THE RECORD INDUSTRY REBOUND?
By, Davey D (10/02)

If you are noticing that all of a sudden the record stores are
about to be flooded with new Hip-Hop product you are correct.  We are
looking at Jay-Z, Nas, 50Cent (December 3rd), Fabolous (December 3rd),
Ja Rule, DMX, and an Irv Gotti remix album (November 5th) all within 1
month of each other, when there were virtually no major releases from
June to October.  Of course some of this is naturally the byproduct of
the desire of the record labels' to get what RZA from Wu-Tang used to
call, "Christmas money".  I told a record label representative this
week that people, like myself, aren't buying the RIAA and music
industry argument that CD-burning and MP3'ing is responsible for the
dramatic slow-down in record sales.

My argument, has been that the record labels flooded us with Hip-Hop
product the last 3 months of 2001 desperately seeking to get
"Christmas money" because of fears that 9/11 had damaged the economy
so badly that the 1st and 2nd quarter (where many of these albums
should have been released) album releases for 2002 were bumped up into
the 4th quarter of 2001 .  As a result, nothing came out of
significance in Hip-Hop until May with Cam'ron's album.  The delays,
false-starts and non-releases that have devastated the traditional
second and third quarter album releases are at least as much the
problem as file-sharing and burning.  Here is the response I received
to that argument:

"In the first quarter everyone is paying off their credit card bills
from Christmas and has no money left, so no real releases come out.
In the Spring you get the R&B releases and in Summer, you have the
spotty releases but kids are out of school and spending their money on
other things.  You naturally get an increase in the third and fourth
quarter when kids have back-to-school money and of course, Christmas
gift shopping."

...Next year is projected to look different in the way of release
volume, as we are learning of a suprising volume of 1st quarter
releases.  Keith Murray and Redman have albums scheduled to come in
the Winter as well as the hot-again, now-down-with P.Diddy - Foxxy
Brown.