Mac Miller is on pace to sell 175,000-185,000 copies of his debut album Blue Slide Park, which will position him atop the billboard charts.
Hits Daily Double, which reported the sales, calls Blue “a triumph of social networking and good, new-fashioned viral marketing, as Malcolm McCormick…transforms his combined 2.7 million Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace followers into an impressive debut.”
First and foremost, it is, as ever, a depressing state off affairs that getting 6% of your supposed fans and followers (and even if you account for overlap, that percentage probably wouldn’t jump much higher than 10%…but of course I’m not about to go and count discrete Mac Miller followers) to buy your album is “impressive.” On the other hand, kudos to Mac Miller for selling almost 200,000 records as an independent artist in an age when the prospect of success in music is as bleak as ever and a 185k opening week is probably akin to going gold first week in the old world.
On the other other hand, Mac Miller is not particularly talented. Nice guy? So says 9th Wonder Genuine? So I’ve heard. But world beating rapper extraordinaire? Nowhere close. Not in the same galaxy.
I say all of that to say this: whether based on perceived talent (god, I hope not) or cult of personality, Mac Miller racks up an impressive sales week to add to what has been a rather impressive sales year for a genre in hip-hop that is constantly being eulogized (often by its own artists) and threatened by the pulsating specter of electronic music on all sides. We’ve seen Wiz go gold, Wale (!) sell 160,000, J. Cole (!!) sell 217,000, Wayne hit near platinum in a single week, the Throne dominate the summer (and some of the fall), and Tyler impressively shock his way to 50,000 in first week sales. With releases and big numbers from Drake and Ricky Rozay still to come, I say it’s time for an early toast to hip-hop’s commercial viability in 2011 (and the ability of some younger artists to sell albums, not just singles).
L’chaim!
Artists will never reach once common heights with album sales again, but it is nice to know that artists both young and old, upstart in nature and established in fame were able to push solid numbers.
Oh, and if you’ve been listening, the music’s been pretty good too. Not necessarily all of the above mentioned, but if your ears are open in ’11, you should be pretty happy. Word to, in no particular order, Spaceghost Purrp, Mr. Mothafuckin eXquire, Kendrick Lamar, Action Bronson, Don Trip and Starlito, NRK, Cities Aviv, A.Dd+ and a whole bunch of other artists out there making excellent and occasionally very daring hip-hop.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the sleep-deprived, hip-hop loving brain of Jonathan Tanners.
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