This past Thursday afternoon, ScHoolboy Q's highly anticipated album "Oxymoron" was leaked to the Internet a full five days before its scheduled release. Soon after, the deluxe version of the album was officially distributed to everyone who had pre-ordered it. It was a brilliant marketing move by the artist and his label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE). By releasing the album early to select individuals, they rewarded the loyal fans who had already committed to buying it. This strategy is symbolic of the problem facing the music industry: the explosion of file sharing in recent years. As the Internet continues to thwart attempts at stemming music piracy, the industry is increasingly facing a reality in which album sales no longer drive profits.
For years, the record industry operated with profitable sales margins. In retrospect, these profits were unsustainable, but those who reaped the benefits were naturally opposed to giving up their cash cow. This has left the music industry clinging fruitlessly to the past. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices, the relentless government pursuit of file sharing services, the anti-piracy legislation -- these are all products of an industry refusing to adapt itself to a changing market. The proof is in the album sales. Nearly 800 million albums were sold in the year 2000; by 2009, that number had dropped below 400 million. Streaming services, however, have alleviated some of this decline in recent years -- but though fans are listening in a legal way that makes some money for the artist, the yield is fairly insignificant. With labels ignoring the writing on the wall, it has forced artists to come up with their own ways to handle the decline of album sales and make money.
Notably, the loss of income in album sales has placed increased importance on concerts and tour merchandise. Concerts have greater earnings potential, in large part because there are fewer mouths to feed: Much of the profit goes to the artists, rather than their labels. The same goes for merchandise. The explosion of free mixtape releases is a response to the preeminence of touring. The more ears an artist can reach, the more people are likely to attend a concert. By sacrificing album sales, artists can substantially increase their audience, thus increasing profits on concerts. This is the model that was pioneered by Lil Wayne, who used free releases to establish a vast and loyal fan base that helped him stay massively profitable.
However, a different approach is emerging, one that is embodied in ScHoolboy Q's response to his album leak. The apparent logic is to create a reason for fans to purchase the album. ScHoolboy rewarded people who pre-ordered the album with the deluxe version, while the album leak was merely the standard version. It was an appeal to loyalty, a way of acknowledging that his true fans bought the album when they easily could have downloaded it for free. Indeed, this is an approach that the entire TDE label seems to be taking. When Kendrick Lamar's "good kid, m.A.A.d. city" (2012) leaked a week early, he dropped a promotional song in which he announced, "Even when my album leak [sic], fans still buy it for proof." It's a novel approach within the music industry. If people no longer need to purchase an album to hear it, artists need to make them feel obligated to buy it anyway. If the artist rewards us with good music, we should reward them with some of our hard-earned money. File sharing and album leaks aren't going away, but neither are album purchases. As fans, we have a certain duty to support our favorite artists, whether it be by attending concerts or paying for the album even when we don't have to.
Ryan Buell is a sophomore who is majoring in psychology. He can be reached at Ryan.Buell@tufts.edu.
