Gold is the new Platinum

Remember back in like 1997 when you first heard Jay-Z say, "I was poppin that Cristal when ya'll nikkas thought it was beer and shyt. Wearing that platinum shyt when ya'll chicks thought it was silver"?

Maybe you don't. But I do! That was when I first learned what Cri$$y (not to be confused with Armand de Brokeback) was and what platinum was. It was around that time that platinum started to become the new gold. Out with the old gold chains and dookie ropes and in with the silver-looking platinum je-wells that Jay-Z and his ROC crew were rockin'.

I just read an article in Entertainment Weekly that brought up the point that not since 2005 has there been an artist who's went platinum (sold 1,000,000 albums) in the first week of their album's release. The last person to do it was none other than Half Dollar AKA 50 Cent with his album, "The Massacre", which was surrounded by so much promotional/controversial/beef hype that the million units it moved in the first week is not so overwhelmingly surprising in hindsight. Here are some figures on recent artists' first week sales that you may find interesting:

Justin Timberlake's latest CD - 684,000

Beyonce's latest CD - 541,000

Christina Aguilera's latest CD - 342,000

* NOTE: None of these people are rappers

These three artists (along with Fergie Ferg) were noted in the article. After reading the article it makes me wonder how GAME is actually going to move the 1,000,000 units he's predicting this week. Not only because of the information above, but because he leaked his album on purpose this past week so I figure that knocks about 100,000 people off the "going to cop that new GAME" list.

Another interesting point in this article was that album sales have declined each year over the past 5 years. Of course this can probably be attributed largely to the InterWeb and file-sharing/downloading as well as CD burning among friends, so it's really not much of a surprise. At least to me it isn't.

My prediction is that since album sales are steadily declining and probably will continue to decline in the coming years, expect more artists to extend themselves beyond music. Expect an onslaught of pop culture "icons" to appear out-of-nowhere. Most artists have already realized that spinning their musical success into other ventures (i.e. - clothing, movies, endorsement deals, etc.) will prove much more profitable than solely concentrating on moving units. I expect to see more musical artists crossing the lines into other forms of entertainment, advertising, and media. Expect to see your favorite new artist in commercials, writing books, endorsing all types of products, and oh yeah, working on their next CD. Jay-Z has set a pretty big precedent of unavoidable media attention with the buzz surrounding his "just out of retirement" album, Kingdome Come (which by the way, leaked this morning). Artists will probably take some of the moves Jay's made (large corporate endorsements, promo tour, guest spots on other artists albums) to an even greater level in the future.

The decline in album sales will leave artists with no choice but to expand like Jay-Z and become a "business man, not a businessman", which ultimately means marketing themselves moreso than their music in order to get their money in more ways. So if all the Jay-Z marketing going on upsets you, prepare to be pi$$ed off for years to come. If he's successful, everybody's going to do like Rakim used to say and "follow the leader".