Atlantic Records Stays Losing
Record labels have a lot of things to deal with when it comes to breaking even and/or making a profit. One thing they believe contribute to their troubles is the leaking of records. But on the other hand, they don’t know how to handle that. They also don’t know how to handle hit records and artists. Atlantic Records is a big player in this. Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor leaked twice. Saigon finished his album The Greatest Story Never Told many times before he asked to be released. And recently, T.I. had a lot of records leaked from his upcoming album Paper Trail. Atlantic had a great beginning, but it is not a major player anymore due to their setbacks.
Ahmet Ertegun, nicknamed “The Greatest Record Man Of All Time,” started Atlantic Records with a $10,000 loan in 1947. During this time, many major labels dropped their “Race music” and other genres to focus on the mainstream. This allowed labels like Atlantic to succeed. Ertegun had a great vision for his label. He once said,
There's a black man living in the outskirts of Opelousas, Louisiana. He works hard for his money; he has to be tight with a dollar. One morning he hears a song on the radio. It's urgent, bluesy, authentic and irresistible. He can't live without this record. He drops everything, jumps in his pickup and drives twenty-five miles to the first record store he finds. If we can make that kind of music, we can make it in the business (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/atlantic.html).
He wanted to make records for the little person. His first major artist was Ruth Brown. He signed her while she in a hospital after breaking both her legs in a car accident (Atlantic paid for the part of her bill not covered by insurance). He helped her and many other mainstream artists craft their sound for a “funkier and down-home” feel. He wrote hit records too since music publishers did not think they would profit from Atlantic. Many great and popular artists like Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, the Rolling Stones, Kid Rock, Tupac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and MC Lyte have emerged since the label’s founding.
Atlantic has a great history, but with every history there are some pitfalls. The label did have a lot of great artists, but they also missed out on a lot of great artists like the Beatles. There was also a missed opportunity to boast James Blunt’s sales. The label denied “Weird Al” Yankovic the opportunity to have a parody of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” called “You’re Pitful” appear on his album Straight Outta Lynwood.
To replace the record, Yankovic went on to do “White & Nerdy,” which is a parody of Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty.”
White & Nerdy Weird Al Yankovic
Uploaded by cramchur
“Ridin’ Dirty” is a record about racial profiling and police brutality.
“White & Nerdy” made “Ridin’ Dirty” very popular. It went quadruple platinum in record sales and ringtones. His album The Sound of Revenge went triple platinum. “You’re Beautiful” only went double platinum with digital sales. James Blunt’s album Back To Bedlam went double platinum as well. James Blunt could have done Chamillionaire’s numbers, maybe even more, if Atlantic had not stepped in the way.
In 2006, Lupe Fiasco had a hard time coming up with a complete album. His debut Food & Liquor was leaked not only once but twice. This occurred months before the set summer release date. This caused him to get back in the studio. As a result of this, the album was pushed back to September 19, 2006. He ended up selling less than 100,000 in his first week. In an interview with allhiphop.com, he said,
Hey [shit] happens. An unmixed version of Food & Liquor got leaked yesterday so I assume its on [file-sharing services like] Limewire and Bittorrent and all that [shit]…Its stuff like this that makes you wanna just be like [fuck] it. A lotta time and money and [bullshit] went into creating that album. Over the years I've had my people die, get locked up, my company get shut down, weak [ass] ‘intelligent Black men’ in my own crew turn against me and just when things are starting to look good [this happens] (http://hiphopruckus.blogspot.com/2006/04/lupe-fiasco-speaks-on-food-liquor.html).
It seemed like everything was over for Lupe. He had been working on the album for five years. The leaking of the album might have played a big role in his “lackluster” sales in the first week. The question is how could this happen? Anyone could have leaked the album, but in the end Atlantic was responsible for the leak. It is true that every album leaks, but the grace period is usually two weeks. It was unacceptable to have it leak months before it was going to release.
Well-known Rapper Saigon endured a lot just to get his debut album The Greatest Story Never Told released. Atlantic kept pushing his release date back. It was originally set in 2005. In 2007, he got tried of the label’s actions. On his MySpace blog, he threatened to leak the album if the label was not going to release it. Soon after that, it was revealed that the album was being held back because of the sample (J. Geils Band's "Southside Shuffle”) for the lead single “C’mon Baby” had to be cleared. Once the sample was cleared, a video was made and a release date was set.
It seemed like his album was finally going to be released. But there was trouble once again. The label still was not moving.
Just Blaze, Saigon’s producer, decided to bring out the big guns. He leaked the remix with Jay-Z.
The record got a lot of people talking about Saigon again. Just Blaze and Saigon thought that this was the ticket, but the buzz for the record came and went. The duo went back to the drawing board to figure out what they can do next. After some time passed, it was announced that Saigon was released from Atlantic. He was able to keep the music he recorded for The Greatest Story Never Told. After the announcement came, Saigon leaked another record from his album called “Believe It.”
On it, he said, “I tried to help the label see the vision. But, they lowered me to a subdivision; you got to be fuckin’ kiddin’. They rather me pretend to be something I’m not. I’m the new Public Enemy; I’m different than Yung Joc.” Saigon expanded on that in an interview with XXL Magazine for their September 2008 issue:
Rob Markman: You used to be on Atlantic Records. What was the vision that your former label wasn’t seeing?
Saigon: My vision was, since you’re gonna market my music to children anyway, let me give them somethin’ beneficial. I’m not gonna make a single about gettin’ oral sex or distributing kilos, but I will make a song about the importance of education in order to make a living in America, or how not to fall victim to genocide.
Rob Markman: And they really tried to lower you to a subdivision?
Saigon: They tried to tell me I could put my album out on Asylum. I love all the people who work there, but I signed to Atlantic, so I told them to eat a dick (130).
Now, he is looking for a label to release the album with the music he wants children to hear.
Lupe Fiasco and Saigon might have been newly signed artists, but T.I. is not a freshmen. Even in 2008, Atlantic is not on top of their game. T.I. is set to release his album Paper Trail on September 30th. In the beginning, he played it smart. He leaked the first single “No Matter What” on his own website. This record let everyone know that the king was back. After that, a lot of records started to leak. Here is the current tracklisting for the album (the bolded ones indicate the leaked tracks):
1. 56 Bars (Intro)
2. I’m Illy
3. Ready For Whatever
4. On Top Of The World (Feat. Ludacris and B.o.B)
5. Live Your Life (Feat. Rihanna)
6. Whatever You Like
7. No Matter What
8. My Life Your Entertainment (Feat. Usher)
9. Porn Star
10. Swing Ya Rag (Feat. Swizz Beatz)
11. What Up, What’s Happenin’
12. Every Chance I Get
13. Swagga Like Us T.I. and Jay-Z (Feat. Kanye West and Lil Wayne)
14. Slide Show (Feat. John Legend)
15. You Ain’t Missin’ Nothing
16. Dead And Gone (Feat. Justin Timberlake) (http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Trail-T-I/dp/B001B56KVG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s;=music&qid;=1219945024&sr;=8-1)
Seven out of sixteen records have leaked. Only four of the leaked records are singles in which videos have been made for. There were a few more records that are not on this tracklisting that leaked as well. Some were called “Like I Do” Feat. The Dream and “A Better Day.”
Once these records leaked, Atlantic tried everything in their power to get them off the internet. They took down YouTube videos and killed download links. They even e-mailed bloggers to take the records down.
One of the leaked records, “Whatever You Like,” did surprising excellent.
Reuters/Billboard reported the following:
Rapper T.I. establishes the mark for biggest jump to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 as his single "Whatever You Like" soars from No. 71 to No. 1 in its third week on the list.
A No. 1 opening on the Hot Digital Songs chart with debut-week sales of 205,000 downloads is the impetus for the record-setting Hot 100 move, which surpasses the leap from No. 64 to No. 1 that Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder" took in May 2007.
“Like” is the rapper's first No. 1 as a lead artist (he was featured on Justin Timberlake's 2006 chart-topper "My Love"), and his opening-week digital sum is the best by a rap track since Nielsen SoundScan began compiling download data in 2003 (http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN2749324220080827).
Eskay from Nahright.com had this to say about it:
And it related news, Tip’s single “Whatever You Like” has made digital download history. That’s pretty interesting since that’s one of the few Paper Trail tracks that his label hasn’t gotten their panties all in a bunch over us posting. At least I don’t think they have, because I chose to stream the song rather than post it for download because I didn’t feel like dealing with the fuckery. See, the majors would have you believe that liberal posting of a track for free download on blogs, etc. would hurt a single’s commercial chances, but as you can see, that’s not necessarily the case (http://nahright.com/news/2008/08/28/video-ti-what-up-unofficial/).
T.I. never had a leaking problem like this before. Did the leak of “Whatever You Like” help his sales? Considering the sales numbers, it did. People were motivated enough to go buy the single. It goes to show that downloading does not hurt an artist all the time.
But the question of who leaked all of these records still remains. Was it T.I. himself? He can be ruled out since he spoke about how disappointed he was with the leaking of “Swagger Like Us” (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1593422/20080823/t_i_.jhtml). It was rumored that he planned on performing this at the MTV Video Music Awards. If it wasn’t T.I., then who was it? Was it one of these dudes T.I. is dancing and singing with in an unofficial music video for “What Up, What’s Happenin’?”
Maybe it was. Instead of dancing and singing, he should be questioning those dudes like a police officer (maybe Rick Ross can help). Despite the great number of leaked records, T.I. should be able to sell a great amount when the album releases. But it is still not an excuse for Atlantic to allow this to happen.
Atlantic had its ups and downs, but it seems like the setbacks overshadow the label’s great history. Would Ahmet Ertegun really want artists like Lupe Fiasco and Saigon to face what they faced? Lupe and Saigon embodied Ertrgun’s original vision for Atlantic. Why did they get treated the way they did? Atlantic does not know how to handle hit records, leaked records and artists. The label has to be the worst one to be signed to. If your name does not ring bells, you are not getting the attention and respect you deserve. Artists have to know the business in order to succeed. It is hard to depend on labels like Atlantic. Ertrgun was a great man who put Atlantic on the map. He might be rolling in his grave because of what Atlantic, his own creation, became to be. May he rest in piece.
To learn more about Ahmet Ertegun, visit http://www.atlanticrecords.com/vintage.
Works Citied
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/atlantic.html#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Records
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupe_Fiasco%27s_Food_%26_Liquor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Revenge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_Bedlam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_Beautiful
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridin%27_(Chamillionaire_song)
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