The Album is Dead

So in case you haven't noticed, the concept of an artist having an album is pretty laughable. Gone are the days where unknown bands could hope for a "big break" by getting a video played on MTV, or having a song chart on radio. Having a #1 single in 2008 will not even guarentee that an artist will go GOLD. Look at Rihanna: her smash, "Umbrella," couldn't even sell her album; it took three additional singles and a holiday season. It's really sad actually. It comes from two things:

1. the decline in overall quality of records
2. consumer doubt that artists can deliver a solid album

In the late 90's, the music industry pushed SO much disposable music in order to increase sales, and it worked. The year 2000 saw the highest number of albums sold in history, a whopping 785.1 million records scanned. The problem with that is how SO many of those CD's were anchored by a select few cherry-picked singles. This caused a general disgust from consumers that paid $14.99 for an album that sucked while the record labels laughed all the way to the bank.

In addition, the turn-over rate for those albums exceeds anything close to today. That's why anyone can go into a used record store, a flea market, or a bargain bin and find copies of the biggest titles before 2002. I'm talking Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Celine Dion. Albums that have sold an excess of 10 million copies, yet for some reason are sitting in $0.99 bins across the country.

The total albums sold for 2007 is expected to be just shy of 500 million, down 34% from 2000. (a percent that has been somewhat consistant for the past 5 years.) This percentage is the reflection of illegal downloads. Saying that for every 3 albums sold, someone else got the album for free. It also shows the publics unwillingness to buy records they feel are not worth even $12. That's why I'd actually be more proud of a GOLD record in 2008 than a PLATINUM record 10 years ago. To sell albums these days, people have to REALLY like what they're buying; anyone can DL a song, an album, or a band's entire catalogue for free! In the 90's you'd literally have to wait until the album was released to hear it. No "leaks" or mp3 sites having entire albums a month in advance.

Downloads have completely changed the music industry. People are disecting albums, taking the songs they want, and adding them to their iTunes. An album? Oh, child, the album is dead! Welcome to 1955!

***Interesting Tidbit***
Usher's 2004 record, Confessions, is likely to be the last album in history certified DIAMOND for selling 10 million copies.

Er... Replaceable

Beyonce is the whore of the music industry. Surpassing even Madonna in her glory days as the most desperate, packaged-for-sale artist, the product THAT IS Beyonce has irked me for years.

Post-Black Friday, the re-re-release of Beyonce’s B’Day re-entered the Billboard 200 selling an astonishing 73,000 copies (up from 4,000 the previous week.) Wow. People must have really been interested in her album… or not. TURNS OUT, Wal*Mart, the worlds largest company, had Beyonce’s disc specially priced at a ridiculous $4.99, the only album this weekend available for such a bargain. Upon hearing this, I scratched my head and yawned. How predictable: Beyonce needs a super-discount to sell an album people OTHERWISE never would have bought. *Yawn*

I grow weary of the games these media-whore’s play to bend, twist, and skew facts and figures to make themselves look better. I remember a day when this was disdained and found appalling by not only the general public, but from members within the music industry. The Debbie Gibson’s and Jennifer Lopez’s of the business NEVER won Grammy’s because they were dismissed as not even real arists.

Apparently the tide has turned and being an over-promoted product garners a person like Beyonce 10 Grammy’s! I find it hilarious how nobody says a word about it, or the fact that BeYAWNce—as I like to call her— is not above Paula Abdul, J.Lo or Britney Spears in terms of artistry. I’d actually place a cracked-out Britney Spears over Beyonce in a heartbeat. Britney Spears is a product and has always been self-aware of her limitations as a writer and as a singer. Even with disposable pop songs, I get a sense of authenticity from Spears that she sincerely believes everything she’s singing. And she never announced to the world that she’s some amazing songwriter.

Beyonce? That ho sounded with trumpets that she’s written every song she’s ever sung. LMFAO. She has her name placed on songs that it has no business being there.

Take a look at this old clip showing Beyonce's producer GIVING her lyrics as she scrambles to write them down. Songwriter my ass! Also note that Beyonce didn’t even know there was auxiliary in the track.



It’s worse than Lauryn Hill!

For those who don’t know, Lauryn Hill went to court (and lost) for taking the production names off her album in order to list herself as sole producer; the SAME album she won 5 Grammy’s for. Beyonce and her daddy, manager Papa Knowles, have been accused time and again for falsifying information. The most famous being when Beyonce boasted how she had written “Irreplaceable” on a whim after being inspired by her role in Dreamgirls. Oops! Turns out is was written by Ne-Yo, M. Eriksen, T. Hermansen, Beyonce, E. Lind, and A. Bjørklund.

6 writers.

Check out this infamous radio interview where Ne-Yo inadvertently exposes Beyonce’s little-to-no involvement in writing the #1 hit.



The truth is revealed! Beyonce is the whore of the biz. Lying, stealing, and hoing herself to the top, all while not having a bit of humility. Beyonce is just the aborted offspring of Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey. Everything Beyonce tries to do has already been done by bigger and better artists. What a betch.

Death Becomes Her

Aside from the disastrous VMA’s performance that was somewhat out of her control, all attempts at a comeback for former pop princess, Britney Spears, have been rather… nonchalant? Yes Britney is stalked by paparazzi and yes she’s under a microscope, but why has she done nothing to shake the waning public image of her as a white trash mother of two? I really don’t get it, honestly.

The VMA’s fiasco was so much more than just “oh, she sucked.” I really feel that the general public was (once again) willing to put aside EVERYTHING bad, negative, and disconcerting about Britney and start anew. I really believe that. Even the first 10 seconds of her on stage with “It’s Britney, BITCH!” people were ready to make fresh. After that, well, the rest is history. Literally.

The problem from then on seems to be this half-assed attempt at a comeback. Combined with the prospect that Britney Spears has done virtually no promotion for her album, Blackout, that fact that it's certified GOLD is actually an accomplishment. *GASP* A flop is so “in.” Countless artists have flopped in recent years like its another notch on their belt. With Britney’s album, I was so surprised to hear the label didn’t even HAVE a promotional plan or marketing strategy for Blackout. This comes partly from her being on Jive Records which was absorbed by Zomba in 2002 and then Sony in 2004. For those who still don’t see the connection, tired-ass Clive Davis sits as Chairman of BMG Sony and still thinks that an artist can just throw a record out and have it sell. Clive Davis deserves a betchslap banana *POW* for thinking it’s the 90’s.

So Britney was basically fucked from the beginning. She’s battling Fed-X and Jive in addition to WHATEVER she’s going through; a bad spell of motherhood perhaps? Oh, you self-medicating southern woman! I feel bad for her because Blackout is by far her best effort, and during a most tumultuous time in her life. That’s why the songs have such an edge to them. It’s oblivious pop star with a twist of tweaked-out whore, the best of both Britneys! Even with the success of the lead single, “Gimme More,” peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, there has been little interest in anything associated with Brit’s music, only her image. And that’s a sad thing really: America created a star only to inevitably destroy it.

Hannah Montana VS Miley Cyrus

When naming the premier female pop star of today, what singers come to mind? Kelly Clarkson?

Mariah Carey?

Carrie Underwood?

...Hannah Montana? These ladies have all sold an excess of 5 million records in the last 2 years alone, but one of them is not a real person; take a guess.

Hannah Montana is a fictional character created in 2006 by The Walt Disney Company in attempt to further tap the tween audience of 12-year-old girls and sexual confused boys. The boys aren’t the only ones confused! The real life actress and faux-pop star behind the glamour is Miley Cyrus, a southern sweetheart who shares her first name with her TV character, Miley Stewart, who happens to have the alternate ego Hannah Montana. *cricket*

Even Billboard Magazine, the holy book of the music industry, was bedazzled as how to list Hannah Montana/Miley Stewart/Miley Cyrus on its charts. All of this confusion adds to the ultimate question: how has this Hannah Montana phenomenon swept across the country? Ask General Manager of Hollywood Records, Abbey Konowitch and he’d surely gawk of what a great role model Hannah Montana/Miley Stewart/Miley is for young girls (…don’t forget the boys!) Disney’s entire bankability lies in keeping Little Miss Miley as innocent as they can for as long as possible. Cocaine, nude photos, gay rumors… OH MY! All in good time.

Disney is relying on perpetuating the revolving door of teen girl “role models” that dates back to the infamous 80's rivalry of Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. The most recent spin on this were the tired Christina VS. Britney… and then Hilary VS. Lindsay ‘fights.’ Shockingly, no clear victors were ever named.

With Miley, there is no rivalry because her entire shtick is all about the quirkiness and feel-good sentiment of an ordinary-girl-by-day turned pop star at night. Can’t see you see how every tween girl in America can relate!?! Ahem. So far, Miley has hit a home run with her teeny-bopper Disney umbrella (eh!), but time will only tell who the “real” Miley is. Expect a semi-angry rock girl album next fall, or maybe a this-is-the-real-me hip-hop record in ‘09. Ya think?

Super Deluxe Remastered Ulta Special Limited Platinum Definitive Collector's Gold Version Edition Re-release

Today, Justin Timberlake readies the release of his "Deluxe Edition" of FutureSex/LoveSounds, the Grammy-nominated album that took the pop world by storm this past year. Strategically arriving right on schedule for the holiday season, this re-release follows an ever-growing number of albums that have been re-packaged in recent years. The re-release is marketing brilliance from three standpoints:

1. it's money in the bank for the record execs; throw a few remixes on the same CD and re-sell it to the same people


2. it offers the eager and zealous fans a chance to buy another piece of... er... art from their favourite artist.


3. for the artist, (remember them?) it regenerates interest in the album and can potentially allow the record to garner additional GRAMMY nods.

So the re-release truly hits the nail on the head because it pleases the 3 fundamental parts of the music industry. The outcome, however, of a re-release ends in only four ways:

1. It saves a failing album: Shakira's Oral Fixation Vol. 2


2. The re-release fails to add any interest in the album: Beyonce's B'Day


3. It capitalizes on the success of an already-hit album: Usher's Confessions


4. Attempts to save an album flop too, and are usually scrapped: Janet Jackson's 20 Y.O.

Beyonce has got to be the most guilty of abusing the re-release. B'Day saw three seperate releases and is currently available in TEN versions. Desperate much? A lawsuit from one-hit-wonder Des'ree (1994's "You Gotta Be") caused the second version of B'Day to be pulled from shelves within 2 weeks of release... *doh* RE-release. Another case of Ms. Knowles illegally making money off of other people's work. So yet another B'Day was issued. A re-re-release.

It's funny because there were days when 10-12 track records could stay popular for years at a time, garner several singles, and allow a band to tour all through it. It really shows a decline in quality I suppose, or maybe just a complete change in the industry. Would Thriller have benefited from a re-release? Surely not as it produced Seven Top 10 hits!

The realization is that a consumer can get music in 10 seconds now; there's no longer a wait and rush to the record store to buy a new album. People get bored, that's where the re-release comes in. It's shady, but --hey!-- it's worth a shot... or 10.