Scandals? YouTube vids? Can’t hurt Miley Cyrus’ sales
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No amount of photo scandals and catty videos seem to be hurting Miley Cyrus’ sales potential. The teen star debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts Wednesday morning with the strongest showing of her career. Billboard has her ‘Breakout’ selling 371,000 copies, a tally that’s strong enough to give Miley the second-biggest debut by a female artist in 2008.
Only Mariah Carey fared better, selling 463,000 copies in her debut week. To put Miley’s total in perspective, her ‘Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus’ opened at No. 1 last year with 326,000 copies, but that album was directly tied into her Disney Channel series and tour, whereas ‘Breakout’ is a standalone Miley affair.
While the tween market is certainly one not to be taken lightly, Cyrus fared better than much-hyped 2008 releases from Madonna and Janet Jackson, respectively. Madonna’s ‘Hard Candy’ sold 280,000 copies when it debuted earlier this year, and Janet came in with 181,000 copies back in March.
‘Breakout’ has given Cyrus a top-20 single in the U.S. with ‘7 Things.’ It comes only weeks after the Vanity Fair photo scandal, in which pop-culture pundits were questioning if Annie Liebowitz’s pics of Cyrus’ exposed back would hurt her Magic Kingdom-approved career. And just this week, Cyrus was in the tabloids again, this time for a YouTube video that poked fun at Disney newcomers Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, forwhich she has apologized.
The headlines came at what is perceived to be a crucial time for the young star. Cyrus has hinted that ‘Hannah Montana’ may be nearing the end of its run, and ‘Breakout’ is pegged as the album that could catapult Cyrus out of the teen-pop world. First-week sales usually bring out the die-hards, but thus far, fans don’t appear to be turned off by any of Cyrus’ non-music or off-screen exploits.
--Todd Martens
