Much like the Netflix series Tiger King, it feels like the Trapt drama happened like three years ago now, but really it's only been a few months. After offering their political viewpoints, the band got into Twitter spats with Power Trip, Ice-T, NY hardcore vet Danny Diablo, While many rooted for the band to fail, some thought that the added boost of publicity would help boost sales of their new album. Those analysts were wrong.
Trapt's new album sold 600 copies in its first week, quite shy of the 5,400 copies frontman Chris Taylor Brown predicted the band would sell back in May.
Loudwire points to a reply Trapt made to somebody on Twitter predicting the album would fail and sell, maybe 2,700 copies. Brown responded "Definitely double that if not more. Cannot wait to run it in! Thanks for promoting my band, moron." Both predictions were clearly way off.
Definitely double that if not more. Cannot wait to run it in! Thanks for promoting my band, moron. ?
— TRAPT (@TRAPTOFFICIAL) May 29, 2020
Even more comically, this is a HUGE drop from the band's 2016 release, DNA, which sold 4,500 copies first week. That's a whopping 87% drop. Certainly, some drop is expected with declining album sales but NOT 87%!
Much like with the Threatin drama, this shows that while saying very stupid things can be a great way to get publicity, it has no bearing on the band's record sales. In this particular case, it looks like Trapt scared off a good portion of whatever fan base they had left.
We currently have no word on how well the album is doing on Pandora.
[via Stream N’ Destroy]