Blow up the charts, that is. While selling 28,000 copies and coming in at #20 isn't a painful flop, one has to think the people at Dr Pepper and MTV, who invested millions in the "Band in a Bubble" campaign are slightly kicking themselves. So what happened?
Hard to say. For one thing, the band was meant to release the album last month -- and it was pushed back over a month without much of a reason. There was speculation that they wanted to "distance" themselves from the whole "Band in a Bubble" thing as it wasn't nearly as well received as expected, but it's hard to say... perhaps they would have benefited from the publicity/media at the time.
Perhaps it's simply that Cartel isn't the "right band, right now." It happens. Their first album, Chroma, only made it as high as #140 on the Billboard charts, so it's not as if they have some sort of massive failure on their hands or didn't manage to significantly up their profile. I think people just expected more from them than a #20 debut.
Anyway, if I was Cartel -- or any band on the charts right now, for that matter -- I wouldn't feel too bad. The number one album in the country, for the second week in a row, is the soundtrack to "High School Musical 2," some Disney garbage. And if that's what people in the US want to spend their hard-earned money on? Maybe it's better if they don't like you so much. It probably means you don't suck.
