If you haven't been paying attention, Kanye West kept tweaking his album, and he held multiple listening parties in preparation for the final release. As a matter of fact, he's still arguing with Universal over the final release.
Anyway, the listening parties in Atlanta and Chicago were boffo at the b.o. Millions.
And then the album came out.
The instant reviews were positive, but by the next day not so much.
If you go to Metacritic, where they list and then average all the reviews, "Donda" has a 53 out of 100 from the critics and a 6.3 out of 10 from the public.
These are not good numbers.
Then again, if you check the U.S. Spotify Top 50, Kanye is all over it. It's literally half of the chart, 25 out of 50. Internationally not so much, where "Donda" has only 11 of the 50 spots. Proving that it's a great big world out there, and in the myopic USA we oftentimes don't see what is happening overseas. But the bottom line is this is amazing penetration. Not seen since the release of Morgan Wallen's "Dangerous," which has a 72 out of 100 critics score on Metacritic, and a 6.4 out of 10 from the public. Then again, country music fans don't tend to post on Metacritic, in the eight months since the release of "Dangerous" only 8 people have reviewed it, whereas 2,333 users have already reviewed "Donda" in less than a week.
So, looking at recent history, there's mania after initial release, but Kanye's new albums fall out of the Spotify Top 50 quite quickly. Make no mistake, Kanye's going to make bank from "Donda," at least for a while, but looking at recent history, it won't sustain.
But interestingly, Kanye is not bothering to play today's insider game that renders the "Billboard" Top Ten inaccurate and ultimately worthless, where #1 is manipulated by selling high-priced vinyl and other packages. Kanye is actually selling a Stem Player on his website, but this doesn't count on the chart. In other words, Kanye knows the truth, he's bigger than the chart. If you're playing the chart game you've already lost, you're not as big as you think you are, you're actually working against yourself, you're marginalizing yourself, you may be appealing to the media but the music business is driven first and foremost by fans, from the bottom up, as opposed to yesteryear when majors anointed albums, manipulated all important radio and determined stars from the top down.
Kanye has got a huge fan base.
But just imagine if he'd never released "Donda" publicly, to streaming services, at all. Then we'd have true mania, you'd have to go to the show to hear it. And Kanye is constantly changing it, so every night is different!
To play a record costs much less than putting on a complete show/stage performance. But people were paying beaucoup bucks to be inside the stadium, it was an event, they did not want to be left out, one could brag they'd gone. This is radically different from the prominent paradigm today, where acts rehearse, get the show down, align it with triggers for production as well as music and it's the same in each and every burg. Most shows are just an advertisement for the underlying record(s), whereas with Kanye it's all about him and once again, he's creating an event.
This is how it used to be, primarily before production and the feeling that one must replicate one's MTV video on stage. Shows lived and breathed, set lists were not always identical, each gig was special.
The jam bands have continued this tradition. People go to multiple shows, they're completists, they don't want to miss a thing. Which is another reason why the Dead & Company tour is so huge. Better to get this coverage in the "New York Times" Style section than be number one in some lame article reproducing the chart:
"When the Parking Lot Is Its Own Strange Trip - Outside Dead & Company shows, a tradition started by the Grateful Dead lives on, vivid uniforms and all.": nyti.ms/38JiHBG
There's no new recorded music at all. Everything's an oldie, but no performance is identical. There's a culture, a scene, which is what the photos in the above article represent. By going you become a member of a club. And believe me, those who went to Kanye's listening party felt the same way. Never mind all the Phish fans.
All the money is on the road anyway.
So Kanye plays his record and...
Videos and audio recordings don't come close to replicating the sound, never mind finding it impossible to capture the vibe of the event. And if professional "tapers" get involved, you generate a huge cadre of traders, needing to hear last night's show, needing to hear everything!
Kanye can't go on the road and do listening parties anymore, the album is out. Now he has to tour with a complete show. But if he never released the album to the public...
All this bitching about recorded music revenues is missing the point. The script has been flipped, the truly valuable acts, the ones that sustain and make all the money...the recordings are ancillary, they're just the kindling. In most cases these acts don't even need new music to tour! And the music is primary, absolutely. This is completely different from videos with product placement, endorsements...it's all about the music.
And the event.
Kanye took a risk.
Maybe someone else will too.
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