Coming off the heels off the monstrous Come On Over which sold 20 million copies in the US alone and additional 13 million copies WW, Up! had a lot of hype and big promotional spots with multiple high budget music videos. 

The album started off strong with first week sales of 874,000 copies but ultimately failed to replicate even half the success of COO. 

Though it was certified 11x platinum, Up! 'only' sold a little over 5 million albums in the U.S. and 2 million albums in Europe.

While COO produced three top ten hits and an additional three top 40 hits, Up! produced no top 10 hits and only one top 40 hit.

Even though the album performed well and it's stats are nothing to scoff at, why didn't Up! ultimately live up to it's hype?

Was Up! the original 30? 

Up! had two top 40s in the US, including Forever and For Always which was top 20. It also had three top 10s in the UK.

 

But to answer your question, I would say bad single choices.

Following up such a huge album as COO with similar success is almost impossible

No bad single choices...

 

She hit a peak with Come on over. A huge peak.

 

Thriller could not be duplicated again.

 

They gave her a double disc CD to pad the natural decline.

 

The three different versions made it hard to keep up with. There is a reason why a country song is never released together with a Pop version. That made some people confussed.

It followed up a MASSIVE era. Single choices weren’t the best either which didn’t help. It still did quite good though. 

ka-ching! is a classic in europe! but yeah the singles choices were choices.. waiter! bring me water! and nah! should've been singles

 

also the red / blue / green thing was messy

1 minute ago, queenoftheclouds said:

The three different versions made it hard to keep up with. There is a reason why a country song is never released together with a Pop version. That made some people confussed.

Did they release all three versions in the US ? I always assumed that they only had the Country version (green CD) there, while Asia had the "World" version (blue CD) and the rest of the world had the Pop version (red CD). At home, we only had the red one and I never heard of the other versions until I started visiting music forums.

6 minutes ago, queenoftheclouds said:

The three different versions made it hard to keep up with. There is a reason why a country song is never released together with a Pop version. That made some people confussed.

That was definitely odd and not good marketing. 

Up and Gonna Getcha Good were lukewarm following the massive Come On Over singles. Should have led with Forever and For Always. 

Up! was NOT an underperformance  and also it actually sold 6 million in the US not 5 million.

 

Come On Over sold 40 million copies worldwide, that's an impossible number to match + it had been five years since that came out + albums sales had been going down by at least two years by the time Up! was released.

 

It also doesn't help that around that time (more especially 2003) country radio wasn't playing a lot of female artists (Billboard even wrote an article on this), at one point Shania was the only female in the top 10, a large downgrade from the numerous female artists toping the charts during the late 90s.

 

Releasing the album as a double CD might have harmed its sales in the long run too.

 

Taking all this into consideration, the fact that the album went diamond and sold as much as it did was an accomplishment.

Yes - it was similar to 30. 

 

Celine's A New Day Has Come was similar as well.

 

 

Ka Ching really saved the era in Europe - Up had decent longevity though.

 

 

16 minutes ago, allforyou said:

It also doesn't help that around that time (more especially 2003) country radio wasn't playing a lot of female artists (Billboard even wrote an article on this), at one point Shania was the only female in the top 10, a large downgrade from the numerous female artists toping the charts during the late 90s.

Not only that but the concept of cross-over hits also kind of randomly died off in the early 2000s. In the late 90s you had Shania's You're Still The One & From This Moment On, LeAnn Rimes' How Do I Live and I Need You, Faith Hill's This Kiss and Breathe, LeAnn Womack's I Hope You Dance etc., but after 2000, they basically kind of disappeared until like the late 2000s with Carrie and Taylor having huge crossover smashes. 

 

The lack of crossover radio appeal significantly hindered Up!'s sales because audiences accustomed to pop radio weren't really exposed to it in the same way they were exposed to Come On Over with its bevvy of multi-format smashes.

A lot of the single choices were bad. They did a good job until they released Thank You Baby. As much as I love that song it’s not single material. Everything after that was bad as well. They should’ve gone with Nah and I’m Not In The Mood like they were originally going to.

 

The whole red/green/blue thing was really confusing and gimmicky too. They should’ve just released the red disc and called it a day. 

54 minutes ago, allforyou said:

Up! was NOT an underperformance  and also it actually sold 6 million in the US not 5 million.

 

Yeah I'd love to have 6 million sales being considered my underperformance 

7 minutes ago, cockatoo said:

Yeah I'd love to have 6 million sales being considered my underperformance 

Ikr  Not even Celine's A New Day Has Come that sold +3 million is an underperformance to me… the underperformances of that era were albums like Glitter, Just Whitney, More Than a Woman, etc.

I don't even think it underperformed. It still was the 4th best-selling album of 2002 and placed 3rd in the year-end Billboard 200 chart.

 

Best-selling albums of 2002 worldwide (IFPI):

 

1. The Eminem Show — Eminem

2. Let Go — Avril Lavigne

3. ELVIS 30 #1 HITS — Elvis Presley

4. Up! — Shania Twain

5. A New Day Has Come — Céline Dion

Edited April 16, 20233 yr by ninetiesceline

It still did very well, but albums following global phenomenon albums such as Come On Over and 21/25 are always going to be seen as an underperformance by comparison. The bar is simply too high. At the time, Bad was seen as an underperformance compared to Thriller

 

Maybe they could have made some better choices with the marketing, but no album was going to reach the success of Come On Over, especially since music sales overall had declined hard during that five year gap.

too much big for an underperformance. A decline was completely expected, no way she would match COO success again.

Not a Shania stan at all, but it's nearly impossible to maintain the numbers of Come On Over. And the market was changing, pretty sure about that when you don't release an album in five years

I feel like COO was just so exceptionally massive that it almost hindered the next album? If that makes sense.   
 

Like tbh I thought the singles were all bops but at the time it felt like the GP/radio/media weren’t ready to give her attention again after COO (even though it had already been years) 

 

I wouldn’t really say it underperformed as its sales are still extremely impressive, it just couldn’t achieve what Come On Over did which is to be expected. The same thing happened with Alanis and Avril and I’m sure there’s more examples. 

 

Michael Jackson couldn't replicate the success of Thriller either and Come On Over was essentially Shania's Thriller and is the best-selling album by a female artist ever. Up! still did extremely well overall, but was also a much shorter era than COO.

Singles were mid af, no ballads bar IOHWIB which was FTMO ugliest third-grade cousin, too! much! exclamation! signs! on the songs, etc.

Edited April 17, 20233 yr by x æ a-xii