Jay-Z's new album sells more than 500K in 1 week

[JRNYMAN]

I guess this defeats the argument that "no-one buys albums anymore". Not only does it prove that an album can be recorded and released with an expectation of successful sales, it shows that the demographic he caters to, arguably the group responsible for the greatest amount of file/music sharing, reached into their wallets and spent real dollars on the product whether digital download or otherwise. That speaks volumes about the music industry as a whole and this misnomer that "people don't want to buy an entire album" or that there isn't an audience, a willing -to-fork-over-the cash audience who is foaming at the mouth in anticipation of the next "Journey-sounding", Journey album.
I guess I should have posted this downstairs but it's still relevant despite Journey.

Jay-Z's new album sells more than 500K in 1 week
Source: Music News
Originally published: Jul 16, 2013 - 7:43 pm

NEW YORK (AP) - Jay-Z's new album has sold more than 500,000 units its first week.

Nielsen SoundScan said late Tuesday preliminary data shows that "Magna Carta Holy Grail" moved about 527,000 copies. It will debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart this week.

The album was officially released on July 7. Samsung bought and gave 1.2 million copies of the album to Galaxy mobile phone users on July 4. Billboard is not counting those sales on its charts.

"Magna Carta" has the second-best first-week debut of the year after Justin Timberlake's "20/20 Experience." The album features Timberlake, Beyonce, Frank Ocean and Timbaland.

Jay-Z's 12th album had more than 14 million streams in its first week on Spotify, beating a record that Daft Punk set in May with "Random Access Memories."

http://ktar.com/45/1498285/JayZ-album-s ... in-1-week-

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

[brandonx76]

It's almost like a different business entirely than what we call music. I heard Ben Folds in a Guitar Center TV show recently talk about this...a little bitter sounding - but he made it sound like in the future, many will think back to the past when musicians made money playing music...Jay Z / Beyoncee, that type of stuff... that's plugging into something else I think.

I keep seeing the commercials with Jay Z rapping from a track from his new album, and I think it's Rick Rubin in the back shaking his head back and fourth...and I think to myself, it's absolutely tragic that this what 'music' has become and many people recognize / plug into. Fortunately, there is no shortage of niche markets out there making good music.

That Justin Timberlake stuff - doing the retro black and white videos, etc...just really terrible music...at least what I saw when he made the rounds during the Grammys and SNL...

"Of course...that's just my opinion...I could be wrong..."

[slucero]

all we're witnessing is the victory of marketing over music...

eventually, just like "video killed the radio star"... the marketing of music that is more about brand marketing than music will also suffer the same fate..

we're all old enough to remember that this stuff goes in cycles... and always winds up as over-marketed pablum... only to revert to something of substance for awhile.. then rinse and repeat..

[Voyager]

God it would suck to be a young person today. If Jay-Z songs were the only music available to listen to I would shoot myself.

[mrsromek]

Even if Jay-Z came to my house, sat on the couch and talked me through the album, I'd still fling it out the window.

[steveo777]

More proof a proper culture is doomed.