“Tha Carter III”, the new album by the rapper Lil Wayne, just became a rare blockbuster hit. The album sold 423,000 copies on June 10, its day of release, according
to Billboard, and it is predicted that first-week sales
will near one million. (The last time an album broke the million barrier was in 2005, when “The Massacre” by 50 Cent sold 1.1 million copies in its first week.)
So how did this happen? Lil' Wayne (whose real name is Dwayne Carter Jr.), has not put out an album with a label since 2005 -- but he kept the attention of fans by releasing mixtapes and rapping on dozens of songs by stars like Usher and Chris Brown. He built a reputation as one of the most prolific performers in hip-hop.
Producing lots of 'bootleg' releases seems to have worked as the scores of songs that reached listeners on mixtapes and peer-to-peer file-sharing networks fueled anticipation for an official release. This seems to have translated into considerable fan loyalty because although “Tha Carter III” was leaked online several weeks ago, many fans have decided to buy the CD.
Before you get the idea that this happened only because of the new 'digital revolution', traditional marketing still played a significant role in the album's success. Robert Levine from the New York Times wrote, "Even in this era of mixtapes and MP3s, however, it took an old-fashioned summer radio hit to market Lil Wayne beyond his dedicated fan base of young men. “Lollipop,” one of the album’s singles, is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it has spent several weeks, in part because it also appeals to women."
Sean Fennessey, the music editor at Vibe, was quoted as saying, "I don’t think Middle America got interested in him because his mixtapes were so great, but they forced serious rap fans to care about everything he was doing. Then he landed on a pop hit with ‘Lollipop,’ which was something he had never been able to do before. And between that and the serious rap fans, it became an event.”
According to BigChampagne, a company that tracks peer-to-peer online activity, Lil Wayne was the most pirated artist on file-sharing networks this past spring. Fans who downloaded Lil Wayne songs took an average of 10 of his tracks; fans of other pop artists only took an average of two per act.
Eric Garland, BigChampagne’s chief executive says: “That speaks to the quantity of his output, which is plentiful, as well as the depth of his audience’s engagement. If you’re a fan, you’re most likely a serious fan. And while people who like an individual song are not going to open their wallets for you, people who like 10 songs will. I think the mixtape phenomenon is great for feeding the machine, which is what the music industry is about in the 21st century.”
“Tha Carter III” was also promoted with television advertising and partnerships with MySpace, Yahoo and America Online, and iTunes briefly offered a new song weekly. In addition to the album’s success, “Lollipop” is now the best-selling ring tone of 2008.
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