Do the Numbers Matter ?

By now everybody not under a rock, knows that Weezy aka Lil' Wayne sold a million copies of his album Tha Carter III in his first week out.  The closest in recent memory was the 957,000 Kanye pulled in his infamous September battle with 50 Cent. (Aside: didn't 50 say he was going to quit rapping if he lost ?  Well he did, so when that's going to happen ? Hopefully the new G-Unit album tanks as karma.) 

Back to the topic at hand Weezy has sold almost 1.5 million to date, but the bigger question is what does this all mean ?  With CD sales on a consistent decline for a variety of reasons, major labels are putting more importance on the first week numbers.  Why is this case ?
I believe this is due to a number of factors: 1) First week numbers and the anticipation of these numbers has become a huge marketing tool, especially in urban music. 2) Album quality has gone down over the years, resulting in weak uneven albums with a few hit singles which drive radio spins and anticipation of the album. 3) Labels don't have as much faith in artists to have long steady careers, and want to recoup their costs as quickly as possible, before moving on to the next artist. 4) Less audience loyalty to particular artists. 5) More competition for audience dollars across a wider entertaintment spectrum. 6) More music available for free than at any other time in music history through peer to peer networking, file sharing and legal/illegal downloading.

I deliberately left the file sharing debate to the last point, because I believe much of the demise of CD sales has more to do with changing market trends, technological changes, audience expectations and a general rebellion against the Big Labels greed of the past 20 years.  While the Big Labels' slowness to adapt their business model to meet the new dynamics has been examined at length in other places, I charge that in the new marketplace the audience decides which artists to support and how to consume their art.  Many independent companies have changed their models, often incorporating mixtapes, free music and file sharing as marketing tools, and not something to fear.  (My man Rashod has a great article examining Lil Wayne's use of these tools. )  Daring independent artists have a wonderful opportunity to use the same tools to enhance their careers by connecting with new fans, in a manner that the audience chooses.  Using the internet and free music option as a "try before you buy" is a growing trend that will be used by more and more artists.  What this means for fans is that artists respect the power of the audience even more now, as the audience has so many more options.  Artist/band loyalty is even more valued, and so we as fans should see increased value added releases and opportunities to consume the music/art in the ways that we want it (MP3, Video downloads etc.)  This puts the power back into the hands of the consumer who can spend as much (or as little) as they feel a particular artist is worth.  This puts pressure on the artists to deliver higher quality albums/singles and to focus on mass or niche markets.  Artists can still be successful without producing mainstream music, by satisfying one or more of the wide variety of taste in the marketplace.  Therefore success can't be measured strictly by numbers of sales (first week or otherwise), but must be measured by the connections and demand created by an artist for the art that they produce. 

JJ Freddy