Tyler The Creator has quite the following.
His new album, “Don’t Tap the Glass,” sold 205,000 copies in its debut week and finished at number 1. “Don’t Tap” sales included 135K actual downloads or CDs.
The album is barely 28 minutes long. The 10 “songs” average two minutes apiece. WTF? There are many, many samples that had to be cleared and paid for, so who knows what the point is? There are so many samples that the opening track is credited to 16 writers. That may be a record!
Most of the album is just Tyler rapping over existing records. His cut of the publishing on this album is almsot nil. The entire track called “Ring Ring” is credited to Ray Parker Jr. because it’s Parker and his original group, Raydio, singing “All in the Way You Get Down.” Congrats to Ray! It’s found money.
Meanwhile, Justin Bieber’s “Swag” is fading fast. In its second week, the album sold 71,000 copies through streaming, and just 1,000 in paid downloads. The one single, “Daisies,” was number 1 for a day on iTunes, but it’s also trailing off and trending down.
Overall album sales are terrible, with few new releases and a lot of apathy toward the existing releases. The record biz is in a torpor right now. Grammy eligibility closes on August 30th. Album of the Year is likely Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem,” unless something crazy happens in the next four weeks.
PS “The Essential Ozzy Osbourne” collection sold 44,000 copies in 48 hours, almost all from streaming. Right now Ozzy has 23 albums in the iTunes Top 100 either solo projects or Black Sabbath. Bravo, Ozzy! Nicely done.
