Crowe album struggles to sell

30 Odd Foot of Grunts play folk-rock music

Actor Russell Crowe may be on course for his second Oscar but his pop career is proving anything but award-winning.

The actor's new album with his band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts looks unlikely to scrape into the top 100 of the UK chart after shifting just 156 copies.

But his record label, Resolution/Gruntland Records, is playing down the poor sales of Clarity, which remains unplaced.

The record has had a healthy first week of sales for an album that has not had a big hyping campaign behind it

Record company spokesman

It says Crowe did not want to push his folk-rock group's album at the same time as promoting his Oscar-nominated film A Beautiful Mind.

"Russell is not interested in over-hyping or marketing his music," said a spokesman.

"Clarity is a personal journey through issues close to Russell's heart. He would rather people got into it because they had discovered it for themselves.

"The record has had a healthy first week of sales for an album that has not had a big hyping campaign behind it."

Crowe recently hit the headlines for losing his temper at the aftershow party of the Bafta film awards.

He was angry that the poem he had read during his acceptance speech for the best actor Bafta had been cut from the TV broadcast of the event.

Crowe is also nominated for a best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of schizophrenic Nobel Prize winner John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.

Last year he picked up the best actor Oscar for Gladiator.