Identity said:

So let me get this straight... Billboard integrates YouTube viewership into Hot 100 singles calculations, but won't credit 1M SamSung downloads towards the album charts? There's a punchline there somewhere.

Here's the punchline...

BILLBOARD CHARTS!!!

The Recording Industry Association of America's 55-year-old barometer for measuring an artist's or group's commercial success continues to evolve. Just weeks after altering its Gold & Platinum Awards Program to include on-demand audio and video streams, the RIAA this week has made another tweak to "modernize" the certification process.

Digital sales of an album will now count toward the certification requirements beginning on the album's release date — instead of the 30-day wait time that was initially instituted to accurately tally physical sales (CDs, cassettes, vinyl and other formats).

The RIAA admits Jay-Z's marketing stunt with Samsung for the July 4 release of Magna Carta Holy Grail influenced the rule change. The rapper is giving away one million copies of the album, purchased for $5 each by Samsung, to one million owners of the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note II. Those owners must download an app to snag a copy.

Theoretically, Jay-Z's album will be certified platinum on its July 4 release date under the updated rules.

Kennedy says the 30-day rule "no longer makes sense," but it once served the purpose to give brick-and-mortar retailers time to return any unsold albums.

She notes the updated albums sales requirements now align with the RIAA's rules for sales of singles:

When we first created the Digital Single Award in 2004, we elected not to impose any 30-day rule because there are very few digital returns. According to our auditing firm, digital returns on average account for less than two percent of sales included in reports provided by the labels for certification – most digital retailer Terms of Use/Service allow users to return products only under limited circumstances. Also at the time in 2004, sales of digital albums were virtually non-existent and accounted for a small fraction of overall digital sales. Fast forward a decade and that’s obviously no longer the case.

After this week's update, the Gold & Platinum Awards Program takes into account sales of cassette tapes, CDs, digital tracks, digital albums, ringtones as well as (since May) on-demand streams. For audio streams, the RIAA looks at numbers from MOG, Muve Music, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify, Xbox Music and other services. For video streams, the RIAA monitors MTV.com, VEVO, Yahoo! Music, YouTube and more.

Kennedy didn't hide the fact the music landscape is evolving more every day:

Not only do we believe it’s sensible and logical to align digital album rules with those we have maintained for digital singles since the program’s inception, we also consider today’s move in line with our larger efforts to modernize the G&P Program to reflect the new music marketplace. In May we announced the integration of on-demand streams to the program to more broadly recognize online demand for songs. The reality is that how fans consume music is changing, the music business is changing as labels and artists partner with a breathtaking array of new technology services, and the industry’s premier award recognizing artists’ commercial achievement should similarly keep pace. In short, we’re continuing to move the 55-year-old program forward and it’s a good day when music sales diversification and innovative strategies meet the RIAA’s time-tested, gold standard requisites for certification.

MagnaCartaHolyGrail.com promotes this Samsung commercial and features a countdown to July 4. Samsung owners will get the album 72 hours before its wide release.

"We don't have any rules; everybody is trying to figure it out," Jay-Z says. "That's why the Internet is like the Wild West, the Wild Wild West. We need to write the new rules."

why dont they just get rid of charts all together and let the artists sell their music anyway they can.

Sleeve for the Magna Carta Holy Grail album.

listening now im not impressed yet

“Holy Grail” feat. Justin Timberlake.

Soundcloud

This track has a tight groove.

Graycap23 said:

popgodazipa said:

Graycap23 said: Is that you Graycap or Dave Chapelle...I can't tell. I'm sure the rest of y'all RSVP'd so your probably in the crowd somewhere..hate hate hate hate!

Lol.......................I hear it now.

Song 1: cars

Song 2: haters

Song 3: stuff u can buy

Song 4: High life

Song 5: Merck Ya

Song 6: Owning assets

Song 7: Liquor and hoes

Song 8: Illuminati nonsense

Song 9: collabo

Song 10: collabo

Song 11: I know the President

Song 12: I know the 1st Lady 2

Damn Gray, you outdid yourself with this ish! LOL

Identity said:

lastdecember said:

Well regardless of the marketing he is ripping off, its basically what everyone is doing, create a BUZZ with a title that is bloated and stupid and HYPE, him and Beyonce are a perfect couple they do everything the same, HYPE overdose, no substance, Jay has not been interesting music wise in eons, and im guessing this will keep the eons going title alone

you took the words out of my mouth

AlexdeParis said:

Graycap23 said:

Lol.......................I hear it now.

Song 1: cars

Song 2: haters

Song 3: stuff u can buy

Song 4: High life

Song 5: Merck Ya

Song 6: Owning assets

Song 7: Liquor and hoes

Song 8: Illuminati nonsense

Song 9: collabo

Song 10: collabo

Song 11: I know the President

Song 12: I know the 1st Lady 2

Damn Gray, you outdid yourself with this ish! LOL

Just wait until u hear it.

Collabo is already scratched off the list.

Graycap23 said:

As I expected, the music is all top-notch and his rhymes fall face flat. Kinda hard to sit through and I'm a fan (who loved Blueprint 3).

You all get Samsung phones or what? lol

Timbaland opens up about producing Magna Carta Holy Grail and his formerly contentious relationship with Jay-Z.

Cinny said:

You all get Samsung phones or what? lol

Why, of course--how else would you hear it before release?

I thought the data mining aspect of this release was interesting...did Samsung pay jayz with NSA money? Hmmm.

Here’s how it worked: Samsung purchased a million copies of “Magna Carta” in advance, then, via the app, made the album available to subscribers five days before its widespread release. In exchange, users were asked to share access to their social media accounts, their phone calls, their GPS location and more. If the medium is the message, we finally had an answer to that fan-or-customer question.

And now who would want to be either? Throughout “Magna Carta,” the 43-year-old pretends he’s a threat to a system he’s so eagerly become a part of, as if his life as a champion capitalist is some perpetually escalating act of subversion. Hooray? Rooting for this man in 2013 is like rooting for Pfizer. Or PepsiCo. Or PRISM.

Full article...

http://www.washingtonpost...story.html

Who is Killer Mike?

http://www.billboard.com/...some-users

I had some time in between work to listen to the new Jay-Z album and like i expected... average as hell. This man is 43 years old and still talking like a teenager with rich parents! we get it you are rich! that is all he has been about lyrically for years! he is 43 years old and everyone knows you are rich so it is time to stop writing about materialistic excess and his flow was lazy, tired, and phoned in.


And of course there is a song about his daughter which was expected... but why does he have to talk about thing's EVERYONE knows? we know you have a samsung deal, we know you are married to Beyonce, we know you used to deal drugs blah blah. The album was in-cohesive and lazy yet people still say Jay is one of the best rappers... i like some of his old albums but in my opinion as i have grown up i just can't get into his stuff as much cause his lyrics have never really been great besides Reasonable Doubt... and maybe Black Album! meh meh meh meh.

Gunsnhalen said:

I had some time in between work to listen to the new Jay-Z album and like i expected... average as hell. This man is 43 years old and still talking like a teenager with rich parents! we get it you are rich! that is all he has been about lyrically for years! he is 43 years old and everyone knows you are rich so it is time to stop writing about materialistic excess and his flow was lazy, tired, and phoned in.


And of course there is a song about his daughter which was expected... but why does he have to talk about thing's EVERYONE knows? we know you have a samsung deal, we know you are married to Beyonce, we know you used to deal drugs blah blah. The album was in-cohesive and lazy yet people still say Jay is one of the best rappers... i like some of his old albums but in my opinion as i have grown up i just can't get into his stuff as much cause his lyrics have never really been great besides Reasonable Doubt... and maybe Black Album! meh meh meh meh.

So how close was my list?

This mother fucker bragging about his vacations am i listening to a family reunion? i mean is this the shit Jay-Z has to talk about? bitch i do not care you go on rich vacations! a lot of people you and your drag queen are not special

I BEEN TO THE MOMA! look at me

Graycap23 said:

Gunsnhalen said:

I had some time in between work to listen to the new Jay-Z album and like i expected... average as hell. This man is 43 years old and still talking like a teenager with rich parents! we get it you are rich! that is all he has been about lyrically for years! he is 43 years old and everyone knows you are rich so it is time to stop writing about materialistic excess and his flow was lazy, tired, and phoned in.


And of course there is a song about his daughter which was expected... but why does he have to talk about thing's EVERYONE knows? we know you have a samsung deal, we know you are married to Beyonce, we know you used to deal drugs blah blah. The album was in-cohesive and lazy yet people still say Jay is one of the best rappers... i like some of his old albums but in my opinion as i have grown up i just can't get into his stuff as much cause his lyrics have never really been great besides Reasonable Doubt... and maybe Black Album! meh meh meh meh.

So how close was my list?

TOO DAMN CLOSE

But he also mentioned how he sleeps with Mona Lisa AKA bey bey

Gunsnhalen said:

Graycap23 said:

So how close was my list?

TOO DAMN CLOSE

But he also mentioned how he sleeps with Mona Lisa AKA bey bey

Sad............who is supporting this nonsense?

Gunsnhalen said:

This mother fucker bragging about his vacations am i listening to a family reunion? i mean is this the shit Jay-Z has to talk about? bitch i do not care you go on rich vacations! a lot of people you and your drag queen are not special

I BEEN TO THE MOMA! look at me

Yes, it's what he has to talk about!

It's his life--this is what happens when you build a career (and in the case of rap a genre) on the idea of street authenticity. When you find yourself to be not a drug dealer on the street or a person struggling in some other at least interesting way to get by in a tough world but instead you're a filthy rich CEO who spends his business hours coordinating multiple company synergies and your non-office hours hanging with other filthy rich CEO's and heads of state, but (and here's the real problem) you don't really have any ideas about anything outside of your businesses--you got nothing to say except reports about your business deals and the fineness of your wife, and you want to talk about your daughter, but like most people you don't really know how to say much about those sorts of emotions, really. And maybe you really don't care much about the rap game anymore, but it's sort of responsible for the juice behind all your promo deals and everything else, the celebrity you're trading on is based on the fact that you used to rap, so you still have to do it to keep the business as a whole going, even if your heart isn't really in it.

Jay-Z is hardly the only case of this, and it's hardly restricted to rap, or even to music. The problem is intensified though by the idea that rappers tell the truth about life--which is usually understood to be their own lives. It helps if you go out early, or if you have some recurrent traumatic cycle you stay in--Eminem worked that whole Kim thing and then his addictions, for example--but if you leave the street, and you clean your act up and become a "businessman"--well, that's just dull, or even, if you're talking about success, kind of obnoxious.

[Edited 7/9/13 11:36am]

EddieC said:

Gunsnhalen said:

This mother fucker bragging about his vacations am i listening to a family reunion? i mean is this the shit Jay-Z has to talk about? bitch i do not care you go on rich vacations! a lot of people you and your drag queen are not special

I BEEN TO THE MOMA! look at me

Yes, it's what he has to talk about!

It's his life--this is what happens when you build a career (and in the case of rap a genre) on the idea of street authenticity. When you find yourself to be not a drug dealer on the street or a person struggling in some other at least interesting way to get by in a tough world but instead you're a filthy rich CEO who spends his business hours coordinating multiple company synergies and your non-office hours hanging with other filthy rich CEO's and heads of state, but (and here's the real problem) you don't really have any ideas about anything outside of your businesses--you got nothing to say except reports about your business deals and the fineness of your wife, and you want to talk about your daughter, but like most people you don't really know how to say much about those sorts of emotions, really. And maybe you really don't care much about the rap game anymore, but it's sort of responsible for the juice behind all your promo deals and everything else, the celebrity you're trading on is based on the fact that you used to rap, so you still have to do it to keep the business as a whole going, even if your heart isn't really in it.

Jay-Z is hardly the only case of this, and it's hardly restricted to rap, or even to music. The problem is intensified though by the idea that rappers tell the truth about life--which is usually understood to be their own lives. It helps if you go out early, or if you have some recurrent traumatic cycle you stay in--Eminem worked that whole Kim thing and then his addictions, for example--but if you leave the street, and you clean your act up and become a "businessman"--well, that's just dull, or even, if you're talking about success, kind of obnoxious.

[Edited 7/9/13 11:36am]

This is why he should had stayed retired.

Graycap23 said:

EddieC said:

Yes, it's what he has to talk about!

It's his life--this is what happens when you build a career (and in the case of rap a genre) on the idea of street authenticity. When you find yourself to be not a drug dealer on the street or a person struggling in some other at least interesting way to get by in a tough world but instead you're a filthy rich CEO who spends his business hours coordinating multiple company synergies and your non-office hours hanging with other filthy rich CEO's and heads of state, but (and here's the real problem) you don't really have any ideas about anything outside of your businesses--you got nothing to say except reports about your business deals and the fineness of your wife, and you want to talk about your daughter, but like most people you don't really know how to say much about those sorts of emotions, really. And maybe you really don't care much about the rap game anymore, but it's sort of responsible for the juice behind all your promo deals and everything else, the celebrity you're trading on is based on the fact that you used to rap, so you still have to do it to keep the business as a whole going, even if your heart isn't really in it.

Jay-Z is hardly the only case of this, and it's hardly restricted to rap, or even to music. The problem is intensified though by the idea that rappers tell the truth about life--which is usually understood to be their own lives. It helps if you go out early, or if you have some recurrent traumatic cycle you stay in--Eminem worked that whole Kim thing and then his addictions, for example--but if you leave the street, and you clean your act up and become a "businessman"--well, that's just dull, or even, if you're talking about success, kind of obnoxious.

[Edited 7/9/13 11:36am]

This is why he should had stayed retired.

From a musical standpoint--yes.

But from a Jay-Z Inc. standpoint--he's got to at least make occasional appearances on tracks. Why he needs to do full albums, especially a new one now so close to Watch the Throne--I don't know. Especially to put it up against Kanye's new album? I don't know. I just don't know.

shorttrini said:

To this jury, I asked the following. Who would you rather listen too, a "So-called" rappers like, Rick Ross, who lied about his passed, about him working for corrections, or a simpleton so-called rapper who goes by the name, Two Chains? At least Jay never lied about his past and is now in the position to talk about his accolades, if he chooses to.

But it is decades later and Jay is no more dangerous than Ellen Degeneres... so his ''wild life'' talk is just silly now cause he is practicaly the hip-hop Bill Cosby

shorttrini said:

To this jury, I asked the following. Who would you rather listen too, a "So-called" rappers like, Rick Ross, who lied about his passed, about him working for corrections, or a simpleton so-called rapper who goes by the name, Two Chains? At least Jay never lied about his past and is now in the position to talk about his accolades, if he chooses to.

Neither................

Gunsnhalen said:

shorttrini said:

Gunsnhalen said:

But it is decades later and Jay is no more dangerous than Ellen Degeneres... so his ''wild life'' talk is just silly now cause he is practicaly the hip-hop Bill Cosby

True. But, at least he has come for the bottom and made it to the top. This is while all of those aforementioned rappers, are still trying to find their way, and making up stories along the way. Look, I am not saying that he is the greatest of all time, but he is better than most of those who are in the game, at this moment.

His not better than Kendrick Lamar or Kanye.

I have more respect for MCs like Nas. Building a career off of gimmick music is nothing to be respected or admired. There are way better rappers and MCs.