Hmm... maybe this is deeper than just a feud?

After reading this article and going over all the interviews back and forth between Beanie Sigel and 50 Cent im coming to a realization. For anyone who is not familar with hip hop music Beanie Sigel is signed to Rocafella Records which was started by hip hop superstar Jay-Z. Jay-Z has frequently collborated with Beans and they were good friends until recently. Lately in the news Beans has been stirring alot of bad blood calling Jay out and dissing him on several songs. 50 Cent who Beanie has joined forces with has also been running his mouth about Jay. However the funny thing is I recently heard that the Empire State Of Mind Remix will feauture Nas and 50 Cent? Now could this all be a marketing ploy put together by Jay 50 and Beanie? Now i know its hard to eat our here and no one is buying records anymore. I mean we know that, after Fif sold 160,000 copies his first week off of his latest album(horendous). Another reason im starting to think this could be true is that Sigel is still contractually obligated to Jay. This could all be a marketing ploy used to reinvent Beanie Sigels career and help Jay and 50 as well. Or it could just be a mad rapper who wants to get his revenge i cant be sure. 50 is no stranger to controversy so this is not out of the realm of possible if he is in the picture. We all know 50 and Jay have no problem making some extra money. As for Beanie this could be the jumpstar he needs to reinvent himself. We may never know the meaning behind this feud but to me its deeper than just rap. Above is a video interview between 50 and Beans speaking on the Jay-Z situation.

The Dream does his best Kanye

Today i read an article about R&B singer The Dream and how his album was not nominated for a Grammy award. The Dream decided to use his twitter page to vent his frustration about the incident. Now the album did recieve very favorable ratings and sold a fair amount of units. Now im not a big fan of The Dream i dont really listen to too much R&B music however i have listened to a few tracks off of his latest album Love vs. Money and i was fairly impressed with it. It had good features like ironically another guy who loves to be a baby when doesnt win an award Kanye West. Should the album win a grammy? i dont know about that but the fact that it was even nominated is very interesting to me. I never really thought that much about The Grammys and this really makes me think whoever does the nomination really isnt that in touch with the music industry. To me the fans should vote for all awards why should they leave music awards up to a group of 5 or 6 people or whoever does the nominations. Why not leave it up to the people that are actually going out and buying the records. It seems like twitter is continueing to do what it does best. And to me that is stir up stories and attention. Artists love to use twitter as a way of venting and why not? It causes controversy and stories and is a good way of generating news. If i had thousand of followers like most of these artists do i think i would do the same thing.Above is one of my favorite songs off of the aforementioned album Love vs. Money.

Re releases?

I never really have heard of re releasing an album before this year. The two latest re releases i have heard of were both platinum albums when they were originally released this year "go figure." Both Eminem and Lady Gaga and there respective labels have decided they will re release there albums with bonus tracks available. Now Eminem promised 2 albums in the same year but has decided to push Relapse 2 back and rerelease his platinum selling Relapse December 21st with 7 bonus tracks along with it. The only problem i have with these re releases is to me it is just another money maker. In this case i dont feel like it is the artists that are doing this it is there labels. Now Eminem owns his own label but it is still under Interscope. Music labels seem to run the artists lives in a sense and will do anything to make an extra dollar. And especially with the growing piracy in music record sales are down heavily. So why not take platinum albums and re release them? Well to me this is not helping the cause its just another way to make money not to help the artist.

Oh Boy Twitter Causes More Beef

Well here it goes again twitter causing all kinds of problems. Just read an article about another beef started on twitter. Now dont get me wrong this isnt an anti twitter blog its just another blog showing what can happen on twitter. Well Joe Budden and his girlfriend Tahiry broke up and hes with a new girl Somaya Reece. Over twitter Somaya made a comment about Fab and immediately Fab responded over Twitter. Now this is starting to spiral out of control, because of course then Joe responded on a video blog as he usually does. Joe told Fab if he has something to say put it in a song. Twitter is a great social outlet and it has gotten so big it is now used as an outlet to air out dirty laundry. Im not sure if Fabolous will respond but hopefully this doesnt get out of control because Joe and Fab used to be good friends. They were in a group called Desert Storm a few years back and were very good friends. I think they will work things out but i dont know joey can get stubborn with rap beef.

Leaking Albums New Marketing Scheme?

I just read an article which deals with a new form of marketing by record labels and artists. This is almost the idea of new wave marketing in that it seems as though the music buisness is slowly dieing. Record sales continue to plummet and record labels need to think of new ways to sell albums. Now if this was 10 years ago we would all still be with walkmans and going to stores to buy cds. This was when the music industry was at a high. 50 Cent's "Get Rich Or Die Trying" sold upwards of 12 million records in 2003. In 2009 upon the release of his 4th coming album "Before I Self Destruct" there is speculation that he leaked his own album. The album leaked onto the internet 1 month before its intended release date which was November 23rd and has now been pushed up a week by Shady/Aftermath Records. This happened earlier in 2009 with Eminem's comeback album "Relapse" and Coldplay's album Viva La Vida. It is speculated this is a marketing scheme because of its effect on record sales. If an album is very good and the fans hear it on the internet many then go and buy the album in the stores. While if they didnt hear it beforehand they might speculate it being bad and not want to waste there money. It seems as though the scheme is working with Eminem's album selling 3 million copies and Coldplay's selling 2 million. Hey look could the music industry finally be coming out of its funk?

Celebrity Blog Sites Give Fans A Look In

Example of a celebrity blog *Contains Brief Expletive Language*



Celebrities are using new tactics to give fans a look in. They are now using blogs, many of them being videos of there everyday life. This gives fan an extra connection with whoever they are following and almost lets them get to know the person. It lets the fan know how they are feeling and what they are doing at the moment. Rapper Joe Budden as seen above uses his website JoeBuddenTV to give fans a look at his everyday life. Many of the videos are very comical in that Joe does most of the videotaping. Athletes such as Micheal Beasley and producer Sean "Puffy' Combs are also known to heavily blog. Blogs just like twitter or facebook is a way of social networking. Joe Budden especially has found a following on his website where there are many forums made talking about the site. It is another smart marketing move on the part of the artist or athlete or whoever. These blogs are going to cause traffic to there name and to there site. If something controversial goes on on the site immediately whoever it was there name will be in the news. Just as the Joe Budden vs Method Man feud started over a blog on Joes site. I do think it is deeper than a marketing scheme though. I think celebrities are just realizing that people are very interested in there everyday lives. I think its great enertainment and i enjoy the blogs.

Will Record Sales Ever Go Back Up?

I was just reading an article about this weeks nielson soundscan sales. I found it amazing that an artist who was once so well liked and popular could come in this week with less than 10,000 copies sold. Fat Joe whos new album Jealous Ones Still Envy II dropped last week selling upwards of 8,300 copies which is horendous for an artist on a major label(Joe distributes his music on a major). Those sales may not even be sufficient for an artist who is on a strictly independant label. This is a guy who has gone platinum several times and you come to wonder if it is the material he is putting out or if the music buisness is in a state of emergency. I feel like the main problem is the heavy pirating of music over the internet. The record for highest 1st week sale for an album was in 2000 with Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP which sold 1.7 million its first week. I dont think we will ever see someone break this record. Music sales have gone down drastically over the last several years and labels are doing whatever they can to get people to buy albums. Labels are including special offers in with the album to make you want to buy it. It is just not seeming to work because artists just arent selling. Even Green Day who is nationally known and well recieved only went platinum with there latest record(they previously have gone double and triple platinum).I personally have begun buying albums again recently but i fell into the same category as everyone else for a long time. We really need to think about how the artists put so much work into there album for people to steal it. However it has been made so easy, that to buy an album that you can just download for free almost seems ridiculous. Soon enough i think everything is going to be made digitally since almost no one minus maybe Eminem, Jay-Z, and Green Day are selling anymore. This upsets me being such a music fan.

Twitter Causing Feuds Between Artists?

When i first read the article i thought to myself wow look at a another marketing ploy by the part of a musical artist. Think about it twitter is probably one of the biggest social networks if not the biggest out there. Now for a little background on the situation 50 cent has always been known to feud with New York artists and throw shots at them in his music. Last weekend he had a concert in which he invited many New York rappers including a few he once feuded with to perform and join the festivities. He called the concert the Thisis50fest to help promote his website thisis50.com Rapper Fabolous who is also from New York was not at the concert and seemed to take some offense. He released several tweets talking about the fact that 50 helped bring the city down not unite it. Now this just annoys me because Fabs album just came out this is an obvious ploy to get his name out there. 50 didnt say anything about him and never has and while he may be right 50 has been out of line with some of his feuds i think it was dumb to do this. However this just shows the power twitter now has on so many people. The social network has now started a rap feud in which may increase album sales. Twitter is really becoming the fastest spread of news, there are things posted on twitter before they reach the news. An example of this would be mike beasleys post in which he threatened to kill himself. Twitter has spread so fast and all it is doing is making money for itself and the celebrities that use it. I still feel like Fab is out of line but i guess it is just his opinion. I never was a big fan of Fab and his latest cd was trash to me but that besides the fact.

Eminem Vs Mariah Ploy For Both Sides To Sell Records?

This article is a few months old but brought to mind some good points. Anyone who follows hip hop music knows the constant feuds that go on in the art form. Some are real feuds and some are well known to be marketing ploys by the artist and the label to sell records. For instance the Jay-Z vs. Nas beef was never going to get violent both of them had albums coming out and they used there marquee names to help them get fans to go out and buy the album. By now almost everyone has heard about the ongoing feud between singer Mariah Carey and rapper Eminem. Now to me this is a prime example of a man who owns his own record label(Eminem owns Shady Records) using this feud to help sell an album, and Carey as well. The whole feud started with a song off Eminems new album Relapse which took shots at both Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey. Shady has done this countless times on previous albums and this may be why he is the most successful selling rapper of the last decade. Now on the other hand this may have helped Carey too. She used her song Obsessed as a response to Eminem and it definitely got people wanting to here her new album. If this was a real rap feud Nick Cannon would have had to have done more after the horrible though kind of comical things Eminem said about her. The latest song "The Warning" was included in the article above, listen at your own discretion its very explicit. So in my opinion both Eminem and Mariah Carey should thank each other for the excellent publicity. Shadys album sold over 2 million copy's since its release in May of 2009 and Mariahs album just came out last week but is expected to do very well. Once again a prime example of record companys using feuds to help artists sell records in a time where buying cds is a thing of the past. Its sad but its true, well i still buy cds every once in a while if that makes things any better. But anyway what do you guys think was this just a ploy to sell records or do u think Eminem and Mariahs feud has a deeper meaning?

Record Labels Going Digital Good Thing Or Bad Thing?

I just finished reading an article about a record label E1 Music(Once known as Koch Records) teaming up with the independant digital label Amalgam Digital. The article brought to mind the idea that maybe with the teaming up of labels one day all labels will become digitalized. The fact that we will no longer be able to go to a store and buy the physical copy of someones album bothers me a little. I have always been into buying albums. I still buy albums to this day, i just like to have the physical copy with the liner notes etc. It seems as though with the growing technology soon enough maybe even within the next 10 years music will be pretty much all digitalzed. The rapper Joe Budden who is seen above in the A.D. entertainment t shirt is signed to Amalgam Digital. I actually bought my first digital album a few months ago his new album which was only available digitally. I met Budden at a signing in Smithtown last Febuary in which his 2nd album Padded Room was available in physical copy. However soon enough artists on that label and probably every label at some point with the joint ventures will be digitalzied completely. Its crazy to me how far technology has come from records and Walkman to having music only distributed over the internet. Well my opinion on the matter is i dont agree with digital music at all. Its just my opinion but i have always wanted to have the physical product of the album. I guess this is an easy way for the labels to make money(albums are around 5 dollars or so less digitally) but i just don't see it being a good thing. On the other hand with all the lazy people in the world i guess this could increase record sales in that it is cheaper and can be purchased with the click of a button.