

That’s been going as long as SoundScan has been around.” 2 label would bitch that all of their sales weren’t counted, or they’d accuse the winner of paying off independent retailers for scans. “There have been countless occasions where the SoundScan results have been too close to call,” recalls Urie.
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The problem was, according to Urie, the pizza company didn’t trust its drivers to deliver the CDs, so most of them never got to consumers, prompting Papa John’s refusal to pay for the albums they had agreed to buy in the first place. As former Universal Music Group Distribution head Jim Urie notes, Taylor Swift cut a deal with Papa John’s Pizza to sell her album “Red,” with a large one-topping pie for $22. How did they account for such anomalies in the SoundScan era when CDs were still selling, but bundles also existed? The use of bundling is nothing new. Indeed, without the bundling, Khaled would have come out ahead, which explains his June 6 post on Instagram boasting, “Still celebrating the album that was the MOST streamed and digital sales.” But our hands are being forced by Billboard’s desperate, last-ditch effort to keep streaming from eliminating what’s left of music downloads.”

While it remains unclear why Tyler’s album - which also was promoted via four different bundles, and 68,000 of his 74,000 credited album sales were also D2C - was able to qualify where Khaled’s wasn’t, the true culprit in the scenario is clearly the practice of bundling, which one label insider described as “just another form of payola – a way to goose the numbers.” Perez agrees, as she told the Times, “We’re obviously not fans of bundling, nor should anyone who cares about artists making music. It’s confusing and demeaning to the art.”
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Speaking to the New York Times, Roc Nation COO Desiree Perez said, “We dispute their decision on behalf of DJ Khaled and, frankly, every artist who is forced to navigate bundling an album download with an inexpensive item that still effectively represents their brand. (The following morning, Rhone had recovered sufficiently to accept Midem’s Hall of Fame award at a brief outdoor ceremony.) Still, Sony Music’s corporate brass was said to be “disappointed” with Khaled’s display.Ī day after the chart reveal, Rhone was several thousand miles away - in France, where she was scheduled to be a keynote interview at the Midem conference - which did little to assuage team Khaled from a “two-day fiasco.” However, she came down with food poisoning after arriving and was forced to cancel music attorney Dina LaPolt, who had been scheduled to interview Rhone, delivered a fiery keynote of her own instead. But while outlets like the New York Post characterized Khaled’s outburst as a “temper tantrum,” a source close to the artist described Khaled as “passionate and concerned,” noting that “he didn’t threaten. Khaled’s ire was aimed at least in part at Epic chairman Sylvia Rhone, with his main complaint centering around issues with downloads that fans who bought into the bundle were experiencing. Khaled then made his way to the offices of Roc Nation, the Jay-Z-owned management concern that has handled the multi-hyphenate’s career since 2016, and gave an encore performance. He and several associates made an in-person appearance at Sony Music’s New York headquarters last week, where he berated Epic staffers for “several hours.” Several Sony employees describe hearing yelling from the Michael Jackson conference room at the company’s Madison Avenue offices. Khaled’s displeasure with the situation has become a matter of public record. From Jay-Z to Lil Wayne to Travis Scott and Post Malone, SZA, John Legend and the late Nipsey Hussle, to name a few, such guest appearances don’t come cheap - and Khaled presumably expected to get what he (or, more likely, Epic) paid for.įurther complicating relations, sources tell Variety that Sony has an unofficial policy of discouraging infighting when it comes to sibling labels’ competing albums on the charts, much like the company’s mandate that its labels not overbid each other when competing to sign acts - and to not poach employees from each other, either. Why was it so costly? One word: features.

Another issue is the $5 million sources say Epic spent to record and market Khaled’s album.
