DevilsJim89 Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Is Willenium a failure in terms of mainstream success? I mean it went double platinum in a day but it seems like after the New Year turned, there was no promotion of anything just by reading reviews and all that. It wasn't nearly as sucessful as BWS, but was it a failure? What u think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpinJack AJ Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Willennium wazn't Big Willie Style, but it wazn't a flop. "Wild Wild West" waz a huge success (tho' it waz also a part the WWW soundtrack). "Will 2K" waz a big hit 2...but it waz way 2 time senstive. Will promoted the album himself and Columbia handled the posters and magazine ads (which were good in the beginning). After that, things fell apart. Columbia turned their back on "So Fresh" and pushed "Freakin' It"...one of the weakest tracx on the album. The only CD single released waz "Freakin' It" which waz backed with "Pump Me Up"...but the House Mix and Instrumentals were weak trax 2 put on it. The album did get decent attention, good sales, and musically saved some people's opinions of him after BWS (which waz very mainstream). The great thing about Willennium is obviously the quality of music. Who cares about multi-platnium sales when u have an album that good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Hero1 Posted July 5, 2004 Admin Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 the promotion by columbia up to the albums release was brilliant! it sold 2.1 million in the first few months.. then they decided to release freakin it (horrible choice) and that really only made 2 singles/videos from the album..when that wasnt a hit they didnt promote it at all.. bws got 5 singles/videos.. if sony had bothered to keep promoting it ..releasing singles etc i think it could have sold 6 million easily... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Prince Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Willennium definitely wasn't a failure... In my opinion it still sold well just with poor choice of singles it didn't reach it's potential maximum earnings. I think if Will had a say in which singles to release, there would be a larger fan base and less people that "fell off". Although Willennium is a fantastic album and couldn't really be much better, it seems to me that it marked the beginning of the end for WS's popularity in hip-hop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevTastic Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Big Willie style was consistantly a big seller for around a year. Mainly cos of the release of many singles. More people were buying the singles and they all did well so sooner or later more people are gonna think about buying the album. Willenium started off selling better in the UK cos he'd established himself by that point as a solo rapper, it made it to number 10 in the UK charts by its second week, BWS only made it to 11 at some point during its sales. I still don'tr understand why atleast one more single wasn't released off the album, surely they'd learnt that releasing another single would boost album sales again, its just the way it works. Still don't undertstand why you dislike Freakin It so much, yeh its the equivalent of Getting Jiggy Wit it on this album but its lyrically great. Listen to it right now again. Its one hell of a point he's putting across, with him saying how he is a good rapper and why. Something to show your doubting friends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevilsJim89 Posted July 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 [quote=KevTastic,Jul 5 2004, 05:50 AM]Big Willie style was consistantly a big seller for around a year. Mainly cos of the release of many singles. More people were buying the singles and they all did well so sooner or later more people are gonna think about buying the album. Willenium started off selling better in the UK cos he'd established himself by that point as a solo rapper, it made it to number 10 in the UK charts by its second week, BWS only made it to 11 at some point during its sales. I still don'tr understand why atleast one more single wasn't released off the album, surely they'd learnt that releasing another single would boost album sales again, its just the way it works. Still don't undertstand why you dislike Freakin It so much, yeh its the equivalent of Getting Jiggy Wit it on this album but its lyrically great. Listen to it right now again. Its one hell of a point he's putting across, with him saying how he is a good rapper and why. Something to show your doubting friends.[/quote] They should've pushed "So Fresh" but Sony just likes to throw in the towel early. I agree about "Freakin It"....its definatly not a weak track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpinJack AJ Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Lyrically, "Freakin' It" wazn't weak...but the prouduction waz. Bottom line. That song has been sampled in Hip-Hop over 100 times, no lie. Nobody wanted 2 hear that beat again. That's okay tho'...cuz it never got played anyway. The thing that happened with Willennium is classic 'album after smash success album' type stuff. After a 1st album which is huge, the label gives that artist alot more freedom and dosen't fight them on how the album is put 2gether. That's good 4 the artist but kinda un-inspiring. Sometimes artists ruin that, but Will did a great job with it. I read a Pink interview where she talked about recording "Misundastood" which waz a smash, but the label fought her and fought her about how she recorded it (after her 1st album did well with her as and R-N-B artist). The album came out and waz huge 4 over an entire year. Then, with her current album, they let her do what she wanted...but the quality of music wazn't that good. They didn't fight her cuz the last waz a big success. Same with Will, he had BWS which waz huge, so he got 2 do what he wanted...which is why it's his best solo album. Even if u like another solo album better, u gotta admit that the quality of music is the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Hero1 Posted July 6, 2004 Admin Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 basically for willennium..will went to philly stayed with jeff and a touch of jazz for a few months..hung out at all the places he used to hang out and recorded the album!! that is why its so dope! i wish will would do the same thing for his newer albums.. it just has a nice ol skool feel to it..which is from that environement he was making the music in :thumb: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpinJack AJ Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 Yeah, i just think the JJ+FP chemistry is untouchable and with him being in Philly 4 most of the album's recoding process...it just brought back everything that made JJ+FP great. None of that was used 2 promote the album (tho' Jazzy Jeff did get in2 every Willennium video since he scratched on those trax). If they used JJ and ATOJ's work as promotion, i think it would have been huge and fix the image Columbia waz busy tweaking 4 the worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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