Smokin Rider
I been official
Wow, I guess its settled then, one twitter user solved it
Kendrick sells only 286k first week….Flop?
- Thread starter KingBenji
- Start date
Prince-Vegeta
Formerly @Twitter
I played the album with a girl I was kicking it with and that was the only song she was rocking with.
This is not true at all. "Swimming Pools" and "Poetic Justice" was definitely chasing what was mainstream at the time. "Poetic Justice" even features Drake, who is a go to feature for singles.
I’ll give you Poetic Justice. That seemed in line with a “single” in 2012. Swimming Pools was not.
Nobody looks to T minus to produce “album cuts” for them
Swimming pools was a blatant attempt at a crossover single…which it did
"Swimming Pools" was definitely in line with a single in 2012. That song had that Take Care feel to it, which was no coincidence being T-Minus produced "Swimming Pools" and he did several songs on Take Care.
Larry Legend
Greatest Poster alive
Fam, these are outliers. It’s not the norm. We’re talking about fukking Adele and Billie Eilish.Adele sold 108k first week on vinyl and 378k on CD and Taylor Swift sold 112k on vinyl and 146k on CD.
Driven by Adele, vinyl and cd sales both went up in 2021, data says
Streaming has been dominating the music industry for years now, but 2021 saw a notable rise in sales of physical albums, thanks in part to the success of Adele's latest album.www.cnn.com
54% of Billie Ellish's last album sales, were physical.
Billie Eilish, 21st-Century Pop Paragon, Hits No. 1 With Big Vinyl Sales
“Happier Than Ever” debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 with 54 percent of its total from physical formats.www.nytimes.com
I personally don't like Kendrick's new album at all, outside of 2-3 songs....but people are still buying physical copies of albums, contrary to popular belief.
Fred.
Kendrick has physicals available now, does that mean he’s selling a ton in week 2?
Since this is the excuse you guys wanna use? Is it gonna translate to another 300k or what?
There’s not a single rapper selling significant amounts of physical copies. Not one
The thing is, I don’t even think Kendrick underperformed. No other rapper is doing a bundleless 300k outside of Cole, and a select few. I think ya’ll projections were just way off. He was never gonna beat Drake… the guy has 300 billboard hot 100 entries. He’s on a different playing field
Breh you said nobody is buying physicals anymore....literally the biggest names in any genre are moving a fukk ton of physicals.
That's the only point I was making.
Do I think Kendrick would've sold 2-3x as much, with physicals? No.
Do I think it would've affected his over all numbers? Yes, of course.
Do I think it'll affect his sales now? No, as rap releases tend to be first week heavy. More so than pretty much any other genre.
As far as Drake, the comparison isn't really fair. Drake was on literally every Spotify play list, regardless of genre, when "Scorpion" came out.
Nobody else is getting that kinda promo.
Fred.
C-Styles
All Star
i have never seen so much hate on a respected rapper over a critically acclaimed album since Nas's untitled 
anybody else comes out with something of this magnitude and they get praised across the board. You mfs are seriously talking about 268k being a "flop" in 2022 considering the fact that we dont have physical copies anymore and "sales" equal over 1500 streams in order to be counted as 1 which is out of wack in itself. If the whole planet streamed an album, it still wouldn't match what the 90s early 2000s we're, we aren't in that era to measure that type of greatness. Then you got mfs on another thread talking about how this album is "Mid" or "He's too left field talking about real sh*t" like gtfoh
Has kendrick reached the level of being hated for greatness? that's the only way i can explain it, he ain't the underdog anymore, he's the target
anybody else comes out with something of this magnitude and they get praised across the board. You mfs are seriously talking about 268k being a "flop" in 2022 considering the fact that we dont have physical copies anymore and "sales" equal over 1500 streams in order to be counted as 1 which is out of wack in itself. If the whole planet streamed an album, it still wouldn't match what the 90s early 2000s we're, we aren't in that era to measure that type of greatness. Then you got mfs on another thread talking about how this album is "Mid" or "He's too left field talking about real sh*t" like gtfoh
Has kendrick reached the level of being hated for greatness? that's the only way i can explain it, he ain't the underdog anymore, he's the target
Larry Legend
Greatest Poster alive
I’m only ever talking about this hip hop space. I’m never referring to the Adele’s of the world.. so my bad for not clarifying that..
Hip hop audiences aren't buying significant amounts of physicals with bundling getting shut down. Can it be done? Sure. Tyler sells an unusually high amount of vinyl (although it can be argued that Tyler’s audience isn’t hip hip)
I do think Kendrick could have squeezed an extra 25-30k from physicals, but a physical release isn’t taking a 295k album to 700 the way some people are implying. That’s completely disingenuous
And I agree a Drake comparison isn’t fair. That was kinda my point lol.. Kendrick was never competing with Drake with this album, and he shouldn’t have been expected to. The people holding him to those type of imaginary projections only to be disappointed that he failed to meet those imaginary projections are playing themselves.
Drake is like McDonald’s at this point. So easily consumable and universally accepted. No rapper should be expected to do the things he does. The fact that you had people thinking Kendrick would do a million when Drake, the biggest artist in rap music, who just broke every streaming record imaginable with CLB - ONLY did 613k, is literally crazy
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Ok.
Swimming Pools was the least “single sounding” single that T Minus had done up to that point, but let’s pretend it was Moment for Life.
My larger point is still that when GKMC dropped, no one claimed that Kendrick had sold out the Section 80 sound and made a pop record. That sentiment did exist with Damn, which is why I contend it was his most commercial/pop friendly/mainstream album.