds. “This is just a moment to remind her that she still has work to do.”
