Carter 4 Breaks Digital Sales Record

Lil Wayne's Carter 4 was barely 7 days in last week when it broke the first week digital sales record held by Jay-Z and Kanye West with their Watch The Throne album. Apparently, Jay and Kanye had broken the record just about 3 weeks ago, by selling 290,000 copies of their album digitally, beating out former record holders, Cold Play. Carter 4 beat the record just after 4 days in, already selling 300,000 copies digitally.




Nowadays, the bulk of sales are made digitally, but Wayne still has a ton of fans going to the store to get his album. Projections for Carter 4 first week sales have gone up from earlier 850-950 projections, to 925-975. I wish he would just sell a million. But, i wouldn't wish him that if he is going to drop to selling just about a quarter of that in the second week. Like how Carter 3 (2008) sold 1 million in its first week, dropped to 300k in the second week, and then around 179k in the third. That isn't good for overall sales. That's why Carter 3 sold just 3 million copies over all in the U.S.

But you can check out the sales of an album like Get Rich Or Die Tryin, 50 cent's first official album which sold 872,000 copies in its first week, and went on to sell 822,000 copies in its second. Through out my 10 years of monitoring album sales, i have never seen any album do that...i mean, sell just as much copies sold in the first week in the second week. And it went on to sell 6 million copies in the U.S alone. That is the kind of sales i want for Carter 4, and not just a big first week sales alone. On this same topic, i would like to bring in Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi which sold just 404,000 copies in its first week, and ended up being the highest selling album for that year; closing the year with over 5 million copies sold. I watched this album sell 404k in its first week, and do about 230k in the following week, and hold on to that range of sales (over, or a little below 200k for more than 20 weeks.) I watched it myself, every week. Till this day, i have not seen any album sell consistently like that.

Read below what President of Young Money, Mack Maine has to say about album sales-

"[Wayne] actually told us if he don't do those same numbers again as C3 don't be mad," Mack admitted. "I said this before -- I toldNicki [Minaj] -- she was kinda nervous about her first-week sales -- I said, 'First week sales don't matter.' I'd rather my final sales matter. I know albums from Juvenile 400 Degreez to [Justin] Beiber's first album sold 20, or 30,000 the first-week and went onto sell 2 million one album then 6 million on another album. I saw [Lady] Gaga did the 99 cent thing [and] then [her] second-week it did like 175,000. Congratulation as it relates to her. With Wayne, I don't want him to sell a million the first-week, [and] then drop to 100,000 the next week then 50,00 the following week. I'd rather sell ten times platinum total." (XXL Mag)

You see? That's exactly what i am talking about.