Robin Thicke's Paula sells fewer than 54 copies in Australia after mammoth, embarrassing flop

Safe to say the controversial 'Blurred Lines' singer is having a bad week

Robin Thicke was crowned 2013's Sexist of the Year by the End Violence Against Women Coalition (Robin Thicke)

As if Robin Thicke’s career could take much more of a battering, his new album Paula has shifted fewer than 54 copies in Australia.

The controversial US singer, whose desperate effort to win back his estranged wife has been met with mockery, also sold just 530 copies in the UK in its first week of sale.

Thicke’s album, which includes tracks “Love Can Grow Back”, “Still Madly Crazy” and “You’re My Fantasy” has been criticised as “stalkerish”, and failed to place in Australia’s Aria Top 500 chart.

A Blondie compilation at number 500 sold 54 copies last week, meaning Thicke’s album must have fared worse and might not have made double figures.

He has little to celebrate state-side either, having shifted an underwhelming 24,000 copies to reach ninth place.

Thicke has written the 14-song Paula entirely himself in the hope that Paula Patton, who left him after nine years of marriage, might give him another chance.

But with lyrics such as “Every time you walked through that door I shoulda bought white roses, rubbed your toesies (…) waited patient, thanked ya, spanked ya”, everyone is cringing.

This time last year, Thicke was revelling in the success of Blurred Lines, which hit number one worldwide after the release of the title track.

Now he is having a bad week, following an epic PR fail during a Twitter Q&A. Fans were invited to put questions to Thicke using the hashtag #AskThicke – cue a deluge of misogyny accusations and personal attacks.

"Did you really write a rape anthem as a love song for your wife and are you still wondering why she left you?" wrote one Twitter user, while another asked: "If one of your songs played in a forest and no one was around to hear it, would it still be sexist and gross?"