To me, there are a lot of different ways to judge "
success". Like:
OVERALL SALES - The obvious one, and an important one. I feel confident it'll sell fairly well, but more than "Gourmandises"? Doubtful...
HITS - If there's a hit single (or two or three) that always helps broaden awareness and broaden the fan base. If there were a couple of singles on the album that made the charts, we'd suddenly see our membership quadruple. Sadly, I DON'T expect that to happen, but I can always be wrong.
CONCEPT COHERENCE - This is supposed to be a "concept album", which means all the songs should fit together, flow, and tell a tale of one sort or other. Will they? And, probably a big factor in reaching peoples' ears and wallets: will enough people even know about Edie Sedgwick, or want to find out more about her? I vote YES, it'll be a great concept album, but NO, enough music listeners do NOT have the first clue as to who Edie was.
INTEGRITY - Sometimes, an artist's integrity is part of the sale package. Sometimes they sell it off for cheap. (Sometimes I think Mylène was trying to sell off pieces of Alzée's integrity wholesale.) But from what I`ve seen so far (the title, the cd cover pic, the minivids on the EDS site), it's looking like she's putting her integrity first. Not pandering or compromising in the least. Which is great, in a way, but the title, the cover, and the vids seem so dark and strange that she might alienate or scare away too many potential converts.
QUALITY - IS THE MUSIC ANY GOOD?!?!?! On this I have no doubt whatsoever. It'll be awesome, and I'm going to love it.
