Will Smith’s new album flops with dismal sales
Will Smith returned with his new album, Based on a True Story, on March 28th, his first LP in 20 years. However, the project has performed dismally in terms of sales.
Smith racked up millions of streams before it was released, with ‘You Can Make It’, ‘Work of Art’, ‘Tantrum’ and ‘Beautiful Scars’ among the biggest singles. But the rest of the album has failed to make an impact.
According to The Sun, the album shifted just 232 copies on streaming platforms and was downloaded only 36 times in the UK. Based on a True Story didn’t perform much better in the US, either. The project failed to enter the Billboard 200 chart, with Showbiz411 claiming it received just 699 paid downloads.
Smith’s last album, Lost and Found, was released in March 2005. It debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 with 98,000 copies in its first week and reached number 15 on the UK Albums Chart. The single ‘Switch’ peaked at four on the UK Singles Chart and seven on the Hot 100.
Based on a True Story features Big Sean, Russ, Joyner Lucas, and Smith’s son, Jaden, and finds him addressing his infamous Oscars slap of Chris Rock.
“I’ve taken the last couple of years to really do a deep dive on the parts of me that may or may not been in that level of certainty and asking those deep scary internal questions,” he told the Associated Press. “It really is the result of my initial self-examination.”
He added, “Every song is about some part of myself that I discovered or wanted to explore, something I wanted to share. It’s the most full musical offering that I’ve ever created.”