Birdman thinks Tha Carter IV will move A Milli in the first week

Posted at August 28, 2011 by Julie J Comments Off

#BirdmanHandRub

Birdman is an intriguing individual to me. I love reading his tweets because it makes me feel like I’m magically fluent in another language. His aversion to spaces–something that would normally make me feel extremely uncomfortable as an English Lit major who is anal about grammar–doesn’t bother me.

See, it’s like another language! And a whole other grammar scheme.

Anyway, Birdman is also interesting to me because of Cash Money Records. The label sold hundreds of thousands of records without music videos or Billboard placement, and has been around since 1992. As someone who is fairly ignorant about record companies (I guess I could google it…), it really seems like Birdman and Slim knew what they were doing, and as such, Cash Money has been super successful throughout its 19 years.

Birdman and Slim have since expanded to the oil business, with the Bronald Oil and Gas, and Cash Money has expanded its portfolio with Cash Money Content, a publishing house for books that is distributed through Simon & Schuster’s Atria imprint. Since I’m already rambling on tangents here, I’ll add that I was reading the press section of CMC, and chuckled at Birdman’s “VERDICTS” on the books he is publishing (and encouraging you to buy).

So, Birdman is pretty profitable with his ventures. Yet, he still thinks that Tha Carter IV will move a milli in its first week. Rolling Stone writes:

Cash Money delivered Carter IV to Universal about 10 days in advance, which Williams says was necessary to press the two million units being shipped in its first week. “The goal is to sell a million-plus copies,” he explains. Although that’s likely what led to Carter IV breaking free, Williams says he’s actually OK with leaks, to a point. “I can deal with it for short period of time,” he says. It’s when you have a leak out for a long time that it’s crazy.”

Tha Carter IV leaked on the 26th, and it seems like everyone I know has it. Like, even people who aren’t internet savvy. The Rolling Stone article also noted that Jay-Z and Kanye personally paid for the pressing plants to stay open all weekend prior to the week of the physical release.

I don’t think that Tha Carter IV will sell a milli in the first week, even with it being released digitally tonight after the VMA’s via iTunes. I want to say that the last album to sell a million in the first week was Lady Gaga’s most recent. In case you don’t remember, Amazon was selling digital downloads of her album for $0.99 (that’s not a typo). They still had to pay the full album price, so they potentially lost millions of dollars, but it seemed to raise awareness about their Cloud Music Player. It didn’t raise that much awareness, though, because I had to google it to see what it was called.