We live in a new music world. While some will tell you it’s entirely different from the past, it’s really a throwback to the 50s and beginning of the 60s when singles dominated. As artists and bands of the 60s became more successful, more attention was placed on the album, which while more expensive to make, also carried a higher profit margin as well, which pushed the industry to financial heights not previously dreamed of. This sales paradigm carried on until 2003 when the introduction of iTunes made monetization of digital music a viable part of the industry, and since then, the single song sale has dominated while album sales have steadily decreased to the point where many question whether the album is even needed in music today.
But Beyonce seems to have temporarily turned that concept on its head with the stealth release of her fifth album, entitled simply Beyonce, last week. The album had no promo run up to its release, no single released for sale before or with the album, and had 17 videos dropped simultaneously, but you could only view them if you bought the digital album first. Clearly, Beyonce’s album is meant to stand on its own (at least for a short time until the singles are released), defying the logic of how the new music business is run.
Just to review, the current strategy is for singles to be released frequently (even as quickly as every month or six weeks), making each one a separate event that can be individually promoted. Having a single available allows current and potential fans to live with the song for a while, giving it a greater chance to catch on. After a number of singles are released, they can be compiled into an EP or album, which is now another new event to be promoted. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work in this new music paradigm we live in.
That construct doesn’t necessarily apply to a superstar like Beyonce though, who can and does defy the rules by virtue of her gigantic celebrity. Most other artists dropping an album without any advance promotion would find their sales suffering. In fact, may stars and superstars have an album sales problem even with a lot of accompanying promotion these days, but Beyonce almost immediately went to number one on the iTunes charts, although it helps that the service has a one week exclusive before the physical product and the singles are released. This might be the smartest decision that Team TISI +2.02% Beyonce could have made, as it immediately put the album on the front page of every entertainment blog as the word of mouth spread.
Currently Beyonce sits with over 800,000 albums sold worldwide after only three days, a figure that harkens back to the heyday of the music business in the 80s and 90s. The album has also gone to number one on the iTunes store in 104 countries, according to an Apple AAPL +1.02% press release. At $15.99 for the digital album and videos, the price seems right for Beyonce’s legion of fans.
On December 20th, single songs and the CD version become available and it will be interesting to see if the marketing takes a more traditional form at that time or if the momentum of the digital release will carry over. To make things even more interesting, there’s also the beginnings of backlash from Target TGT +0.53%, who doesn’t like the idea of the digital album being released before the CD. As a result, the retail giant has announced that it won’t carry Beyonce as a result of the iTunes scoop. One of the problems with thinking outside the box is that sometimes the politics within the industry are sometimes forgotten.
So is this a “music game changer” as some writers have claimed? No, not by a long shot. Just to be clear, 99.9% of existing artists couldn’t pull off something similar with any success. Perhaps an artist like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry could’ve used the same strategy and made it work, but the artist with that kind of celebrity and brand power is few and far between.
As with all albums though, it’s the second week that tells the tale, so if there’s a dramatic drop off in sales we’ll know that the the press hype was much ado about nothing. Either way, this marketing (or more accurately, “non-marketing”) strategy of her latest album is something that only an artist of Beyonce’s stature could sustain, so let’s not get carried away. The importance of the album hasn’t changed; we’ve only seen a little glitch.
