The two conflicting emotions can be difficult to parse, which may have led some early critics to dismiss it as an above-average gangsta rap record upon its initial release. Reasonable Doubt is suffused with a mixture of regret and pride at Jay-Z’s street exploits. Jay-Z and Linkin Park, “Numb/Encore” (2004).Up until then our records sold 5,000-10,000 copies American Gangster sold a million copies. “Then being credited as a songwriter on a Jay-Z song does a lot for the songwriters. “A record being sampled is like a needle in the haystack, and the chances of it being a hit song is even slimmer, so it was a real fortunate thing that happened to us,” the group’s guitarist and leader Thomas Brenneck told Life and Times. Diddy and the Hitmen – and Jay-Z raps about amassing vast wealth: “Let ya hair down baby, I just hit a score/Pick any place on the planet, pick a shore/Take what the Forbes figure, then figure more.” One group that got to share the wealth was the Brooklyn soul outfit the Menahan Street Band, who were sampled for the track. Oft-delayed and ultimately laid out to rot in the Hollywood dead zone that is the end of summer, Glitter looks to be a miscalculation of Biblical proportions.“Roc Boys (And the Winner Is…)” reaches back to the dazzling, horn-blasting sound of iconic Jay-Z hits like “U Don’t Know.” Gleaming brass lines ricochet around the track – produced by P. Her feature film debut in the movie of the same name is an ocean liner just looking for a glacier. More troubling for Carey is that the worst probably ain’t over. While the latter might stick, the former doesn’t hold water, as Carey’s fellow R&B-ish divas have weathered slumping record sales to score strong debuts, including Destiny’s Child (663,280) and Janet Jackson’s All for You (605,128). Glitter‘s weak first-week numbers could be chalked up to a sales slump across the board, paired with a slow sales week in light of last week’s tragedy. Four other new releases were guilty of the displacement: Brooklyn-born rapper, Fabolous’s first album, Ghetto Fabolous, Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft, P.O.D.’ Satellite and Mariah Carey’s Glitter all secured Top Ten slots.īut for Carey, Glitter‘s sales of 116,339 are yet another stumble in a miserable summer that included a hospitalization and reports of feuding in both the film and music industries. The band’s third release, Silver Side Up bowed in at Number Two with sales of 177,986, nudging Alicia Keys’ Songs in A Minor, which settled for Number Three this week one of only four albums from last week’s Top Ten that wasn’t bumped. Canadian metalheads Nickelback are the latest gem in Roadrunner Records’ collection. Jay-Z’s sales accomplishments also come amid a week when the charts were peppered with newcomers. Yet, ten months later, The Dynasty shot to Number One with sales just shy of 560,000. A little sales history would suggest over-saturation and artist fatigue. It fell way short, scanning 426,000 copies. Carter, an album which came with the buzz of an anticipated 1 million first week debut. A businessman as much as rapper, Jay-Z struck while the proverbial iron was hot, returning just over a year later with Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life scanned 352,000 copies in its first week back in September 1998, but the success of the title track gave the album a rare sales weight for the hip-hop genre, allowing it multiple weeks at Number One, with a sales spike during its first month of release as opposed to the obligatory drops. 1, Jay-Z’s sales have been consistently strong, the individual magnitude of each hinging on the strength of that individual album’s singles. ![]() Following the slow burn of success with 1996’s Reasonable Doubt and 1997’s In My Lifetime: Vol. The Blueprint‘s stats are down fairly significantly from the MC’s previous offering, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, but such oscillations seem commonplace in Jay-Z’s career. Fans were unfazed and unconfused, as The Blueprint sold 426,550 copies in its first week, according to SoundScan, making the album Jigga’s fourth consecutive Number One debut. Jay-Z’s sixth album (in a mere five years), The Blueprint, seemed to suffer no ill effects from a frequently shifting release date, which rather than moving further and further away, took leaps and bounds towards the present until it seemed to suddenly materialize record stores. These days, there is no safer bet for a Number One debut. Much ado is made about Jay-Z‘s opening week numbers, a little high, a little low what gets lost in such discussion about the most prolific rapper is that he’s become the chart equivalent of Michael Jordan to his competitors’ Craig Ehlo.
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