interesting article about jay and the Samsung thing
"Who’s the winner here?
SAMSUNG!
I know, I know, it’s part of the hip-hop ethos, to stick it to the man, to take him for everything he’s worth, laughing all the while, and this is all very well done, Jay-Z appears thoughtful, one can argue he maintains his credibility…just one thing, it no longer matters whether anybody buys your album, whether you get paid, but whether people LISTEN TO IT!
So Samsung buys a million albums at five bucks apiece to give away..
Name one tune on Prince’s album. You know, the one they gave away with the newspaper, over in England. Hell, I can’t even remember its NAME!
We need a reboot in music. Everybody’s so busy scrambling for cash, declaring the old economics don’t work, that they’re sacrificing their very core.
I just don’t get it.
What is an artist anyway? Is an artist someone who makes a lot of money? Someone everybody knows the name of? Or someone whose music tests limits, makes one think, changes the culture. Will Jay-Z’s music do this? I’ve got no idea, but this campaign has got nothing to do with music and everything to do with money.
But it does get the word out. And that’s a hard thing to do today. Yes, more people know Jay-Z’s album is coming than yesterday, and that’s a good thing.
But one thing we know about stunts, they work once.
Radiohead could do name your price…once, and then the paradigm was dead.
Justin Timberlake overexposed himself to a hit, I’m not sure this is a replicable paradigm, if for no reason other than there’s only one Justin Timberlake.
So Jay-Z gives away his album via a Samsung app. How many more people are going to do this before the public tires of the game?
What ever happened to leading with the music?"
