As Rihanna is gearing up for the release of her summer album—that’s right, I said: “summer album”…(yes..a release date season was revealed), she is still dropping gems in the meantime.
The singer, who moonlights as a model, certainly shines bright like a diamond in her just-released official Dior digital short for her Secret Garden IV campaign ad, filmed at Paris’ Chateau de Versailles.
Here goes:
https://youtu.be/BGw9q8xppfg
Ok so, about this “summer” album (R8):
According to our source (and despite single drops: “FourFiveSeconds,” “#BBHMM,” “American Oxygen”), the first song on the album’s track listing [is to be] titled: “Only If For a Night” produced by Midas-and slated to lead the way in the R8’s track listing.
No word heard on what the single in its entirety sounds like (but it’s playing in the background of the above-posted Dior campaign ad).
With regard to this single dropping, single announcing…I’m thinking they’d better sit on this one—until.
Because at this point, everything seems “taste-tested” teetering: force-fed…these incessant singles drops.
Coming from a standpoint from behind the business of music and trying to deal with +stay up on technology and social media, on one end, it’s good to be afforded the ability to “taste-taste” snippets and single’s before an album drop, but on the other end; it can work against you.
Before social media, it used to be that a single (CD) was released and then a week later, the full album just dropped-and the fan purchased the full effort.
Now, although it’s good that artists can taste-test their singles digitally and via social media; it raises eyebrows (and suspicion). It makes that fan (who already has the power) sense your “need.”
And although it seems like a perfect medium to taste-test fan response, if you think about it from a real perspective, you can’t really gauge a taste-tested single on fan response being something that like…we would/should still be raving about “FourFiveSeconds” today (like we did a couple months ago when it dropped).
The fact of the matter is, it’s just like with anything on the Internet and social media: It’s gonna get its 15 seconds of rave and fame, but that’s it. Fans and people are way too busy and information overloaded to stop and think about keep a single alive [while playing around on Twitter and Facebook] in search of likes and 15 minutes/search of fame themselves.
(Ok so, this tidbit goes into like…an additional page of my whole “60+ page” spiel I gave that went into my whole concept/business model by which I have issue with Tidal, as per my Twitter favorites spiel).
It’s unfortunate that, considering how I know it was stolen, read, and used as an underlying business practice), I can’t say what I want to say (that is very helpful to people in music, artists, and the industry as a whole)…
But what I will offer is tip (for artists, producers, writers and anyone in the music industry):
Just like I designed that whole media business model (for music, books and movies-in that 60+ page blueprint), the thing about trying to incorporate music into the digital age today (in 2015) if you can’t rival iTunes or your model isn’t such that iTunes would nearly be forced to join forces with you…the bottom line is: YOU CAN’T WIN.
Unfortunately, I had that formula, but it was stolen and dissected and deprived of an entire industry and hand delivered to merely 16 people-hence Tidal’s sinking.
It’s was painfully obvious that the blue I wrote was an industry effort, and written as such that no matter how much money you put into bringing it to life, if you didn’t do it as one entire industry-the plan would not work.
Again, I repeat. You (any new streaming service) will not win until you can rival iTunes to a point of submission and camaraderie.
In my saying that, the same goes for dropping these singles online—test-tasting them.
You can’t win that game and gauge an accurate assessment as to whether the people are checking for your single(s) enough that you should or should not drop an album!
The problem is, y’all are TOO HEAVILY RELIANT on a Facebook and Twitter trending topic to carry yous off into the sunset on your buzz without sitting back and realizing that a Twitter or Facebook trending topic is the equivalent of a flash, literally 15 seconds of fame.
So what’s happening here is, you got allllllll these rich people, all these investors, all these businessmen, all these artists, all these record companies etc… and nobody’s THINKING…using their heads…
It’s amazing!
How do I come to conclude things like this?
Me? When I’m online, I’m hustling and I’m studying. I’m not here chasing likes and concerned with being popular with a Facebook or Twitter timeline. My concern is my site’s growing numbers. Not Twitter/Facebook likes. In saying that, I’m focused on statistical realities. As, I watch my numbers grow-beyond fluff and facade-merit and work. Period.
I am merely filled with billion-dollar ideas and a thousands dollar life. I haven’t earned the right (to myself) to play around on the Internet all day. I did that-wasted time during the newness of Facebook made available past college students (2008). From 2008-2011 I completely trashed my time–playing around on the Internet for nothing. It got me nowhere but it is 1/3 of the way responsible for my high numbers here-on this blog (from my being a writer and being a bit known online as a writer since 2001 through to 2008/11)..
That being said, my time is valuable. So I’m typically laser-focused and in my own “whirl” but accessible. However, I don’t have time to sit back wasting my time answering subtweets of a 7 ft tall groupie, 300 lb groupie (slash) Seabiscuit looking broad, with a dull coat, trying to start sh/t with me because I’m doing the very thing here-that she failed at. And because of what I do, I happen to summon or command the attention of the people she wishes she could. I just don’t have time for that or people like that-dragging me into their delusions and crazy experience in an effort to say you’ve had some kind of “experience” with me. My experience online and with anyone on it-is all business. Outside of that, it’s insulting to me-ask for my time to summon me to your bullsh/t and personal issues that I care nothing about. (For me-this is a business. And I’m about my business, so…it’s deleted now-but I apologize to my followers and who saw that yesterday-but envy/jealousy comes with this territory. I don’t court that nor do I have the time to).
At any rate, when I’m online, I’m studying and working. I don’t have much time for play. Because I’m not online chasing “likes,” and retweets etc. I’m able to see the realities behind the facades (personally and where business is concerned).
While doing, I found out, there REALLY is a way to beat relying on a music single’s survival being contingent on a Twitter or Facebook trend that could hold the fans attention long enough to keep interest and anticipation of their full album (which in turn—increases sales).
In thinking the right way about how to gauge single-dropping and taste-tasting; recording companies, artists etc. are feeling kicked in the chest about a single’s inability to carry on past Facebook and Twitter trend. That’s like chasing a running train. You can’t win that!
The remedy that I have for is one that that I won’t give away (nor will I ever put myself in the position to have my valuable ideas stolen ever again). But it’s a little like this:
When you’re out here “chasing” likes, instantaneously, to the no-thinking eye and mind, it’s an illusion that a 700k follower count means 700k people are really audiencing that business, celebrity or person and really paying them attention.
Sorry to break it to you, but no-that’s not true-perhaps 10% …15% max.
As well like (I said earlier): No company coming out in 2015 can win this digital/streaming game unless it can rival the top dog (Itunes) into submission and camaraderie.
The same thing with Facebook and Twitter trends:
No single (or subject) can beat the 15 minutes of fame that a Twitter and Facebook trend can offer you. The only hope (which too, descends after sometime) is people like me: bloggers. But keeping a subject or trend at the forefront only lasts for so long too.
So that should tell you something:
If you (your song or subject) cannot hold (and borrow) the people’s attention past the click of a Twitter or Facebook trend-then you can’t win that game unless you can rival holding the attention for your single or subject (by comparison to how people stay logged into Twitter and Facebook 24/7/365–even past their own trending topics)… people still sit there! THAT’s what you have to compete with.
Chasing buzz via a trending topic blast is an illusion.
So, as a BUSINESS MINDED person riddle me this: (the fact that the holder of all attention online is social media)…that should tell you what?
That until you (your single or subject) finds a way to hold the people’s attention (like Facebook and Twitter does), you cannot win online-AT ALL (not even a blog-who can trend you and keep you out there past a trending topic can help you in that regard).
The thing about it is this:
As it pertains to media (whether it be books or movies)…this idea that I have (to win that game—of cutting into the people’s attention they give to Facebook and Twitter), books or movies won’t cut the mustard. But guess what will?
Music will…OF ALL MEDIA (books, music or movies) MUSIC HAS A CLEAR-NO COMPETITION ADVANTAGE ON THAT.
Music is possessive and puts the mind to sleep. It’s relative, and subjective and makes the heart and emotions speak. You still put Jay Z’s “Song Cry” on while I’m driving. My tail sits in the car-crying, driving. Because my subjective/relative experience is in much apart of that song.
With that said, music has more power to succeed in the information age than it is fighting, fooling and failing for.
The craziest part about it is (my idea)-it’s not all THAT much rocket science to figure it out. It baffles me that (again) you got allllllll these rich people, all these investors, all these businessmen, all these artists, all these record companies etc. and nobody has figured it out.
Angie (I) did though. With all due respect, y’all can’t (and never will figure it out)-why?
Because yall are too busy out there chasing trains (these businesses behind the business)-not taking the time to study what’s going on right in front of your face. And you’re sending artists out here like locomotives who (no matter how big they are) their single’s buzz canNOT outlast the 15 minutes of fame that a Twitter or Facebook trending topic can offer them!
I wasn’t going to explain the above paragraph at first because I didn’t have the time or feel like explaining, but I will:
The people behind the artists are sending the artists out here on sheer ego and the way things used to be and how fans regarded celebrity before social media platforms were made that put the average fan in the position to walk the same carpets as the stars the once revered pre-social media. Years ago, fans only had Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, XtraTv etc., a few celeb interviews and millions of glossy magazines to wish, dream and live vicariously through. Today: BET, VH1 MTV, WeTv, Bravo all those major networks (combined with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc), has afforded the average fan to break through those walls that (pre social media) they could only dream of getting in on. What artists do not understand is: the Twitters, the Facebooks, the YouTubes, the Instagrams–that’s the fan’s turf. Not theirs. They (the fans) have the power now. Not the celebrity. On their turf, the can be the critic, the follower, the leader, or the star. The celebrity had the power when the fans could only sit back and flip through the glossy magazine page and watch them on television-and wish, and dream. That desire is old and not such a pipe dream anymore. The people behind these artists keep sending them out here on ego thinking that a blue check mark, #breakingtheInternet with a short-lived trending topic on their song or subject is the hoopla that sustains whatever it is they are trying to promote-simply because the artist is a star. It’s like Marilyn Manson sang:
“We’re all stars now…In the dope show.”
That’s real.
He was before his time with that song, I tell you. Your fans are now “stars.” They are not the pets they used to be-sitting in front of a tv screen. Social media via the Internet has made little monsters of your “pets.”
“They love you when you’re on the cover. When you’re not-they love another.”
Fans are fairweather today. No loyalty. They don’t have to be. There’s no honor among thieves. They want (and now-have access too) the same attention and stage you’re on. Their screams for you now (online) is a blast of habitual online/domino effect following, and with hopes that shine is put on them-to increase their popularity online. Not like the screams of yesteryear. That’s why you can drop a hot single and subject and the screams will go loud and then cut off the oblivion like a crescendo. Why? Because your fans (who too, are stars now), go right back to their Facebooks, Twitters and Instagrams and be the stars they’re working and fighting for attention to be, everyday. The celebrity-fan world has changed. Guys are twice as unrealistically and twice as narcissistic as before social media. Plastic surgery has made its way to the hoods now. Girls who wipe butts as a day job moonlight as “models” on Instagram by evening. Your blood, sweat, and tears-agonizing over that song that you stayed up many a nights literally crying over “missing that certain something”–your fans get to bypass that struggle. The BETs, VH1s MTVs, WeTvs swoop’em up and put them on the same red carpets as the Kerry Washington’s and Lupita Nyongo’s (and you too). Music and its artists can’t win this game bringing to the new world order of the Internet and social media–the same frame of thinking that you had before your fans had the capabilities to become stars too. It’s impossible! They don’t “need” you now-like they did pre-social media. They don’t “need” to pay for you and Tidal now, thanks to free streaming of your singles and music (all praises due to YouTube and Spotify). So, the only and last way is to meet them where they’re at and like I said, it amazes me (that no one in music: the artists, investors, record companies, businessmen etc. haven’t taken the time out to see how they same cycle of doing things is leading to the same results–after that crescendo).
The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results
It’s like this: THE INTERNET (WITH THE INVENTION/ADDITION OF SOCIAL MEDIA) STARTED IN 20 YEARS AHEAD OF YOU BEING ABLE TO CATCH UP WITH IT.
Let’s face it. The music industry what NOT prepared for the digital age. And its employees are disillusioned into thinking follower counts and likes and a trending topic blasts and placement on our blogs are all it takes to ride artists out to sunset.
Not true. But there is a remedy for the music industry to win at this digital age transition (that’s 20 years ahead of you).
You see…there are a quite a few entities in business that dropped the ball such that (online) that their loss is music/record industry’s gain (in sales-and artists dominating the digital age and thriving again, believe it or not).
- (If I gave it-my idea-to them) this idea would even pull Tidal up by the bootstraps today…and from a business standpoint, entice other artists to jump right right on board with Tidal-because it benefits them too. They will then have a reason to wish to join Tidal. Fans will have a valuable reason to want to pay for a subscription to Tidal.
- It would nearly put a monopoly on streaming business with Spotify (if I gave it to them)
- It would handicap YouTube down to about a 35-40% need for their services and perks
That’s all I will say for now but–from a music/business/digital age standpoint, these incessant single drops dwindling down to hearing a pin drop is a game that (if done right-via this idea I’m talking about) would stop.
There are very few artists who can just drop an entire album (little or no promotion, no singles, and no buzz) and it sells like hotcakes.
For the rest, y’all are forced to single “taste-test.”
After that (if you get brave enough to drop the album) then you’ve got to sell it in rations (iTunes placing a $.99-$1.25 amount on each single)…to make money (while relying on streaming sites).
So for artists like that, this idea is golden for them (to be interjected onto music/streaming sites like Tidal or a Spotify).
That’s that on that.
(Yeah was going to mention a couple more things but I’d better chill-I’ve given up enough already. It’s so simple that I keep talking-it’ll be right there on the table. But, I hope yous learned alot through what I explained).
I use my blog to help where I can 🙂
Update (since writing this piece): Perhaps I helped a little bit too much-just maybe *side-eye
