May 20, 2007 -- MEMO to Nelly Furtado: Next time your manager books you on a reality TV talent show, make sure it's "American Idol."
After successfully reinventing herself as a hip-pop sex symbol on her latest album, "Loose," Furtado ditched the Timbaland beats and went back to the more elegant songstress style of her earlier albums during a showcase spot on the May 8 episode of "Dancing with the Stars."
Clearly Furtado was bidding to goose sales by showing the older-skewing "Dancing with the Stars" audience that she was more than just a "Promiscuous Girl" (for those unaware, that's the title of her hit single from "Loose.) It didn't work.
"Loose" sold only 21,000 copies in the week after Furtado's appearance on the show, a miserly 16.6 percent gain over the prior week's figures, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The tally ranked as only the 20th best sales week since the album's release on May 30, 2006.
Compare that with the sales performance of Shakira's "Oral Fixation Vol. 2" after her appearance on "American Idol" last year, which shot up an astounding 636 percent to 81,000 copies from 11,000 copies.
Furtado and Shakira share many of the same characteristics. Both are beautiful, talented, 20-something singer-songwriters. Both specialize in the same hip-pop musical style and essentially have overlapping audiences.
So why book Furtado on "Dancing with the Stars" when her core fans so obviously watch "American Idol?"
And please, please, please don't say it was to showcase her musi cal range. If that's the argument, we ain't buying it - just like consumers didn't buy her last album, "Folklore," which sold just 419,000 copies before Furtado reinvented herself as a sultry siren on "Loose" and went on to sell 1.8 million albums. Peter Lauria
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