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Cassettes!! Who remembers those ? Well guess what, I do, and there’s so much to talk about here.

First things first, boom boxes. That cool look of the boom box is enough of a reason for it to be still used in photo shoots with all of those artists. Now that the fun side of the article is done, let’s get into business again.

Cassettes did not have a track list like CDs do. A cassette had only the Play, Stop, Forward, and Rewind buttons, missing the “Skip” button CD players have today. That being said, you had to listen to every track in order to go to the next one, unless you just held that Forward button until the song was over with, and you landed a verse in through the second song, and now you have to rewind.

Did that sound like torture to you, kids? Well guess what, that was one of the reasons artists actually made money during these days. People listened to the album, not to their favorite track 2 and track 10. We listened to an entire album, and that was the experience it self. The album set the mood for you, where the entire album went one way, unlike today’s artists who release an album with 12 tracks, and have three emotional songs, two about their love lives, another three about business, and so on. I can’t blame them though. Today’s media pressures artists to do that in hopes of people liking at least one style and buy the album for that. The 6 minutes tracks are now 2 or 3 minutes long, because the lack of focus from kids that the TV teaches now. Here, we reach to the conclusion why albums don’t sell as much. The Internet has been another factor, don’t get me wrong. One of the biggest factors, as I previously stated actually, is the availability of all of these tracks online. Artists now are forced to give you free content in order to build up your trust in their style. The only reason Lil Wayne sold a million+ in a week was because of the hunger he embedded in people towards his music. Whether or not the million copies sold within the first week was faked, stays with the experts and not my self, for I’m not one in the music industry. But I do know that Lil Wayne used this bad bad things and just flipped it and used it towards his success in a very good way. Support your artists. Listen to their songs. You don’t have to like every song, but it’d be good if you actually played every song and then judged the album after that, not by the two singles you heard.

Much love,

Apo Avedissian

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Eminem’s album just got leaked. SURPRISE!
Okay, without circling around this, I just wanted to say that leaking albums is a bullshit, but very effective, strategy to sell.
First of all, why do albums get leaked? Second of all, you, self-righteous fans, tend to download leaked albums, download leaked songs, or even singles, for FREE, and then show support to an artist by complaining about it. Well guess what? You’ve stolen valuable things from the artist you claim to be a fan of. If every fan acted the way you did, then the artist wouldn’t make music anymore.

This artist you’re a fan of, however, knows very well that most of his “fans” download his tracks instead of actually paying for them, so what’s a perfect strategy for him to use this for his promotion matters? CIRCULATION. Yes, he has his team leak an album two weeks before the official release, gets the hype up, then drops the album and the ones who ALREADY were going to pay to get his CD will pay either way, and if the album was good, some of the free downloaders might actually go and buy the album as well.

The artist knows very well that his tracks will be downloaded for free either way, so he uses that for marketing purposes. You play it to your friends at school, your friend has it on his iPod, iPhone, iTouch, iPad (damn, Apple DOES rule the world!), you talk about them in person, and you just give them circulation.

Leaking an album is not an easy process if not done by the artist’s authority, and it’s very easy to detect the one who leaks an album if investigated. Not many people get to the final product. Some make a beat, some help record and master. At the end, not many people will have the final track with them, ONE track, now think about having an entire album, with the front and back covers, and official track list all ready to be downloaded in a zip file for you an hour after eminem.com releases the cover for you. Don’t download it if you’re a true fan. Don’t listen to it. If you do download it and listen to it and not buy the CD, not only is it illegal, it also takes your right of criticizing away. Your 5 minutes spent on the track does not qualify you to criticize the guts out of the artist. You have not paid a cent, so don’t complain.

This particularly gets to me because I understand what an artist goes through to get you that 5 minute long track, all the time he puts in, all the money, and you end up just mis-using it.
No, this is not advertising for Eminem, this is an advertisement for every artist. Support them by helping them make more, not by stealing their work and thinking you’re giving them “credit”. The awards they get don’t put food on their tables, your dollars do.

Much love,

Apo Avedissian