I figured I would drop just as misleading a title as possible for this post, since the teaser I read for this item from the Guardian left me pretty unfulfilled. Sure, Kanye outselling 50 Cent during their “battle” when both artists release albums on September 11 could result in 50 quitting the game, but if I was looking for speculation on why rap sales and how the genre’s stars and albums aren’t topping the charts like they did in 2006, I’d have sat in a room with a bunch of my friends.
Sure, the rap industry takes its successes and tries to keep them fresh and doesn’t bring up the young talent like it should. But so does, pop, rock, dance, and whatever other “mainstream” genre out there. On top of that, album sales is a bogus statistic.
“Of the 20 best-selling urban titles of 2007 only three are by rap acts,” says Geoff Mayfield, senior analyst at Billboard. “At this point of 2006 half of the category’s 20 top titles belonged to hip-hop artists. I’m still trying to come to terms with why that might be.”
Aside from the fact that this is a UK stat and the US one is probably not spot on with that, there are obviously enough similarities within certain industries between the two countries to make a solid judgement or comment on this situation. For one thing, I’m seeing just as much - if not more - rap and hip-hop music on the torrent sites for download. Following that, if ringtone sales of that same type of music are pretty consistent and the album sales are down, are they even comparable stats? I would say no, but I would say that ringtone sales compared to single sales off online services and whatnot are probably much more valuable comparisons.
Is rap falling off? I doubt it. Are album sales a poorly used stat these days? Absolutely. Let’s come up with something a little more legit here before making suppositions, okay? KTHXBYE
7 responses so far ↓
1 Jay // Sep 3, 2007 at 1:31 am
No, with illegal downloading going on all CD sales are down. But Hip Hop gets hit harder because it is marketed to the youth. The youth is taking advantage of technology’s capabilities. So music that is targeted to middle age people or older isn’t hit as hard because they are accustomed to buying Cd’s, and haven’t caught up with technology.
So with that being said, you can get the official Graduation and Curtis album at 50 Cent’s “Curtis” and Kanye West’s “Graduation” Leaked!.
2 big mike // Sep 3, 2007 at 10:05 pm
blaming it on illegal downloading is a easy answer.NEWS FLASH:ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING AIN’T A NEW PHENOMONON.
.illegal downloading didn’t stop 50 cent from selling 12 million copies of get rich or die trying,nor did it stop him from selling almost 10 million copies of the massacre..it all comes down to this,if you make good product people will buy it.and that’s the problem with rap.the product ain’t as good as it used to be..
and you’re extremely naive if you don’t think older people download music illegally….
3 tombiro.com – Chamillionaire puts plaques where his money is // Sep 6, 2007 at 11:55 am
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6 Jay // Nov 24, 2007 at 12:12 am
Actually, if you have been downloading since NApster came out, you would have noticed the amount of people sharing files would be insufficient for today’s downloading. And i didn’t say ONLY young people download, I said the majority IS young people.
7 Copyright Infringement // Dec 6, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Actually, downloading illegally doesn’t decrease sales. It increases them, believe it or not.
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