Jermaine Dupri plugs his new book once or twice but he does make a good point. Basically, JD rants about iTunes and their emphasis on selling singles instead of albums as a whole. He goes on to infer that the end result is a lot of artists focusing their efforts on making a hot single instead of a dope album, which ultimately leads to the decline of quality hip-hop releases. I can agree with that. A while back, I read an article stating hip-hop music (or albums as a whole) started sucking once the popularity and usage of the 12inch single started to increase. I can agree with that also. Link (via)
These days people just assume that you need a number one single to have a number one album. But look at what’s really happening. Soulja Boy sold almost 4 million singles and only 300,000 albums! We let the consumer have too much of what they want, too soon, and we hurt ourselves. Back in the day when people were excited about a record coming out we’d put out a single to get the ball going and if we sold a lot of singles that was an indication we’d sell a lot of albums. But we’d cut the single off a few weeks before the album came out to get people to wait and let the excitement build.
Did consumers complain? Maybe so. But at what point does any business care when a consumer complains about the money? Why do people not care how we – the people who make music – eat? If they just want the single, they gotta get the album. That was how life was. Today we should at least have that option. Yeah, it’s about the money, but it’s also about quality. Creating each album as a body of work that means something gives the consumer something better to listen to, It’s that simple. Otherwise all anyone would care about is making a bunch of ringtones.
