Lizzo's new album failed to chart, causing her to question her worth based on numbers.
Lizzo acknowledges the music industry's different landscape and her evolving relationship with her audience.
Lizzo reframes her success, focusing on her accomplishments and impact beyond chart performance.
Lizzo is navigating some changes in her career after her new album, Bi**h, failed to chart on the Billboard 200.
Source: Brianna Bryson / Getty
During a new interview with Zachary Hourihane, the singer opened up about her experience dropping her latest album—which wasn’t as successful as she’d hoped.
On June 5, Lizzo released Bi**h, her first album in four years. Sadly, the record did not chart on the Billboard 200 albums chart, a surprising turn of events following her No. 2 record in 2022.
In her conversation with Hourihane on June 28, Lizzo admitted that her numbers this time around were “soul-crushing,” speaking candidly about the disappointment surrounding her surprising decline.
“I was so excited ‘cause I met my pre-save goal, and then it dropped and I was like, ‘Oh okay, this isn’t what I thought it would kind of be,'” she began. “I think that there was like, 24 hours of my life where I based my success and my worth on a number. And I think that was soul-crushing.”
In the first week of its release, the album sold approximately 3,000 total units, and that number dropped to 650 in the second week, per Rolling Stone.
According to Lizzo, she’d been writing the album since September 2023, and remained confident that the songs she was putting out would resonate with her audience. When the new record failed to find its footing, Lizzo said she “hurt my own feelings.”
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“I was really stressed and I was really sad for a few days because I just was like, ‘Wait a minute. This is like, some of my best stuff,'” she admitted. “And I had to come to terms with the fact that not only is the music industry different in the last three years… but also my relationship and my connection musically with the world is different. And I think I had to kind of mourn that.”
The Grammy winner also touched on the “obsessive focus on…flopping that women get” when new releases don’t reach the success of past output, and the name that goes with that.
“Even that is backhanded in itself, to name it after this extremely phenomenal… this extremely talented incredible pillar in the Black community and in Black rap music,” Lizzo said, referencing the titular “Khia Asylum” artist, Khia. She called the term a “weapon that targets only women, and a lot of Black women. Let’s be real,”
“I think it’s just funny for people, and I think it should remain funny, it should remain a meme,” she continued. “Now it’s evolved to a thing where somebody could be the most successful artist last year, and now they’re back in the Khia Asylum?”
The Grammy winner added that she “can’t be in the Khia Asylum” because she has “Grammys and world-record music.”
“I am a successful artist,” Lizzo stressed. “Save that for the one-hit wonders. No shade!”
The artist also expressed how grateful she is for her friendship with SZA, saying that a phone call from her eventually helped give her a new outlook.
“SZA called me. She was like, ‘Hey, you’re on my mind.’ And I was like, ‘Am I failure?’ And she was like, ‘Oh my God, no.’ She’s so sweet,” Lizzo said. “I meditated and I prayed on it and I was like, ‘This is why I don’t judge myself and my success or my impact on numbers. This is why I don’t do that, because it’s soul-crushing if you do… I had to reframe and be like, but aren’t you proud of yourself? And I was like, ‘Yeah, I actually am proud of myself.'”
Now, Lizzo said she reminds herself on a “daily basis” that numerical shortcomings are “not personal,” and instead display a bigger issue within the music industry as a whole.
