Over the past few years, fans of music have seen artists
take charge of the release of their music.
Beyoncé started the trend selling
over 800,000
copies in three days with her unexpected
album and many artists followed suit.
The old album campaign is slowly fading away, although it is not
completely dead. Usually when artists
are about to release an album, huge promotional tactics are used, one usually being
a single for the radio. Now artist are doing it the other way around,
putting out music and letting the fans decide the hit records. It has shown to be very effective and has
produced quality music. I recently came
across an article, “Are
We Witnessing the Decaying Relevance of the Radio Single?” that inspired
this post. In the article, it
highlighted J. Cole and Lupe Fiasco and discussed how they
struggled making a radio single. Both
artists were pressured by their labels to put out a catchy song for the
radio. J. Cole was quoted saying that in
attempt to make a radio hit “I was making some of the worst uninspired music of
my life.” Lupe Fiasco felt the same struggle, the President of Atlantic insisted
that he make a pop song or no album would be released. J. Cole’s last album 2014 Forest Hills Drive had
no features or radio singles and went platinum.
We are living in a time where radio singles should not be mandatory
to release an album. It takes away from
the creativity and it takes away from the fan enjoying good music. Instead of being fed watered down music chosen
by the labels, why not allow the fans to choose? As a fan of music, I have
noticed that the music that last always has a message. Not saying catchy “radio songs” are not an effective way to market, but at what
expense is it to the artists’ craft. This
same issue affected Prince in the
early 90’s. He felt that he did not have
creative control and it caused his work to be sub-par due to him being forced
to make certain songs. Most fans
gravitate to artist because they are authentic and feel that they can
relate. The “radio songs” are only usually successful for party or for feel good
moments, but why should the radio portray that small portion of life all the
time? We are seeing a shift in the music
industry. Artists are now becoming
business people. It is necessary, and
this is why we see the record companies looking into other avenues to generate
revenue.
Below is a promotional tactic used by Jay-Z for his album Magna Carta Holy Grail. He released the commercial during the NBA
Finals with no prior singles. Jay-Z
struck a deal with Samsung and sold 1 million records when the album released.
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