Britney Spears’ ‘Circus’ Takes Off
Britney Spears' painstaking efforts to restores her image and marketability seem to be paying off with the instant success of 'Circus'
Sales skyrocket, helping latest album to hit number one
By Matthew B. Zeidman
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 12/11/08 – Britney Spears has been trying to turn the tide of negative public opinion over the past several months, and the PR war seems to be working. Two sitcom appearances, a sympathetic documentary and a handful of MTV Video Music awards later, the 27-year-old chanteuse has restored her reputation as a hitmaker, selling 505,000 copies of her latest album, “Circus,” which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart last week.
The CD, which features the popular single “Womanizer,” is well on its way to dwarfing sales of “Blackout,” the 2007 Spears work that was billed much less successfully as a comeback vehicle for the pop star. Overshadowed by her turbulent personal life at the time, the earlier album has yet to be certified platinum, having sold approximately 920,000 copies in the United States and 2.1 million worldwide.
Though Spears’ fans have been receptive to her music throughout most of her career, she has yet to match the wild success of her 1999 debut, “…Baby One More Time,” which sold 14 million copies in the United States and 25 million worldwide. If the early momentum of “Circus” continues, it will likely reverse the trend of declining sales that has plagued Spears during her 10 years in the public eye.
