SHOULD ALBUM SALES DETERMINE HOW GOOD AN ALBUM IS?

Naturally, when something is good, people would want to have it, whether its a vehicle, a home appliance, a movie, a c.d. So people have that believe at the back of their heads that once an album sells hundreds of thousands of copies, then it is a good album. But that is not usually the case with all c.d's. What if the rap artist made you believe the album is good, cos you only get to hear about 2 or three songs from the album before you purcahse it. I'm sure you have heard of one hit wonders? So what if the rapper was a one hit wonder, and the other songs on the album are a dud?
There is also the fact that some rap styles can be hot now, and not some time later. So if a particular rap style is the thing now, and the rap star falls into that category, then he could go on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies without being too good. That is why a lot of rappers come and go. Right now, the hot thing is to be a flossing/gangsta rapper.Shoot videos with a lot of jewels, expensive cars, talk about things you don't have, and people get interested. Because whether you like it or not, 70% of c'd buyers are teenagers and nerdy white guys that believe anything they hear and want to associate with it. And the way they feel they can be associated with the rappers is to own a cd by one of the gangsta rappers they hear.
As far as rap goes, there have been great rap albums, that didn't have any of the gimicks that all the new rappers use, all the expensive videos, all the heavy promotion, all the interviews, and they don't do so well. So people just believe that the album is not great, and so they write it off. But that should not be the case. If you really apprecites good rap, then you should not be one to follow the crowd. You should have your own yardstick to judge a good rap album. An example of a very good rap album that did poorly in sales is sheek louch's first album, "walk with me". The album was a classic by many standards, but because it did not get the right promotion or it didn't have all the ingredients that wack rappers use to make their albums sellable, it didn't do good numbers.
There are different elements that a very good rap album should have, like good lyrics, good flow, delivery on beat, the beat itself, these are some of the stuffs that make a good rap verse. These elements, i can say a lot of the new rappers do not have. But the formular they use, that i talked about earlier, carries them through. But if you look at, the truth would always come out sooner or later. Judging from a lot of list of top five rappers, dead or alive, these following names always pop up, tupac, biggie, nas, jay-z and eminem, but it does not mean that they have been the highest selling rappers, or that they are the ones selling the most right now. All it just means is that they are really great rappers that have stood the test of time, and the other rappers are just a fard.