Wow, Riz is ripping the lid off this thing! LOL

I’m really complacent at the moment because I just went to three Best Buy’s looking for the new Killer Mike, only to find a buncha no-name talentless rapper’s cds filling the shelf, buncha Pen & Pixel covers with rappers with names like Pussy Killa and Mc Murda Ya Grandma….

To add insult to injury Crank Dat come on over the PA system as I left….

Great post. I agree with most of what you said regarding his album sales.

I think the market saturation helped a bit and the fact that he is an enigma to older rap fans but an icon to teeny-bopper hip-pop fans helped a lot.

Wayne is in the somewhat unique position of having gigantic appeal to both those who came up listening to Biggie, Jay, and Pac AND those who came up listening to Soulja Boy. And those who listen to Soulja Boy (the 106 and TRL generation) are the ones out buying records. He somehow managed to intrigue older rap fans enough with his wordplay and lyricism to get a lot of them to purchase the album as well.

The album is average to me, but I can understand why lots of people like it at the same time.

I saw Christgau’s piece earlier and wonder this this mofo listen to the same album i listened. Thanks Riz for stealing my thought and writing them for me. Also damn does iTunes really do that with downloads cause thats fucked up.

What blows my mind is…..

How many people can you say you’ve personally seen with your own two eyes….actually own a PURCHASED CD?

Everybody I know, either has a burned copy from a torrent or said it was trash and threw the bootleg away.

How many people can you say you’ve personally seen with your own two eyes….actually own a PURCHASED CD?
———————
None. But I’m not sure that’s a good way to guage this, because most of my friends are either non-fans or non music buyers.

> Overall anticipation for the album

This is the single most important factor out of all the ones you mentioned why this album did what it did. And there’s probably a whole separate post-worth of factors that build that anticipation that you could get into if you wanted to.

I think the blogger took the NPR reviewer’s quote out of context a bit. I heard the NPR review on the radio as well and took the reviewer’s quote as NPR-speak for, “Wayne generated an unprecedented buzz for his album himself by dropping several mixtapes between Tha Carter II and Tha Carter III. And that buzz helped him sell a milli his first week.” I did not get the impression that the reviewer was saying other people should follow the formula to get similar results or that not following the formula will lead to weak album sales. The reviewer was merely commenting on Wayne’s album and his album alone. In short, I think something got lost in translation.

“Wayne generated an unprecedented buzz for his album himself by dropping several mixtapes between Tha Carter II and Tha Carter III. And that buzz helped him sell a milli his first week.”
—————————-
That clearly tells me that the buzz helped him sell a mill the first week. And I’m saying I don’t see how that adds up, because many people who are just as popular have garnered quite a firestorm of buzz and flopped. G-Unit is a perfect example. Tons of mixtapes. Tons of free videos and songs. Tons of buzz. Yet, they only sold 100k the first week.

Regardless of theories and analysis, Wayne made a hot album.

Out here in the UK, it sold well and charted high.
People want to hear it in the clubs and on the Radio.

It is what it, it’s his year and he’s put in the work.

But Riz pertaining to G-Unit sure they’ve had a lot of work put out via the net but not anywhere near as much anticipation imo as much as Wayne for his album.

I will agree with you for the most part. I think timing more than anything is a major factor in Wayne’s album sale success.

Wayne’s target audience are primarily teenagers and they are the ones (or at least one of their parents) buying the CDs.. For example, my cousin, who is 13, has every CD that is played on the radio/106 and Park because he bugs his mother anytime the new (insert name) is out at Target or Walmart.

I on the other hand, whose first rap album that I got was Eric B & Rakim’s Paid in Full, hasn’t purchased a rap CD since The Clipse last studio album with Jive.. However, I would buy The Detox, CRS, and Re-up Gang albums.

Also I think that Universal/Cash Money bought a good portion of the CDs to make it look like he sold 1 million+.

geeez dude why all the hate…plain and simple he made an album for his fans(over a million of them) and the fans bought it…lmao @ this nigga brining in scientific facts and shit…..why no long article when nas and jay sold most f their albums through def jam????

People love crap, the number of sales ain’t linked to quality.

i’m white and i think it is fair to say white fans ruined rap. suddenly blonde white girls were calling eachother the n word while listening to ludacris and flippin eachother the peace sign and sayin fo’ sho

i dunno..black and mexican fans r equally to blame..they dressin up like faggits and pushin skateboards around

riz..ive also never seen a kanye cd , nas, or jay z cd that someones bought…but u dont report this and mention it every other post..look in the mirror and stop the hate…wayne is a dope rapper…you just dont liek him….

^David, I have a ton of them in my house right now. (Yes, I still buy CDs despite the flurry of freebies from labels)

And I know PLENTY of people who own original copies of Nas, Jay, and Biggie CDs.

“geeez dude why all the hate”

This is exactly what I’m talkin’ about. Someone in the Hip-Hop community shows a modicum of thought about what they love (obviously you show more than a modicum, Riz, I’m just sayin’) and every single-cell-brained asshole who fell in love with “crunk” music labeled Rap or Hip-Hop comes along and starts callin’ that person a “hater.” Everyone who uses it is officially a moron as far as I’m concerned.

Moneda, thanks for backing me up. You’re right, my argument is fueled by my passion for hip-hop culture. Ultimately, I’d like to see this guy step his game up. Not hating. Nothing personal. C2 was a great album and I often concede that fact.

Btw, you should update your blog more often.

[...] *Marketing: NPR deconstructs Lil Wayne’s marketing strategy for The Carter III. [the rap up] [...]

“Regardless of theories and analysis, Wayne made a hot album.” No he didn’t! once again, are we listening to the same album cause there’s no way you can say this is better than “Tha Carter II” but whatever to each his own.
Also just cause someone doesn’t believe what you believe doesn’t make them a hater they just have an opinion(deal with it).
I often wonder if these people defending this album as being a “masterpiece” have even heard Tha Carter I or Carter II.
fuck it I’ll say it “Tha Carter III is a overrated album and if you got it in constant rotation your ears are broken”.
Really feeling that new Nas though.

The ‘hater’ term has become one of the most selfdestructive aspects of HipHop culture. It’s an idiotic way to destroy any serious criticism and deny argumentation or the need argument your own case. it’s plain stupid, but I guess I’m just hatin’.

Yousa hata! = I have no logical argument to refute your opinion,so I will generalize and claim that you’re jealous of the money he’s making

Sheer ignorance!

I think C3 is a good to mediocre album and certainly not the masterpiece that Wayne showed himself capable of but I do have a few bones to pick with your arguments Rizoh.

a. Buzz – putting out a lot of material does not guarantee buzz. G-unit has been dropping tons of shit but nobody gave a shit about any of it. Wayne’s mixtapes over the last year or so have all been acclaimed by a wide range of people from old hip hop heads to teeny bopper weird rap wiggers. I consider myself a fan of “real” hip hop primarily (read New York style lyricists) and even I was bowed over by the Leak Ep and some of the stuff on those mixtapes. My argument here is that Wayne had real buzz and real energy going into his album because of the quality of those mixtapes. Any no-name rapper can drop 24 mixtapes and still have no buzz and sell no units (see Joe Budden, et. al). That wasn’t Wayne’s problem.

2. Universal buying CD’s – I’ve read you make this claim a half dozen times and you’ve yet to produce one shred of evidence to back it up. I just quit my major label job and although I wasn’t in an executive office, I’ve never seen any evidence that any label does this. Maybe for one album once upon a time, some exec pulled that stunt but as a business practice, this makes less than no sense. The buzz factor of an album selling a million copies the first week would in no way make up for the actual expense of buying even one hundred thousand copies of an album at retail price. On this issue, I’d really like some evidence or some quiet cause it just doesn’t make any sense.

3. First week versus second week sales – I’ve heard the 70% drop in sales from first week to second week used to justify the previous argument of record labels buying records. Again I call bullshit. The hype machine is so crazy these days in all things that people often rush to be the first to buy something, thus guaranteeing that the bulk of people interested in anything buy it the very moment it comes out (see long ass lines for the iPhone right now as evidence). Look at the numbers for any blockbuster movie and you’ll see that selling 350K after a million unit first week is pretty damn reasonable in this environment.

4. Quality of the album – While C3 may not be the best album Wayne ever made, the hype machine ensured that all the first week press for it was pretty favorable. With fans happy with the material preceding it, unless every review said C3 absolutely sucked (which they didn’t), everyone who liked Wayne’s work leading up to the album would have gone in and bought the album anyway. The space for critical reflection comes after the hype which in this case wasn’t till second, third week of the album being in stores.

I respect a lot of your writing Rizoh but I think your critical disappointment in this album is clouding the way you judge the issues of how it sold.

You lure us in with Lil Wayne and then take us to school on the law of diminishing returns.

Next week use Souljah Boy to teach Supply-side economics

Just an idea

the albums dope…even the white people notice…ok so its not hate….quit bitchin…howbout that???rather be a bitch then a hater i guess

David, you’re a house nigger. Take a break from the internet and go read a fucking book.

Rizoh, G-Unit generated tons of buzz, only it was mostly negative. They were as popular as Wayne… four years ago! And real talk: even rival labels who would love to take the shine off Wayne’s amazing sales achievement concede that, at best, UMG only bought about 60K worth of CD’s.

@Flint: LOL, you and Rizoh do agree on the Buzz issue if you read his comments thus far. He has agreed that buzz doesn’t guarantee hype. With Wayne yes, some of those mixtapes in their entirety were worth the hype but not all of them imo were top notch quality. However he had already won a lot of ppl over prior to going into this album, expectations were high as well. I also take issue with your mention of Buddens as one of those guys that dropped tons of material and never got mention. If you recall, Budden was hot before Def Jam signed him as the next “Jay-Z.” He actually got signed off the hype surrounding his mixtapes. All this in 2001/2002. By the time “Pump it up” dropped it garnered a storm, became a club staple and got airplay everywhere. Heck I was in Nashville at the time and radio and DJ’s played the heck out of his jam. When his album dropped though it became something of a disappointment so I do agree with your comment on the quality of C3 helping to boost that.

Again I’ll say Wayne benefitted from timing, chance and a good measure of hard work. I will agree with Flint that a lot of other rappers have dropped material a la G-unit with little to next to nothing hype following but Wayne did (even though some of what he dropped remains questionable, however) and got successful.

I think he’s an artist that’s getting his break ‘cos the ’stars are all lined up’ properly. The sad thing and what we should be wary of is artists now jumping the bandwagon and swarming us with too much material too quickly.

mondea…make me

The reason he sold all these albums, cuz he on err’body’s mind compare comments on the Skillz Cover/Samples/Leak whatever with Weezy’s…The dude made a whole lot of hype himself and got a whole lotta o people interested

Hype machine or not, wack album or not… let’s investigate the current landscape of hip-hop music: Damn near everyone I talk to complains about regional music and how it’s wack (I know cats from the South who hate everything out of NYC right now and vice versa); people bitch and moan about ringtone music and how it’s killing the game; Fans are fickle and will love you one day and hate you the next; the same subject material we heard last year is the same subject material we hear this year; beef is played out – and dudes still beef; oh, and people don’t wanna pay for music and would rather build their album collection via rapidshare.

And this dude managed to get one million people to actually pay money for C3? Respect.

[...] lançados antes da data de saída pudessem comprar as restantes músicas a um preço de desconto. Alguns vão mesmo ao ponto de dizer que a Universal Music chegou a comprar ela própria milhares de cópias do disco para aumentar [...]