Is 708,000 a disappointment?

I’ll posit it is.

If you’re all over radio and TV, if this is all you can sell, then either you’re a has-been or it’s just about impossible to gain the country’s attention.

Then again, is it evidence of the decline of rap?

OF COURSE this is a good number.  But it is the fourth quarter, the album did go on sale over the holiday weekend, and Jay-Z is considered to be one of the greatest living rappers.

Let’s change the equation.  Let’s say this was a movie.  What we’d have here is a ten million dollar opening weekend.  And it’s not like the picture only opened in a few theatres and is gonna break wide, this is it, the whole enchilada has been blown, it’s not like there can be MORE publicity, or it will be available in MORE stores.  In other words, it’s downhill from here.  After Xmas is this record TOAST?

Not if you’ve got hit singles you say.

But will radio PLAY?  Radio might say Jay-Z is too old.  Might say the bloom is off hip-hop, they’re going in a new direction.  They might say the first single was NOT BIG ENOUGH!

That’s the word on the street.  The Jay-Z track just isn’t a hit.

This wouldn’t matter in the old days.  Certainly not the seventies.  You sell on the strength of your so-called brand, your credibility.

But then came MTV.  And then, when MTV just about stopped playing videos, it was SOLELY about radio.  And to sell tonnage, you needed Top Forty play.  And Top Forty would only stick with what reacted.  Is Jay-Z reacting?  Well, it appears it isn’t.  The track slipped from number 8 to 13.  It’s going in the WRONG direction.  And you live and die on the strength of your singles.  Could it be that nobody told Jay-Z his track JUST WASN’T STRONG ENOUGH??

And it’s not like you can break out a new single before Xmas and frozen playlists.  And, although Beyonce’s album recovered from less than stellar singles, she’s still hot, she’s still today, whereas Jay-Z is a HAS-BEEN?

Could it be that Jay-Z is no different from the classic rock acts?  Could it be that NOBODY is interested in his new material?  That he’s just not FRESH?

I don’t think so.  It just hasn’t been that long.  But, another album after this one??  Could it be that like Michael Jordan, after being done with the Bulls, Jay-Z should have STAYED RETIRED?

It’s a sad sad state of affairs in the music business today.  It’s about winners and losers.  The middle ground?  Hell, look at the movie business, there IS no middle ground.

How did it get this way?

Greed.  Shooting for the top, for riches, the middle was abandoned.  Nobody wants doubles when you can possibly have grand slams, when your corporate bosses are pestering you to meet expectations.

But no one will admit the problems.  You’ll see stories in the press how Jay-Z is BACK!

But the Game is sliding down the chart, only selling 138,000 discs this week.  Almost nobody goes UP the chart, they just slide down.  It’s all about now, it’s about what have you done for me lately.  It’s about Hollywood, Tinseltown, whereas music blew up because it had soul.  I won’t say the soul is gone, but it sure looks like it’s in the witness protection program.