I think no matter what the number of records V sold first week is, we need to be patient.
Yeah, V has A Thousand Miles as the song most people who haven't been living under a rock know, and she has all of us NESSAholics as holdover fans who probably bought the album, but think about it, she has been out of sight out of mind for 3 years, and due to the lack of promotional push for Harmonium it is really more like 4+ years.
To most casual fans, Vanessa is essentially a new artist. It is important to keep this in mind because it is unrealistic to expect her to outsell people like Kid Rock, LeAnn Rimes and J-Lo who have fairly established fanbases. She will obviously take the second week hit next week and a lot of people will get scared this CD is going to flop, but that is why it is important for V to get out on Regis & Kelly, be on Leno, and get Nolita played on VH1 and MTV, so sales can pick back up or at least stay steady. Then V, Irv and company will get the song out on the radio. Then they'll need to pimp the tour hard to sell records that way.
It would be awesome if V showed up on top CD's sold, etc., but even if it doesn't we can't give up on it yet. Be patient.
I know a lot of people have voiced frustration over the implied lack of promotion of the album, well trust me, there isn't a lack of promotion. A lot of it is just behind the scenes and is coming through in strategic planning. There were 10 different reviews of H&T in 10 different sources that all came out right around or on the day of the album release--that wasn't a coincidence. That was strategic planning.
All I'm saying I guess is I believe in V and I believe in Irv to get this done and make this album a success, or at least more successful than Harmonium. Even if it eventually only goes Gold, that's 2.5 times more than what Harmonium sold.