West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => Outbound Connection => Topic started by: Elano on September 16, 2009, 11:21:25 PM
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Jay-Z has done it again. The living rap legend has scored his eleventh no. 1 album with his latest disc The Blueprint 3 and surpassed his sales projections by over 125,000 copies.
As previously reported, industry insider hitsdailydouble.com placed Hov at around 300-350,000 for his first week sales, but according to Nielsen SoundScan, the rap megastar sold closer to 475,700. This is no small feat as Jay’s last album American Gangster sold 425,800 units in a much sunnier sales climate. The Brooklyn-bred MC was everywhere promoting BP3, with a star-studded 9-11 benefit at Madison Square Garden airing live on Fuse, a performance with Alicia Keys at the MTV VMAs and interviews on everyone from Oprah to Bill Maher to Stephen A. Smith.
Fellow New York vet Raekwon also made an impressive debut this week. The Wu-Tang rapper’s sequel to the 1995 classic, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, landed at the no. 4 spot, selling 67,600 copies in its first week.
Climbing four spots up the charts to make it back into the top 10 is the Black Eyed Peas. The group’s latest disc The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) sold 10,000 more albums this week than last week, earning them a seat at no. 7. The group moved 43,500 units in their 14th week, making their grand total stand at 1,071,100.
Falling 16 spots to no. 24 is Pitbull. The Miami rep’s latest disc, Rebelution sold 17,800 CDs this week, making his two-week stats stand at 59,100.
At no. 30 is the collector’s edition of Jay’s first Blueprint album. The new version of the 2001 classic LP that turned Kanye West and Just Blaze into superproducers, pushed 14,000 units out of the stores this week.
Two spots down is fellow “Renegade” Eminem with his Relapse LP. In his 17th week on The Billboard 200 charts, Shady sold 13,700 units, making his overall tally stand at 1,424,600. Directly under Em is Brooklyn MC Fabolous. Loso’s Way cranked out 13,600 from the shelves this week, putting his grand total at 220,900.
Next week look for new releases from Kid Cudi, Drake, Lil Boosie, Q-Tip, Trick Daddy, New Boyz, M.O.P., N.O.R.E., Capone, KRS-One and Buckshot to make The Billboard 200.
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wooow, great shit for jigga tho album wasnt great as i expected, some tracks are for skipping really.
Im really happy for Raekwon dude did 70 k, thats great today!
ps. Slaughterhouse sold 35k since the album release.
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didnt raekwon's album go no.1 on itunes tho?...
those sales figures are for hard copies only i think, and not digital downloads
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And how many copies did Jigga buy of his own album? He's been known throughout his carear to double his first week sales figures by buying his own album up to manipulate the numbers... back in the Def Jam days they used to ship a million first week and start reportin "platinum" before the albums had ever been purchased.
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I wouldnt be surprised if Jay goes plat if he gets some big singles together but i wont be buying BP3. Great news for Raekwon; shows how dope music sells whatever. I went to the store and it was real hard to find his album cause theyd sold out in part of the store. They looked oversupplied on Jigga cds but under supplied with Raes.
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And how many copies did Jigga buy of his own album? He's been known throughout his carear to double his first week sales figures by buying his own album up to manipulate the numbers... back in the Def Jam days they used to ship a million first week and start reportin "platinum" before the albums had ever been purchased.
Lol I swear people hear gossip and take it as gospel. Who would buy 200k of their own records, that's the worst business decision ever :-\...
They're good numbers for Jay though, and it looks like Em will be 1.5 milli soon...
Dope to see Raekwon doing almost 70k, thats that shit!
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Yeah don't realy understand why people keep saying Jay buys his own albums. Dude knows how to promote his album and he always presents a full body of work, not just a single. 11th number one album, damn. And the album has grown on me a lot.
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what other albums of jay-z was number 1.
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what other albums of jay-z was number 1.
See for yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z_discography
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dope album...Jay Z is still the king
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wooow, great shit for jigga tho album wasnt great as i expected, some tracks are for skipping really.
Im really happy for Raekwon dude did 70 k, thats great today!
ps. Slaughterhouse sold 35k since the album release.
great numbers for Jay indeed.
i remember all the people talking about how Wu is SO relevant & Slaughterhouse is not, but i think Jay sets the standard in that conversation of was "relevant" means. :laugh:
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what other albums of jay-z was number 1.
See for yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z_discography
I only counted 9 number 1 albums. When you release an album every 15 months for the last 14 years it's not that hard to get a lot of number 1 albums. I bet with all his 9 or 11 #1 albums he has about 15 weeks at number 1. Going #1 isn't what it used to be. In the old days you were given a small realase slwly the across the country and only went number #1 if the album was deemed good enough by the public to go #1 in it's 5th or 6th week, many times way later, and then it stayed #1 for a bit and in the top 5 for a long time.
In 1984, 5 albums went #1; Thriller, Footloose, Sports, Born in the USA, and Purle Rain. And 4 of those 5 spent at least an entire month at #1 and all of them stayed in the top 10 for over a year and went diamond. In 2009, so far, there are almost 30 #1 albums and every a few weeks 90% of them leave the top 20. Going number one these days just means you were released on a slow week and you had all of your promotion focused on first week sales.
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^^ But it means that he's managed to maintain some level of relevance. Most artists after 5 albums would've lost the publics attention. I have to give props to him to managing to stay selling records even if I don't like his new album.
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wooow, great shit for jigga tho album wasnt great as i expected, some tracks are for skipping really.
Im really happy for Raekwon dude did 70 k, thats great today!
ps. Slaughterhouse sold 35k since the album release.
great numbers for Jay indeed.
i remember all the people talking about how Wu is SO relevant & Slaughterhouse is not, but i think Jay sets the standard in that conversation of was "relevant" means. :laugh:
funny, I remember people saying that Slaughterhouse was relevant and no one buys Wu anymore. Weren't you the one comparing Padded Room sales to Chamber Music?
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wooow, great shit for jigga tho album wasnt great as i expected, some tracks are for skipping really.
Im really happy for Raekwon dude did 70 k, thats great today!
ps. Slaughterhouse sold 35k since the album release.
great numbers for Jay indeed.
i remember all the people talking about how Wu is SO relevant & Slaughterhouse is not, but i think Jay sets the standard in that conversation of was "relevant" means. :laugh:
funny, I remember people saying that Slaughterhouse was relevant and no one buys Wu anymore. Weren't you the one comparing Padded Room sales to Chamber Music?
lol was not me.
i probably said Slaughterhouse is more relevant today at some point.
but like said, Jay-Z showed what kind of numbers you have to do to be "relevant".
but i'll also say, note how this doesn't relate to music; Slaughterhouse, Joe Budden & Raekwon have put out better albums this year, but Jay gets the sales; solid album, but not as good as the names i just mentioned.
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what other albums of jay-z was number 1.
See for yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z_discography
I only counted 9 number 1 albums. When you release an album every 15 months for the last 14 years it's not that hard to get a lot of number 1 albums. I bet with all his 9 or 11 #1 albums he has about 15 weeks at number 1. Going #1 isn't what it used to be. In the old days you were given a small realase slwly the across the country and only went number #1 if the album was deemed good enough by the public to go #1 in it's 5th or 6th week, many times way later, and then it stayed #1 for a bit and in the top 5 for a long time.
In 1984, 5 albums went #1; Thriller, Footloose, Sports, Born in the USA, and Purle Rain. And 4 of those 5 spent at least an entire month at #1 and all of them stayed in the top 10 for over a year and went diamond. In 2009, so far, there are almost 30 #1 albums and every a few weeks 90% of them leave the top 20. Going number one these days just means you were released on a slow week and you had all of your promotion focused on first week sales.
2 colaboration albums went to 1 as well.
It's impossible to compare 1984 with 2009...
We can get the music for free now and that isn't counted by soundscan.
and if they could count that albums would actually do higher numbers because people don't have to pay and get into more artist then they could 1984
EDIT: Raekwon moved good numbers, a bit less then fabo's album iirc and he's mainstream as fuck
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^i wonder what Wayne would have done if C3 wasn't downloaded. :o
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I only counted 9 number 1 albums. When you release an album every 15 months for the last 14 years it's not that hard to get a lot of number 1 albums. I bet with all his 9 or 11 #1 albums he has about 15 weeks at number 1. Going #1 isn't what it used to be. In the old days you were given a small realase slwly the across the country and only went number #1 if the album was deemed good enough by the public to go #1 in it's 5th or 6th week, many times way later, and then it stayed #1 for a bit and in the top 5 for a long time.
But how many artists have the kind of work ethic and mainstream popularity to put out albums every 15 months? I'll admit that Jay's shit ain't always my cup of tea and he ain't in my top 5 but the guy knows how to keep himself relevant. You don't have artists constinently dropping #1 albums (whether it's 5, 7, 9, 11) without there being something special about how the public reacts to them. I mean, the guy was name-checked by the fucking President as one of his favorite artists. That's pretty fucking big. That doesn't mean he's the best rapper alive but it says a lot about his popularity.
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wooow, great shit for jigga tho album wasnt great as i expected, some tracks are for skipping really.
Im really happy for Raekwon dude did 70 k, thats great today!
ps. Slaughterhouse sold 35k since the album release.
great numbers for Jay indeed.
i remember all the people talking about how Wu is SO relevant & Slaughterhouse is not, but i think Jay sets the standard in that conversation of was "relevant" means. :laugh:
funny, I remember people saying that Slaughterhouse was relevant and no one buys Wu anymore. Weren't you the one comparing Padded Room sales to Chamber Music?
lol was not me.
i probably said Slaughterhouse is more relevant today at some point.
but like said, Jay-Z showed what kind of numbers you have to do to be "relevant".
but i'll also say, note how this doesn't relate to music; Slaughterhouse, Joe Budden & Raekwon have put out better albums this year, but Jay gets the sales; solid album, but not as good as the names i just mentioned.
But it has always been like that with Jay. That is what got Nas so infuriated with Angie Martinez but she made a good point. Jay could drop a album every time Nas would and 9 times out of 10 he would outsell him. Not to say Nas is not better or worse, but Jay has a style and his music is more appealing to a wider range of people. Jay can do club bangers, Nas ehh not so much. Those 3 artists I could never see selling that many albums 1st week.
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I only counted 9 number 1 albums. When you release an album every 15 months for the last 14 years it's not that hard to get a lot of number 1 albums. I bet with all his 9 or 11 #1 albums he has about 15 weeks at number 1. Going #1 isn't what it used to be. In the old days you were given a small realase slwly the across the country and only went number #1 if the album was deemed good enough by the public to go #1 in it's 5th or 6th week, many times way later, and then it stayed #1 for a bit and in the top 5 for a long time.
But how many artists have the kind of work ethic and mainstream popularity to put out albums every 15 months? I'll admit that Jay's shit ain't always my cup of tea and he ain't in my top 5 but the guy knows how to keep himself relevant. You don't have artists constinently dropping #1 albums (whether it's 5, 7, 9, 11) without there being something special about how the public reacts to them. I mean, the guy was name-checked by the fucking President as one of his favorite artists. That's pretty fucking big. That doesn't mean he's the best rapper alive but it says a lot about his popularity.
Jay is a contender for GOAT for the simple fact he has managed to stay relevant and on top of the game for so long, and he's got atleast 3 classics under his belt. You can't knock Jay's hustle
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Yeah don't realy understand why people keep saying Jay buys his own albums. Dude knows how to promote his album and he always presents a full body of work, not just a single. 11th number one album, damn. And the album has grown on me a lot.
Didn't Kingdome Come see a 70% sth drop in its second week ? this kind of thing will always start rumors and imply suspicion ... I wouldnt be surprised if BP III second week sales are between 100-110k at best ... big stars 1st week sales are often great but then it depends on the quality of the album ... Jay 2 latest albums sales were nothing great after 1st week , same thing for Relapse ... why ? because they were weak efforts
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Yeah don't realy understand why people keep saying Jay buys his own albums. Dude knows how to promote his album and he always presents a full body of work, not just a single. 11th number one album, damn. And the album has grown on me a lot.
Didn't Kingdome Come see a 70% sth drop in its second week ? this kind of thing will always start rumors and imply suspicion ... I wouldnt be surprised if BP III second week sales are between 100-110k at best ... big stars 1st week sales are often great but then it depends on the quality of the album ... Jay 2 latest albums sales were nothing great after 1st week , same thing for Relapse ... why ? because they were weak efforts
Some people will not like what im going to say now, but Relapse shit all over BP3. IMO.
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Good record, Jiggas that dude
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^^ But it means that he's managed to maintain some level of relevance. Most artists after 5 albums would've lost the publics attention. I have to give props to him to managing to stay selling records even if I don't like his new album.
I'm not saying he's not relevant, or that he isn't good. I'm saying comparing his 9 or 11 to Madonna's 6 or whatever isn't even close. I'm saying that doing it back then was harder.
It's impossible to compare 1984 with 2009...
We can get the music for free now and that isn't counted by soundscan.
and if they could count that albums would actually do higher numbers because people don't have to pay and get into more artist then they could 1984
EDIT: Raekwon moved good numbers, a bit less then fabo's album iirc and he's mainstream as fuck
Music was free for years. Forget dubbing your friends record or tape. FM radio for years was an album oriented frequency. DJs would often play entire album sides, and sometimes both sides. It was very easy to hear plenty of different kinds of music and artists, and with 5 dollar tickets it was easy to see them live too.
You reject my argument that strong first week promotion is the reason why albums, and films these days too, do much bigger numbers and you expect me to buy into the idea that because I can access a lot of music on the web I find more artists and don't want to buy established acts as much.
It's much simpler than you're making it out to be. Somewhere along the line the music and film industry figured out a way to create hype and they use the hype to spark interest. If they knew how to do it right in 1984 they would have done it. It simply took longer to master the science of it all.
My point is simple; it's easier to have a #1 album because of this debut oriented marketing and in 20 years the Beatles 17 #1s or whatever they had will be matched and surpassed by a bunch of artists, but none of those artists will sell that much in the long run or be at #1 for more than one or two weeks at a time.
But how many artists have the kind of work ethic and mainstream popularity to put out albums every 15 months? I'll admit that Jay's shit ain't always my cup of tea and he ain't in my top 5 but the guy knows how to keep himself relevant. You don't have artists constinently dropping #1 albums (whether it's 5, 7, 9, 11) without there being something special about how the public reacts to them. I mean, the guy was name-checked by the fucking President as one of his favorite artists. That's pretty fucking big. That doesn't mean he's the best rapper alive but it says a lot about his popularity.
Plenty of artists have that kind of work ethic. They just refuse to release shitty material. Jay wanted 5 or 6 mediocre albums instead of 2 classics. So he released a bunch of tracks that would have been filler if he paced himself.
Like I said it doesn't mean I think he sucks or that he isn't relevant. It means he'd never go #1 all these times if albums were released market to market first then released massively.
My favourite artist is Bruce Springsteen. I love his old stuff and really dig his new stuff too. But he's hardly still relevant in the modern music scene or world. He got the Superbowl and all the Obama stuff because a lot of hard core Springsteen fans happen to be people in positions of power and keep begging him to come and do this and that just to show him off and see him themselves. Everytime he releases an album it goes #1 the first week and by week 5 it's barely in the top 50. He's got hundreds to thousands of tracks at home and he could package them into albums every 6 months and make sure they debut on slow weeks and end up with 2 #1 albums a year every year until his hardcore base all dies 25 years from now. But it wouldn't mean shit when compared to his first 3 #1 albums or the Beatles first 5.
The Jonas brothers could do the exact same thing over the next two or three years and end up with 15 #1 albums if the positioning was right. Def Leppard's Pyromania sold 6 million copies in just over 1 year and ended up going diamond but it was never #1. Because it was released during the Thriller craze. That one album sold almost as much as all of Jay Z's 11 albums. You want a modern example? Try Human Clay by Creed. It was released in September 99 (Napster was already big by then), spent two weeks at #1 in mid october and then never again, but the fucking thing was diamond by 2001.
People can blame whatever they want but if enough people like enough of the songs enough people will buy the album to make it go diamond, or near it anyway. If Jay can't get those numbers it's because the music isn't there.
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While some of what you say is a valid argument but c'mon shallow are you really trying to compare dubbing a tape to the way we bootleg now a days, c'mon really. You don't even have to leave you house anymore for any aspect. Back in the day you would have to at least run to the store and buy tapes. You would have to wait for the radio DJ to play the music. Now you get the music when you want and throw it on your mp3 player. You don't even need cd's anymore. Really you need to dead that argument because it hurts your overall argument much more than it helps.
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While some of what you say is a valid argument but c'mon shallow are you really trying to compare dubbing a tape to the way we bootleg now a days, c'mon really. You don't even have to leave you house anymore for any aspect. Back in the day you would have to at least run to the store and buy tapes. You would have to wait for the radio DJ to play the music. Now you get the music when you want and throw it on your mp3 player. You don't even need cd's anymore. Really you need to dead that argument because it hurts your overall argument much more than it helps.
I've always argued that exposure from free internet access helps at least as much as it hurts, but this isn't even the issue. A #1 album is a #1 album. The internet affects the rest of the 199 albums on the Top 200 also. To argue that because we can get more music faster is the reason why we don't buy as much of the big name stars is absurd to me.
My other argument on going diamond is simple; plenty of artists have done it or come close. Shaniah Twain has three straight diamond albums and the third one was after the internet explosion. If the appeal is in enough of the songs the album will sell. All you need is two or three big hits and you have a chance. That's why Vol. 2 went 5 platinum when Jay Z was a nobody in the public eye and all of his other "huge" albums can barely go two platinum since being the giant star that he is. The appeal is not in the music. Take away the internet completely and Jay Z doesn't sell one more record. He may even sell less because most of his popularity comes from the internet.
Multiple copies purchased by teenage girls is what makes albums go diamond. You could hand out the music for free door to door and that won't change.
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To argue that because we can get more music faster is the reason why we don't buy as much of the big name stars is absurd to me.
Its not absurd to me. I listen to way more music now then I did back in the 90s and early 00s. And back then I bought albums before I had heard them entirely, based on how many radio singles I liked. Now I limit my purchases to albums I really really like and have heard all the way through.
We used to be limited to what music we were exposed to by the radio. They played certain singles for several weeks in a row, or months. If they played enough songs on an album that I liked, I would buy the album. Now I listen to several albums a day and honestly I can't afford to buy them all. I can definitely see an argument there. I probably would have bought The Blueprint 3 if it were 5 years ago.
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To argue that because we can get more music faster is the reason why we don't buy as much of the big name stars is absurd to me.
Its not absurd to me. I listen to way more music now then I did back in the 90s and early 00s. And back then I bought albums before I had heard them entirely, based on how many radio singles I liked. Now I limit my purchases to albums I really really like and have heard all the way through.
We used to be limited to what music we were exposed to by the radio. They played certain singles for several weeks in a row, or months. If they played enough songs on an album that I liked, I would buy the album. Now I listen to several albums a day and honestly I can't afford to buy them all. I can definitely see an argument there. I probably would have bought The Blueprint 3 if it were 5 years ago.
I think the real problem is how young you guys were before the internet era. Everybody I knew that loved hip hop had every rap album that came out by the major stars. I have every major West Coast release and some I have multiple copies. But I only purchased Doggystyle, Chronic, Regulate, Dogg Food and All Eyes on Me. Yeah they were shitty audio casette quality but we listened to them using shitty casette players on the street corner. Trust me, on those thngs there is no difference between CD and dubbed tape. When burners came out it was a lot easier. You know what's as good as the internet to most teenage music fans? The school hallways. All it took was 1 guy to have the real album in 1995 and everyone that wanted that album had it by the end of the week. And if you lived in a ghetto it was a lot easier.
Why would I buy an album when I have and exact CD replica of it? Because it's good enough to buy.
If Blueprint 3 was released 5 years ago you "probably" would have bought. What if it was released tomorrow and it was better than Blueprint 1?
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To argue that because we can get more music faster is the reason why we don't buy as much of the big name stars is absurd to me.
Its not absurd to me. I listen to way more music now then I did back in the 90s and early 00s. And back then I bought albums before I had heard them entirely, based on how many radio singles I liked. Now I limit my purchases to albums I really really like and have heard all the way through.
We used to be limited to what music we were exposed to by the radio. They played certain singles for several weeks in a row, or months. If they played enough songs on an album that I liked, I would buy the album. Now I listen to several albums a day and honestly I can't afford to buy them all. I can definitely see an argument there. I probably would have bought The Blueprint 3 if it were 5 years ago.
I think the real problem is how young you guys were before the internet era. Everybody I knew that loved hip hop had every rap album that came out by the major stars. I have every major West Coast release and some I have multiple copies. But I only purchased Doggystyle, Chronic, Regulate, Dogg Food and All Eyes on Me. Yeah they were shitty audio casette quality but we listened to them using shitty casette players on the street corner. Trust me, on those thngs there is no difference between CD and dubbed tape. When burners came out it was a lot easier. You know what's as good as the internet to most teenage music fans? The school hallways. All it took was 1 guy to have the real album in 1995 and everyone that wanted that album had it by the end of the week. And if you lived in a ghetto it was a lot easier.
Why would I buy an album when I have and exact CD replica of it? Because it's good enough to buy.
If Blueprint 3 was released 5 years ago you "probably" would have bought. What if it was released tomorrow and it was better than Blueprint 1?
There ya go right there. Like you say, everyone was buying every major release. People were buying everything during the 90s, regardless of its quality. Everyone on here tends to overrate the 90s like everything that came out then was golden...anything with the G-Funk label on it was guaranteed to go at least gold. In today's environment these same albums wouldn't sell. I think anyone can see that this is true.
From what you've said so far, your opinion seems to be that quality will make the album sell more. But this isn't true, because dope albums come out every year that sell terribly. Especially in hip hop, most of the quality music isn't found on the charts.
You talk about listening to cassettes on the street corners and sharing music, which brings up a good point. Back then everyone was listening to the same shit, bumping the same albums, so everyone liked the same shit and everyone knew what to cop. Music has become a lot more individual since then with the internet, mp3 players, etc. Most of the shit I listen to now, my friends haven't even heard of. I still take recommendations from them, but most of the music I listen to I find on my own. But maybe that's just me because I listen to a lot of indie stuff.
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Plenty of artists have that kind of work ethic. They just refuse to release shitty material. Jay wanted 5 or 6 mediocre albums instead of 2 classics. So he released a bunch of tracks that would have been filler if he paced himself.
Like I said it doesn't mean I think he sucks or that he isn't relevant. It means he'd never go #1 all these times if albums were released market to market first then released massively.
My favourite artist is Bruce Springsteen. I love his old stuff and really dig his new stuff too. But he's hardly still relevant in the modern music scene or world. He got the Superbowl and all the Obama stuff because a lot of hard core Springsteen fans happen to be people in positions of power and keep begging him to come and do this and that just to show him off and see him themselves. Everytime he releases an album it goes #1 the first week and by week 5 it's barely in the top 50. He's got hundreds to thousands of tracks at home and he could package them into albums every 6 months and make sure they debut on slow weeks and end up with 2 #1 albums a year every year until his hardcore base all dies 25 years from now. But it wouldn't mean shit when compared to his first 3 #1 albums or the Beatles first 5.
The Jonas brothers could do the exact same thing over the next two or three years and end up with 15 #1 albums if the positioning was right. Def Leppard's Pyromania sold 6 million copies in just over 1 year and ended up going diamond but it was never #1. Because it was released during the Thriller craze. That one album sold almost as much as all of Jay Z's 11 albums. You want a modern example? Try Human Clay by Creed. It was released in September 99 (Napster was already big by then), spent two weeks at #1 in mid october and then never again, but the fucking thing was diamond by 2001.
People can blame whatever they want but if enough people like enough of the songs enough people will buy the album to make it go diamond, or near it anyway. If Jay can't get those numbers it's because the music isn't there.
But Jay really know how to push an album. The records themselves may not be the greatest things out there but he knows how to sell them as that. He'll do the "Unplugged" or "VH1 Storytellers". Get the movie tie-in with "American Gangster". You look at "The Black Album" and it was like he turned it into some monumental record. He did the whole "99 Problems" video and took something like that whole shooting thing and sold it up when really it wasn't that big. But he made it seem like an event. He had the whole "Fade To Black" movie. He did a lot of shit to keep his name relevant. And I don't think just anybody could do it or more people would.
I don't buy your Jonas Brothers comment either. There isn't a chance they could squeeze out 15 #1 albums in three years. Even if they had the work ethic to churn out that much product, the public would grow tired of it after about five at most. The interest will not be there in a couple years. It's too many new, young stars to fill the void when they all turn 20. Ask Hanson. You might get that break-out solo act like a Justin Timberlake or Beyonce but even then, that many #1 albums is not a simple feat. And these are more mainstream pop artists. Jay-Z is a rapper who releases content that is geared toward a considerably more mature audience.
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Raekwon 70k is a great thing ...
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To argue that because we can get more music faster is the reason why we don't buy as much of the big name stars is absurd to me.
Its not absurd to me. I listen to way more music now then I did back in the 90s and early 00s. And back then I bought albums before I had heard them entirely, based on how many radio singles I liked. Now I limit my purchases to albums I really really like and have heard all the way through.
We used to be limited to what music we were exposed to by the radio. They played certain singles for several weeks in a row, or months. If they played enough songs on an album that I liked, I would buy the album. Now I listen to several albums a day and honestly I can't afford to buy them all. I can definitely see an argument there. I probably would have bought The Blueprint 3 if it were 5 years ago.
I think the real problem is how young you guys were before the internet era. Everybody I knew that loved hip hop had every rap album that came out by the major stars. I have every major West Coast release and some I have multiple copies. But I only purchased Doggystyle, Chronic, Regulate, Dogg Food and All Eyes on Me. Yeah they were shitty audio casette quality but we listened to them using shitty casette players on the street corner. Trust me, on those thngs there is no difference between CD and dubbed tape. When burners came out it was a lot easier. You know what's as good as the internet to most teenage music fans? The school hallways. All it took was 1 guy to have the real album in 1995 and everyone that wanted that album had it by the end of the week. And if you lived in a ghetto it was a lot easier.
Why would I buy an album when I have and exact CD replica of it? Because it's good enough to buy.
If Blueprint 3 was released 5 years ago you "probably" would have bought. What if it was released tomorrow and it was better than Blueprint 1?
There ya go right there. Like you say, everyone was buying every major release. People were buying everything during the 90s, regardless of its quality. Everyone on here tends to overrate the 90s like everything that came out then was golden...anything with the G-Funk label on it was guaranteed to go at least gold. In today's environment these same albums wouldn't sell. I think anyone can see that this is true.
From what you've said so far, your opinion seems to be that quality will make the album sell more. But this isn't true, because dope albums come out every year that sell terribly. Especially in hip hop, most of the quality music isn't found on the charts.
You talk about listening to cassettes on the street corners and sharing music, which brings up a good point. Back then everyone was listening to the same shit, bumping the same albums, so everyone liked the same shit and everyone knew what to cop. Music has become a lot more individual since then with the internet, mp3 players, etc. Most of the shit I listen to now, my friends haven't even heard of. I still take recommendations from them, but most of the music I listen to I find on my own. But maybe that's just me because I listen to a lot of indie stuff.
I didn't mean everyone bought a copy of the major releases. They all had dubbed or burned versions of them. I bought the ones I considered classics, in some cases years later, because of collection purposes. I'm not equating my reasoning for buying it with the masses. I'm equatign with the mindest of the board; the fringe west coast fans we all once were.
Quality of the album will help it sell with the hard core fans. Pop quality will help it sell with the masses. That was what I meant when I said appeal a few times in my post.
We all listen to different music now because we're older and have branched out, much like the 20 and 30 somethings did back then too. It's the teens that still listen as community though, for the most part. You can still find a group of teens bumpng Drake or Lil Wayne at the high schools. Just like we were bumping DMX or Nas.
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Plenty of artists have that kind of work ethic. They just refuse to release shitty material. Jay wanted 5 or 6 mediocre albums instead of 2 classics. So he released a bunch of tracks that would have been filler if he paced himself.
Like I said it doesn't mean I think he sucks or that he isn't relevant. It means he'd never go #1 all these times if albums were released market to market first then released massively.
My favourite artist is Bruce Springsteen. I love his old stuff and really dig his new stuff too. But he's hardly still relevant in the modern music scene or world. He got the Superbowl and all the Obama stuff because a lot of hard core Springsteen fans happen to be people in positions of power and keep begging him to come and do this and that just to show him off and see him themselves. Everytime he releases an album it goes #1 the first week and by week 5 it's barely in the top 50. He's got hundreds to thousands of tracks at home and he could package them into albums every 6 months and make sure they debut on slow weeks and end up with 2 #1 albums a year every year until his hardcore base all dies 25 years from now. But it wouldn't mean shit when compared to his first 3 #1 albums or the Beatles first 5.
The Jonas brothers could do the exact same thing over the next two or three years and end up with 15 #1 albums if the positioning was right. Def Leppard's Pyromania sold 6 million copies in just over 1 year and ended up going diamond but it was never #1. Because it was released during the Thriller craze. That one album sold almost as much as all of Jay Z's 11 albums. You want a modern example? Try Human Clay by Creed. It was released in September 99 (Napster was already big by then), spent two weeks at #1 in mid october and then never again, but the fucking thing was diamond by 2001.
People can blame whatever they want but if enough people like enough of the songs enough people will buy the album to make it go diamond, or near it anyway. If Jay can't get those numbers it's because the music isn't there.
But Jay really know how to push an album. The records themselves may not be the greatest things out there but he knows how to sell them as that. He'll do the "Unplugged" or "VH1 Storytellers". Get the movie tie-in with "American Gangster". You look at "The Black Album" and it was like he turned it into some monumental record. He did the whole "99 Problems" video and took something like that whole shooting thing and sold it up when really it wasn't that big. But he made it seem like an event. He had the whole "Fade To Black" movie. He did a lot of shit to keep his name relevant. And I don't think just anybody could do it or more people would.
I don't buy your Jonas Brothers comment either. There isn't a chance they could squeeze out 15 #1 albums in three years. Even if they had the work ethic to churn out that much product, the public would grow tired of it after about five at most. The interest will not be there in a couple years. It's too many new, young stars to fill the void when they all turn 20. Ask Hanson. You might get that break-out solo act like a Justin Timberlake or Beyonce but even then, that many #1 albums is not a simple feat. And these are more mainstream pop artists. Jay-Z is a rapper who releases content that is geared toward a considerably more mature audience.
My argument is not that he cannot promote himself. he can. I'm saying he could not go #1 more than once or twice tops in the old system. His albums do not sell that well. They simply sell a lot first week because of over saturation, then they drop exponentially week after week, like almost everyone else.
I'll take your 5 #1 argument about the Jonas Brothers and say that Madonna has 6 number 1 albums. She was once a bonafide megastar snd still is. The Jonas Brothers are a teenie bopper clown crew. The fact you think they could even get to 5 shows the difference in the system.
To once again adress your work ethic comment; when album are recorded dozens of songs are written and recorded but only 10 or 11 make the cut. There's always a bunch of leftover. Jay simply releases more leftover. You want Work Ethic? Look at Frank Zappa he released an album a year every year from 1966 to 1980, sometimes two a year. He could compose for every instrument on the record and write every lyric. His total albums during his lifetime are over 50, but no #1s. I garaunteee of those 50, in this modern market he could have pulled off 10 to 15 #1s.
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To argue that because we can get more music faster is the reason why we don't buy as much of the big name stars is absurd to me.
Its not absurd to me. I listen to way more music now then I did back in the 90s and early 00s. And back then I bought albums before I had heard them entirely, based on how many radio singles I liked. Now I limit my purchases to albums I really really like and have heard all the way through.
We used to be limited to what music we were exposed to by the radio. They played certain singles for several weeks in a row, or months. If they played enough songs on an album that I liked, I would buy the album. Now I listen to several albums a day and honestly I can't afford to buy them all. I can definitely see an argument there. I probably would have bought The Blueprint 3 if it were 5 years ago.
I think the real problem is how young you guys were before the internet era. Everybody I knew that loved hip hop had every rap album that came out by the major stars. I have every major West Coast release and some I have multiple copies. But I only purchased Doggystyle, Chronic, Regulate, Dogg Food and All Eyes on Me. Yeah they were shitty audio casette quality but we listened to them using shitty casette players on the street corner. Trust me, on those thngs there is no difference between CD and dubbed tape. When burners came out it was a lot easier. You know what's as good as the internet to most teenage music fans? The school hallways. All it took was 1 guy to have the real album in 1995 and everyone that wanted that album had it by the end of the week. And if you lived in a ghetto it was a lot easier.
Why would I buy an album when I have and exact CD replica of it? Because it's good enough to buy.
If Blueprint 3 was released 5 years ago you "probably" would have bought. What if it was released tomorrow and it was better than Blueprint 1?
There ya go right there. Like you say, everyone was buying every major release. People were buying everything during the 90s, regardless of its quality. Everyone on here tends to overrate the 90s like everything that came out then was golden...anything with the G-Funk label on it was guaranteed to go at least gold. In today's environment these same albums wouldn't sell. I think anyone can see that this is true.
From what you've said so far, your opinion seems to be that quality will make the album sell more. But this isn't true, because dope albums come out every year that sell terribly. Especially in hip hop, most of the quality music isn't found on the charts.
You talk about listening to cassettes on the street corners and sharing music, which brings up a good point. Back then everyone was listening to the same shit, bumping the same albums, so everyone liked the same shit and everyone knew what to cop. Music has become a lot more individual since then with the internet, mp3 players, etc. Most of the shit I listen to now, my friends haven't even heard of. I still take recommendations from them, but most of the music I listen to I find on my own. But maybe that's just me because I listen to a lot of indie stuff.
I didn't mean everyone bought a copy of the major releases. They all had dubbed or burned versions of them. I bought the ones I considered classics, in some cases years later, because of collection purposes. I'm not equating my reasoning for buying it with the masses. I'm equatign with the mindest of the board; the fringe west coast fans we all once were.
Quality of the album will help it sell with the hard core fans. Pop quality will help it sell with the masses. That was what I meant when I said appeal a few times in my post.
We all listen to different music now because we're older and have branched out, much like the 20 and 30 somethings did back then too. It's the teens that still listen as community though, for the most part. You can still find a group of teens bumpng Drake or Lil Wayne at the high schools. Just like we were bumping DMX or Nas.
While age has something to do with it, there are also a lot of teens who listen to underground shit, which wouldn't have been possible during the 90s. Underground music is easy to find these days, back then you were basically confined to your region.
IE Joe Budden, Crooked I's internet fans. A lot of these rappers wouldn't have careers without the internet.
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SHallow you started comparing 1984 with 2009, now you're comparing the nineties with 2009, which is a completly different story.
In the eighties you couldn't bootleg music, and casettes don't count they don't last.
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Ikke; tell that to all those Metallica fans that bootlegged concerts all through the 80s and made the band famous. Springsteen fans were trading bootlegs through newsletters as far back as the 70s. Yes they were in the know fans and they're weren't as many, but guys over estimate how many people really know where to get music on the net. I can find 90% of all music released inthe last 50 years through torrents, blogspots or forums. Most people cannot. What they can find is the major releases but they could always find them. When tape dubbing started the industry was flipping out. If not for the huge 80s sales they may have made it an issue. The same thing when CD burners became available and record compaines started copy protecting their shit. You think they spent all that for money doing it for nothing?
rapsodie; you're talking to a kid from canada who grew up with dubbed copies of the Twinz - Conversation and No One can Do It Better by D.O.C.
Go find a bunch of dudes in their 40s, real music fans, not fly by night pop fans and ask them what they were listening to 20 years ago and how they got their music illegally. I think you'll be surprised by their answers.
Is it easier now? Yes, but to most people that buy, bought, or ever will buy music, it doesn't mean as much to them as you'd think.
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Apparently, Jigga is counting Street is Watching as having 11 number 1 albums 8)
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Ikke; tell that to all those Metallica fans that bootlegged concerts all through the 80s and made the band famous. Springsteen fans were trading bootlegs through newsletters as far back as the 70s. Yes they were in the know fans and they're weren't as many, but guys over estimate how many people really know where to get music on the net. I can find 90% of all music released inthe last 50 years through torrents, blogspots or forums. Most people cannot. What they can find is the major releases but they could always find them. When tape dubbing started the industry was flipping out. If not for the huge 80s sales they may have made it an issue. The same thing when CD burners became available and record compaines started copy protecting their shit. You think they spent all that for money doing it for nothing?
rapsodie; you're talking to a kid from canada who grew up with dubbed copies of the Twinz - Conversation and No One can Do It Better by D.O.C.
Go find a bunch of dudes in their 40s, real music fans, not fly by night pop fans and ask them what they were listening to 20 years ago and how they got their music illegally. I think you'll be surprised by their answers.
Is it easier now? Yes, but to most people that buy, bought, or ever will buy music, it doesn't mean as much to them as you'd think.
I'm a real music fan, I don't need to go find anyone. I grew up on music from the 90s, my brothers and sisters grew up on music from the 80s. I had dubbed music sure. But at least one person in my family or among my friends had the album. Now no one has to buy the album, everyone has it downloaded on their computer. Its an entirely different setting now.
Did you cop Blueprint III, or wait for one of your friends to cop Blueprint III and listen to it? No of course not....we all listened to it online when it leaked, before its even in stores, all the way through.
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Ikke; tell that to all those Metallica fans that bootlegged concerts all through the 80s and made the band famous. Springsteen fans were trading bootlegs through newsletters as far back as the 70s. Yes they were in the know fans and they're weren't as many, but guys over estimate how many people really know where to get music on the net. I can find 90% of all music released inthe last 50 years through torrents, blogspots or forums. Most people cannot. What they can find is the major releases but they could always find them. When tape dubbing started the industry was flipping out. If not for the huge 80s sales they may have made it an issue. The same thing when CD burners became available and record compaines started copy protecting their shit. You think they spent all that for money doing it for nothing?
rapsodie; you're talking to a kid from canada who grew up with dubbed copies of the Twinz - Conversation and No One can Do It Better by D.O.C.
Go find a bunch of dudes in their 40s, real music fans, not fly by night pop fans and ask them what they were listening to 20 years ago and how they got their music illegally. I think you'll be surprised by their answers.
Is it easier now? Yes, but to most people that buy, bought, or ever will buy music, it doesn't mean as much to them as you'd think.
I'm a real music fan, I don't need to go find anyone. I grew up on music from the 90s, my brothers and sisters grew up on music from the 80s. I had dubbed music sure. But at least one person in my family or among my friends had the album. Now no one has to buy the album, everyone has it downloaded on their computer. Its an entirely different setting now.
Did you cop Blueprint III, or wait for one of your friends to cop Blueprint III and listen to it? No of course not....we all listened to it online when it leaked, before its even in stores, all the way through.
Of course you're a real music fan. But 20 years ago you were a kid. Not a twenty something music fan to the level you are now. If you were you would have had plenty of albums you never bought. In 1975 every time a new album came out it was played entirely on FM radio and was played a few times over for the first few weeks. Anyone that currently has the money to spend hundreds to thousands on a PC and hours upon hours on the net searching blogspots and torrent sites had the time and money back then to get a very solid recording device hooked up to the radio in their basement and gotten every new album that came out. My father had a reel to reel recorder that grabbed from FM Radio as well as any home recorder of that time and his own fucking vinyl lathe. My Dad used it for Greek music. His brother loved American music and recorded everything that was released on the local stations. When Led Zeppelin's Physical Grafitti was released the very same week my uncle had a master laquer and cut at least 30 copies for his friends and friends of friends. I remember him telling me the story. I still have reels in basement from album no one has listened to twice.
Now it's true that compring having something like that to having a PC isn't the same but I'd bet most of us on this forum now would have been those guys 30 years ago. Just like we would have been short wave enthusiasts 100 years ago.
For The Record; I haven't even heard Blueprint 3.
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Ikke; tell that to all those Metallica fans that bootlegged concerts all through the 80s and made the band famous. Springsteen fans were trading bootlegs through newsletters as far back as the 70s. Yes they were in the know fans and they're weren't as many, but guys over estimate how many people really know where to get music on the net. I can find 90% of all music released inthe last 50 years through torrents, blogspots or forums. Most people cannot. What they can find is the major releases but they could always find them. When tape dubbing started the industry was flipping out. If not for the huge 80s sales they may have made it an issue. The same thing when CD burners became available and record compaines started copy protecting their shit. You think they spent all that for money doing it for nothing?
rapsodie; you're talking to a kid from canada who grew up with dubbed copies of the Twinz - Conversation and No One can Do It Better by D.O.C.
Go find a bunch of dudes in their 40s, real music fans, not fly by night pop fans and ask them what they were listening to 20 years ago and how they got their music illegally. I think you'll be surprised by their answers.
Is it easier now? Yes, but to most people that buy, bought, or ever will buy music, it doesn't mean as much to them as you'd think.
I'm a real music fan, I don't need to go find anyone. I grew up on music from the 90s, my brothers and sisters grew up on music from the 80s. I had dubbed music sure. But at least one person in my family or among my friends had the album. Now no one has to buy the album, everyone has it downloaded on their computer. Its an entirely different setting now.
Did you cop Blueprint III, or wait for one of your friends to cop Blueprint III and listen to it? No of course not....we all listened to it online when it leaked, before its even in stores, all the way through.
Of course you're a real music fan. But 20 years ago you were a kid. Not a twenty something music fan to the level you are now. If you were you would have had plenty of albums you never bought. In 1975 every time a new album came out it was played entirely on FM radio and was played a few times over for the first few weeks. Anyone that currently has the money to spend hundreds to thousands on a PC and hours upon hours on the net searching blogspots and torrent sites had the time and money back then to get a very solid recording device hooked up to the radio in their basement and gotten every new album that came out. My father had a reel to reel recorder that grabbed from FM Radio as well as any home recorder of that time and his own fucking vinyl lathe. My Dad used it for Greek music. His brother loved American music and recorded everything that was released on the local stations. When Led Zeppelin's Physical Grafitti was released the very same week my uncle had a master laquer and cut at least 30 copies for his friends and friends of friends. I remember him telling me the story. I still have reels in basement from album no one has listened to twice.
Now it's true that compring having something like that to having a PC isn't the same but I'd bet most of us on this forum now would have been those guys 30 years ago. Just like we would have been short wave enthusiasts 100 years ago.
For The Record; I haven't even heard Blueprint 3.
I sincerely doubt it. Even if we didn't have the internet, I for sure wouldn't buy recording equipment and spend my time on the radio waiting for them to play songs. I used to record a song here and there on tape, but cmon, recording whole albums?
You're missing the point. No one buys a computer to look for music. Everyone already has a computer. And no one has to spend hours searching blogs. Its a very simple process to find music now. Much easier than buying equipment specifically to record albums off the internet. I don't even know anyone who did that back then. Yet almost everyone gets their music off the internet nowadays. Its definitely not comparable at all.
Not to mention the huge difference in music. On the radio you hear the same 10 songs over and over again. On the internet you google hip hop albums and get millions of results.
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Ikke; tell that to all those Metallica fans that bootlegged concerts all through the 80s and made the band famous. Springsteen fans were trading bootlegs through newsletters as far back as the 70s. Yes they were in the know fans and they're weren't as many, but guys over estimate how many people really know where to get music on the net. I can find 90% of all music released inthe last 50 years through torrents, blogspots or forums. Most people cannot. What they can find is the major releases but they could always find them. When tape dubbing started the industry was flipping out. If not for the huge 80s sales they may have made it an issue. The same thing when CD burners became available and record compaines started copy protecting their shit. You think they spent all that for money doing it for nothing?
rapsodie; you're talking to a kid from canada who grew up with dubbed copies of the Twinz - Conversation and No One can Do It Better by D.O.C.
Go find a bunch of dudes in their 40s, real music fans, not fly by night pop fans and ask them what they were listening to 20 years ago and how they got their music illegally. I think you'll be surprised by their answers.
Is it easier now? Yes, but to most people that buy, bought, or ever will buy music, it doesn't mean as much to them as you'd think.
I'm a real music fan, I don't need to go find anyone. I grew up on music from the 90s, my brothers and sisters grew up on music from the 80s. I had dubbed music sure. But at least one person in my family or among my friends had the album. Now no one has to buy the album, everyone has it downloaded on their computer. Its an entirely different setting now.
Did you cop Blueprint III, or wait for one of your friends to cop Blueprint III and listen to it? No of course not....we all listened to it online when it leaked, before its even in stores, all the way through.
Of course you're a real music fan. But 20 years ago you were a kid. Not a twenty something music fan to the level you are now. If you were you would have had plenty of albums you never bought. In 1975 every time a new album came out it was played entirely on FM radio and was played a few times over for the first few weeks. Anyone that currently has the money to spend hundreds to thousands on a PC and hours upon hours on the net searching blogspots and torrent sites had the time and money back then to get a very solid recording device hooked up to the radio in their basement and gotten every new album that came out. My father had a reel to reel recorder that grabbed from FM Radio as well as any home recorder of that time and his own fucking vinyl lathe. My Dad used it for Greek music. His brother loved American music and recorded everything that was released on the local stations. When Led Zeppelin's Physical Grafitti was released the very same week my uncle had a master laquer and cut at least 30 copies for his friends and friends of friends. I remember him telling me the story. I still have reels in basement from album no one has listened to twice.
Now it's true that compring having something like that to having a PC isn't the same but I'd bet most of us on this forum now would have been those guys 30 years ago. Just like we would have been short wave enthusiasts 100 years ago.
For The Record; I haven't even heard Blueprint 3.
I sincerely doubt it. Even if we didn't have the internet, I for sure wouldn't buy recording equipment and spend my time on the radio waiting for them to play songs. I used to record a song here and there on tape, but cmon, recording whole albums?
You're missing the point. No one buys a computer to look for music. Everyone already has a computer. And no one has to spend hours searching blogs. Its a very simple process to find music now. Much easier than buying equipment specifically to record albums off the internet. I don't even know anyone who did that back then. Yet almost everyone gets their music off the internet nowadays. Its definitely not comparable at all.
Not to mention the huge difference in music. On the radio you hear the same 10 songs over and over again. On the internet you google hip hop albums and get millions of results.
First let me just say we got way off topic. The point initially was it's easier to get a #1 album now than it was before. That's a fact and no one has refuted it.
Secondly, if you yourself weren't the one with the shit it would have been someone you know. Like I said, 30 people connected to my uncle alone got it from him. Who knows how many people they dubbed it for. For all I know 300 people have copies of Physical Grafitti because of my father's cutter.
The other thing you aren't getting is the concept of FM Radio. In the 70s, and before, hit radio was AM Radio. FM was used for obscure or local stuff that would play entire albums when they came out. It would be something like "All Albums All Night Friday". You walk into your recording room at 8 PM on Friday Night, hit record on the reel to reel and then go out for the night, and you'd get 5 or 6 albums recorded and ready to be pressed or dubbed by the time you got home. It wasn't rocket science. High school kids would do this and then sell them in the school parking lot at 50 cents a piece or whatever, or free if you provided the medium. It was real fucking easy to get cheap bootlegged shit back then. A lot of times the albums would be released to your radio station before your small market town ever got them in stores. So it wasn't even like you had to wait longer to get the album.
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
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always sad to see these trash albums sell like this
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
for real....dude ain't even listened to the album yet
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Ikke; tell that to all those Metallica fans that bootlegged concerts all through the 80s and made the band famous. Springsteen fans were trading bootlegs through newsletters as far back as the 70s. Yes they were in the know fans and they're weren't as many, but guys over estimate how many people really know where to get music on the net. I can find 90% of all music released inthe last 50 years through torrents, blogspots or forums. Most people cannot. What they can find is the major releases but they could always find them. When tape dubbing started the industry was flipping out. If not for the huge 80s sales they may have made it an issue. The same thing when CD burners became available and record compaines started copy protecting their shit. You think they spent all that for money doing it for nothing?
rapsodie; you're talking to a kid from canada who grew up with dubbed copies of the Twinz - Conversation and No One can Do It Better by D.O.C.
Go find a bunch of dudes in their 40s, real music fans, not fly by night pop fans and ask them what they were listening to 20 years ago and how they got their music illegally. I think you'll be surprised by their answers.
Is it easier now? Yes, but to most people that buy, bought, or ever will buy music, it doesn't mean as much to them as you'd think.
I'm a real music fan, I don't need to go find anyone. I grew up on music from the 90s, my brothers and sisters grew up on music from the 80s. I had dubbed music sure. But at least one person in my family or among my friends had the album. Now no one has to buy the album, everyone has it downloaded on their computer. Its an entirely different setting now.
Did you cop Blueprint III, or wait for one of your friends to cop Blueprint III and listen to it? No of course not....we all listened to it online when it leaked, before its even in stores, all the way through.
Of course you're a real music fan. But 20 years ago you were a kid. Not a twenty something music fan to the level you are now. If you were you would have had plenty of albums you never bought. In 1975 every time a new album came out it was played entirely on FM radio and was played a few times over for the first few weeks. Anyone that currently has the money to spend hundreds to thousands on a PC and hours upon hours on the net searching blogspots and torrent sites had the time and money back then to get a very solid recording device hooked up to the radio in their basement and gotten every new album that came out. My father had a reel to reel recorder that grabbed from FM Radio as well as any home recorder of that time and his own fucking vinyl lathe. My Dad used it for Greek music. His brother loved American music and recorded everything that was released on the local stations. When Led Zeppelin's Physical Grafitti was released the very same week my uncle had a master laquer and cut at least 30 copies for his friends and friends of friends. I remember him telling me the story. I still have reels in basement from album no one has listened to twice.
Now it's true that compring having something like that to having a PC isn't the same but I'd bet most of us on this forum now would have been those guys 30 years ago. Just like we would have been short wave enthusiasts 100 years ago.
For The Record; I haven't even heard Blueprint 3.
I sincerely doubt it. Even if we didn't have the internet, I for sure wouldn't buy recording equipment and spend my time on the radio waiting for them to play songs. I used to record a song here and there on tape, but cmon, recording whole albums?
You're missing the point. No one buys a computer to look for music. Everyone already has a computer. And no one has to spend hours searching blogs. Its a very simple process to find music now. Much easier than buying equipment specifically to record albums off the internet. I don't even know anyone who did that back then. Yet almost everyone gets their music off the internet nowadays. Its definitely not comparable at all.
Not to mention the huge difference in music. On the radio you hear the same 10 songs over and over again. On the internet you google hip hop albums and get millions of results.
First let me just say we got way off topic. The point initially was it's easier to get a #1 album now than it was before. That's a fact and no one has refuted it.
Secondly, if you yourself weren't the one with the shit it would have been someone you know. Like I said, 30 people connected to my uncle alone got it from him. Who knows how many people they dubbed it for. For all I know 300 people have copies of Physical Grafitti because of my father's cutter.
The other thing you aren't getting is the concept of FM Radio. In the 70s, and before, hit radio was AM Radio. FM was used for obscure or local stuff that would play entire albums when they came out. It would be something like "All Albums All Night Friday". You walk into your recording room at 8 PM on Friday Night, hit record on the reel to reel and then go out for the night, and you'd get 5 or 6 albums recorded and ready to be pressed or dubbed by the time you got home. It wasn't rocket science. High school kids would do this and then sell them in the school parking lot at 50 cents a piece or whatever, or free if you provided the medium. It was real fucking easy to get cheap bootlegged shit back then. A lot of times the albums would be released to your radio station before your small market town ever got them in stores. So it wasn't even like you had to wait longer to get the album.
I wasn't around during the 70s, so I wouldn't know the criteria it took to get a number one album. I haven't even brought that up. At some point you began talking about how the internet and digital media haven't affected music sales, so I responded. Because it simply isn't true.
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
Rap; You don't need to live in the 70s or 80s to see the charts and realize that when only 5 to 15 albums reach #1 a year compared to 30+ in modern times, it's easier to get a #1 when there are more spots available.
Like I said before regarding downloading; I believe that for every album someone doesn't buy because they download it there is an album bought because someone downloaded it and liked it enough to buy it. So maybe you didn't buy Blueprint 3, but if 1 kid out there downloaded it just to check it out and decided to buy it because he thought it was so good then you're lack of purchase doesn't matter.
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
i agree!
but when i try that i get called a groupie. :-\ :D
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yeah im assumin the wu fans were prolly hopin or SURE rae would move much more than he did
he prolly thinks he has the best album out right now...and it might very well be
but IMO for a album that was in the works for so many years and they planned it for so long...should have moved more
and the whole thing of jay buyin his own albums...i highly doubt it but im not rulin it out...lol
wooow, great shit for jigga tho album wasnt great as i expected, some tracks are for skipping really.
Im really happy for Raekwon dude did 70 k, thats great today!
ps. Slaughterhouse sold 35k since the album release.
great numbers for Jay indeed.
i remember all the people talking about how Wu is SO relevant & Slaughterhouse is not, but i think Jay sets the standard in that conversation of was "relevant" means. :laugh:
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
i agree!
but when i try that i get called a groupie. :-\ :D
Agree with me or Tom?
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
i agree!
but when i try that i get called a groupie. :-\ :D
Agree with me or Tom?
agree with you, will rarely agree with Tom lol.
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
i agree!
but when i try that i get called a groupie. :-\ :D
Agree with me or Tom?
agree with you, will rarely agree with Tom lol.
ok, thanks +1
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
i agree!
but when i try that i get called a groupie. :-\ :D
Agree with me or Tom?
agree with you, will rarely agree with Tom lol.
ok, thanks +1
back at cha. ;)
i respect opinionated people. 8)
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
Rap; You don't need to live in the 70s or 80s to see the charts and realize that when only 5 to 15 albums reach #1 a year compared to 30+ in modern times, it's easier to get a #1 when there are more spots available.
Like I said before regarding downloading; I believe that for every album someone doesn't buy because they download it there is an album bought because someone downloaded it and liked it enough to buy it. So maybe you didn't buy Blueprint 3, but if 1 kid out there downloaded it just to check it out and decided to buy it because he thought it was so good then you're lack of purchase doesn't matter.
and? Even if this were true, it doesn't contradict anything I've said. Back in the day the kid would've just bought the album. Instead of downloading and then buying.
I don't know about where you grew up in Canada, or what era you are talking about, but where I grew up there wasn't this huge bootlegging industry like you make it out to be. Sure it existed to some degree, but People actually bought albums, and not just the albums they had already listened to from their friends.
Shit, nowadays kids don't even listen to the whole album. They download the single and that's it.
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I'm pretty sure Shallow disagree with people just for the sake of disagreeing sometimes.
I never argue for or against a point I don't believe in.
Rap; You don't need to live in the 70s or 80s to see the charts and realize that when only 5 to 15 albums reach #1 a year compared to 30+ in modern times, it's easier to get a #1 when there are more spots available.
Like I said before regarding downloading; I believe that for every album someone doesn't buy because they download it there is an album bought because someone downloaded it and liked it enough to buy it. So maybe you didn't buy Blueprint 3, but if 1 kid out there downloaded it just to check it out and decided to buy it because he thought it was so good then you're lack of purchase doesn't matter.
and? Even if this were true, it doesn't contradict anything I've said. Back in the day the kid would've just bought the album. Instead of downloading and then buying.
I don't know about where you grew up in Canada, or what era you are talking about, but where I grew up there wasn't this huge bootlegging industry like you make it out to be. Sure it existed to some degree, but People actually bought albums, and not just the albums they had already listened to from their friends.
Shit, nowadays kids don't even listen to the whole album. They download the single and that's it.
I mean a kid trhat is not a Jay Z fan, would never be a JAY Z fan, but becausew he heard the album and liked it so much he ended up buying it. I have plenty of albums I never would have bought but because I liked them enough I bought them. I remember when Californication came out. I personallly burned two dozen copies for kids in my school. Half of them liked so many songs they bought the album. None of them were Peppers fans going in, and most hated rock to begin with.
I'm from Scarborough. And people still buy albums. In the US, two of the top 8 selling albums came out after the internet. None are from the early 90s. In the 2000s Norah Jones, Linkin Park, Usher, and Shaniah all found ways to go diamond. Eventually the industry is going to have to come to terms with the fact that the reason there aren't as many big sellers is because of the actual music being sold. name me an RnB song that's blown up like Whitney's cover of I Will Always Love You. Or a Cartoon soundtrack as popular as the Lion King. They aren't around this decade and because of that they don't sell. Even with free internet access things are not blowing up in the pop culture lie they should. Fuck buying, people don't even care enough to keep most of what they download. The music simply isn't catchy. When it's catchy it'll sell.
Getting a single for free was always way easier than an album. I grew up after the album oriented radio but every kid I knew dubbed the big songs off the radio. You didn't?