While we critically derided the record recently, Memphis May Fire’s Broken isn’t an irredeemable album. A generally competent musical performance is given by all members of the band, and there’s even a couple standout songs. However, the album’s material mostly misses the mark, marred by a series of missteps via both musical choices and execution, as well as poor promotion overall by their label. It’s not a surprise that Broken also suffered their worst chart performance since The Hollow.
Thanks to the amazing team at Metal Insider, they put together a weekly chart of just what albums are hitting in terms of sales, and the numbers for Broken are bleak – just 2600 or so albums moved. An astute Redditor commented with some context about the album, most of which we echo:
Memphis May Fire’s "BROKEN" fails to chart on BillBoard Top 200, Charts at #77 on Top Albums (Sales Only, no streaming). Just 2600 sales first week. from Metalcore
The other big problem with the album stems from what we feel was extremely poor promotion, releasing just one single before the album’s release. Many fans had no idea MMF was even releasing a new record, which makes that drop even more precipitous. For context, their highest charting album Unconditional sold 27k first week, with a debut at #4 as well. Perhaps Memphis May Fire will take cues from some of the really exciting bands in this scene in promoting their new material, like the aforementioned Fit For A King, Movements, and Ice Nine Kills.
