When as big a star as J. Cole, album releases are events. Even when minimal notice is given.
Such was the case for the Hip-Hop titan’s latest offering ‘KOD’ – which arrived with a week’s lead-in.
The set – which bears three simultaneous translations: ‘Kidz On Drugz,’ ‘King Overdose,’ and ‘Kill Our Demonz’ – was preceded by surprise shows in New York and London.
Was the hype enough to help Cole deliver commercially? The first week forecasts are in, as such the answer awaits below…
Per Hits Daily Double, Jermaine will easily premiere atop of the Billboard 200 and will do so with the year’s second largest opening numbers. Here’s how they look:
375,000-390,000
[Sales Plus Streaming]
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140,000-155,000
[Pure Sales]
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As earlier reported, the rapper was gifted a huge boost from on-demand plays after shattering several streaming records.
The pure sales are a little on the slim side given the performance of previous projects. But the SPS ultimately dictates chart position and which plaques are heading his way. Hence, it’s unlikely he’ll be losing any sleep.
In any case, what are…
Pure sales srent egwt tgry used to be period sps still on par w his usual numbers. Congrats
The sales are good for any other artist. But it’s because it hasn’t been physically released yet. The physical sales would help this album to sale so much more. It was a surprise digital/streaming release first.
These artists should release physical/digital together. When they don’t it lessens their sales because in terms of pure sales, physical sales do great things for artists that do sale.
Well that’s one way to look at it.
Most major artist use the strategy of not releasing physical copies until after the 1st week to avoid leaks. Also it keeps these 2nd week sales high. When they release physical and digital both in the 1st week, their 2nd week sales drastically decline.
Nowadays most artist don’t give enough notice to have the albums printed+packaged for retailers (Walmart, Target, Best Buy). It takes time. Since Beyonce’s self titled album, a lot of artist don’t usually give a release date until its the LP is actually coming soon (in the next 1-2 weeks or so). It’s not in stores to avoid leaks and ppl bootlegging (while printing+packaging) before the album is released. Physical sales dont help a lot these days anyway thats why its not priority for labels or artist to release them right away. Most ppl either buy on itunes or stream.
Wrong. Physical sales outsold digital. So that is incorrect. Prime example, Kendricks sales were more robust because he had a smash single with physical/digital being released together.
The WHOLE album is LIT! Congratulations J! #ColeWorld
Physical sales are a thing of the past. Most retailers are getting rid of their physical music section. Digital is next. Steaming will be what digital was a decade ago. People would rather watch a YouTube video all day or pay 10 dollars a month vs paying a 1.29 for a copy of a song.
Not. These artist don’t make no real money from streaming. Spotify has a lot of kinks to work out, not to mention that physical sales out paced digital sales…
This isn’t true. Artists most assuredly do make real money from streaming, provided what is being streamed is popular. In aggregate, streaming revenue is typically $100k per 15 million streams. Artists signed to labels still get paid based on their individual contracts, but overall, the money is there.
If he keeps up with this Boring sounding music.. he wont have a career left. You can be conscious and catchy.
This is his best work in my opinion…slay J. Colesha ??
Great ! We need more solid numbers for conscious rappers.
Getting above 100-150k in real sales nowadays is almost impossible. No wonder why artists who are not at their peaks anymore cannot sell 20k first week.