Suuuure, it's the labels fault you suck...

While it has been well established by industry rule number 4,080 that record company people are, in fact, shady, that doesn’t mean they are to blame for everything. Let's face it, a record company's top priority is to make money, and they base most of the decisions they make upon that fact. So while artists may have a legitimate beef with their label for giving them pennies on the dollar for sales, or for withholding publishing rights, or for countless other money-grabbing tactics, it is pretty bold to claim that a major record company is responsible for actually preventing sales. If there is some money to be made, why wouldn't they try to make it? Former pop sensation Nelly, however, is certain that the greedy folks at his record label (Universal Motown) are simply not interested in making money from his latest release, 5.0.

Nelly took to Twitter recently, as anyone having a professional disagreement with their employer should do, to air out his grievances with his label. Joining an elite group of artists, including LL Cool J, Fat Joe, and Heidi Montag (yes, Nelly, you are officially as bad as Heidi Montag), Nelly said his label is responsible for his poor album sales, citing lack of promotion. Exactly how he wanted his album promoted is unclear, as apparently a performance immediately preceding the Pacquiao vs Margarito pay per view fight and numerous annoying YouTube ads did not provide sufficient exposure.  We seem to recall Country Grammar selling 9 million copies off the strength of a half-page ad in the Source (shared with some guy named "Birdbath" no less).
Nelly pointed to his history of selling records and the fact that his single, “Just A Dream”, hit number one on the Billboard Pop Chart and sold two million copies to support his claim that the album should have sold more than 64,000 units in the first week. He also insisted that his label under-shipped the album, distributing only 200,000 physical copies to retailers. One thing Nelly forgot to account for, however, was the fact that he is not very talented and his album is not very good.

Yeah, Nelly had a number one pop single for two weeks (only got to #3 on the Hot 100, though), but that’s not enough anymore. This isn’t 1998, where artists like Will Smith could sell weak albums off the strength of a couple good singles. This is the internet age. Listeners don’t have to buy whole albums anymore (or buy anything, for that matter). To move units these days, you have to prove that your entire album is worth the money, not just the singles. The label can help you in presenting your case, but if the bottom line is that the album isn’t worth buying, then it won’t sell. Listeners will buy the single on iTunes and keep it moving like Jell-O. Nelly needs to be happy that he sold those two million copies of the single so he can go buy some pants that fit.

Yeah, Nelly moved units in the past, but so did Master P - it doesn’t mean he can now. Nelly said he has “a history for selling records” and he is not “a new artist n no1 knows [his] name” but, good grammar aside, it’s arguably better to be a new artist trying to make a name for themselves than an old, washed-up one trying to make a comeback. A new artist has nothing but their buzz to live up to. An old artist has to overcome all the bad music they’ve done and preconceptions listeners have of them. Drake found success with only a fairly good debut, while Eminem had to make Relapse and Recovery to get out of the hole he had been digging himself since Encore, and he still hasn’t made it back to the mountain top upon which he stood previously.

And yeah, the label only shipped 200,000 copies of the album, but Nelly couldn’t even sell half of that! Are we missing something? That sounds like the label over-shipped that shit! No little 13 year old girls had to leave their local Target in tears because the store was sold out of the hot new Nelly joint. Nobody got trampled on Black Friday so some lucky customer could get their hands on that last copy. Nelly should go buy a hundred copies himself to say thanks to the label for having the amount of faith they had in him.

While there are plenty of good artists that make quality albums that don’t sell well, which may actually be due to poor promotion from the label, that can’t be the first conclusion every artists jumps to. The most cursory glance at the reviews of his album should give Nelly an alternate, and much more plausible, theory as to why he had such low first week sales. Has Nelly forgotten Brass Knuckles already? He needs to be happy anyone is even letting him make albums anymore. Excuse me, Bill Maher, but we need a New Rule: let's call it industry rule number 4,081, let he who is without a weak ass album cast the first stone.