Homer's Music & Gifts

Inside the music
By Mike Fratt

Lil Wayne, Big Sales
Friday, June 27, 2008
Not since spring of 2005 has an album, in its first week of release, sold more than 1 million copies, but two weeks ago rapper Lil Wayne broke the platinum mark on release week with “Tha Carter III.”

50 Cent was the last artist to cross this amazing threshold, an achievement all too rare in the music industry.

While new release video games and theatrical DVDs regularly rack up more than 1 meeellion (sorry, I have a product placement deal with Mike Myers) unit sales in new release week, the music industry has only dinged the bell about 10 times, ever. Most of those were garnered in teen and rap boom years of the late ‘90s and early aughts by Britney, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, Eminem and Fiddy.

The Lil Wayne phenomenon is even more interesting when you consider how ubiquitous the Southeast rapper has been in the last two years with multiple mix tapes online and appearing on dozens of other artist’s tracks and albums. Wayne even restarted recording for Carter II when too much of the album leaked online.
And, more than 90 percent of sales were physical! Only about 9 percent was downloaded legally.

Rap has been in a major decline for the last five years now that the singles business has become digitally driven. Consumers soured to full albums from rappers after getting burned numerous times in the ‘90s purchasing double albums (on CD!) only to find there really was only one good tune on the discs.

Today most rap hits sell more as ringtones than as actual digital singles.

So, rap singles evolved into a ringtone biz and album sales went into freefall. But with five singles from “Tha Carter III” spread over all the genres of Billboard charts Wayne and his label managed to find the sweet spot of marketing to music fans.

Rap is in an interesting position today. It’s no longer dominant since hip-hop has moved towards actual singing with rappers now only providing color commentary in the middle of the track. Lyrically, most rap is still stuck in gangsta world and after 20 years of ho-slapping, grill-jeweling, gun-twirling, Cristal-guzzling, chest-pounding, street tough “keeping-it-real” this stuff sounds more like some kind of surreal doppelganger throwback to the racist minstrel shows of the early 1900s.
Sure, black-on-black violence is a big problem and some artists can only be real when talking about what they know, but with a black American candidate for president in front of us will we see a shift in subject matter coming from rap and hip-hop?

Just as the soul music of the ‘60s talked of the struggle to find a better world will we see a rebirth of hope coming from these genres? Hard to say now that the economy is in decline, gas almost costs more than water and high school graduation rates are abysmal.

But when you hear “Yes, we can,” I can’t help but think there is hope.

With Coldplay generating more than 700,000 in sales the following week the reports of the end of the music business are, as usual, wrong. Examining the mix of physical vs. digital sales Chris Martin and the guys sold two-thirds physical to one-third digital. Does the disparity of digital sales for Coldplay vs. Lil Wayne tell us anything? Do we have an ever-widening divide between the haves and have-nots in this country? Will this issue pop up in the lyrics of enlightened rappers over the next couple years?
Stay tuned.

Mike Fratt is the general manager of Homer’s Music, hosts “Sunday Mornings” on 89.7 the River and has been involved the music industry for more than three decades. His bi-weekly column will provide insight on national and local industry news.