EMI have told Radio 1 they are not too concerned about Robbie William's poor performance in the US with new album 'Escapology'. As reported last week William’s latest album, which has only just been released over there, shifted 21,000 records in its first week. By comparison the current number one album from Linkin Park shifted 810,000 in its first week. Both artist and label are keen to break American properly and a commitment from both sides to endeavour to make this happen was key to William's recent £80 million recording contract.
So much is Williams breaking America part of EMI's business plan that the record company's share price slipped when Robbie’s album entered the US charts at 43. But EMI Senior Vice President of Marketing Mark Collen told Radio 1 yesterday: "America is a totally totally different market and you cannot compare in any way to the UK. If you look at how Coldplay have done it, they've spent months touring, they've spent months doing radio shows, and that's very much the strategy that we're taking with Robbie. The question you keep asking me - 'am I happy with 21,000?' Yes, because I was expecting 10-15,000 records."